I love it! For now......

I am finishing school online, and I will admit.... I LOVE the flexibility it gives me. I held a Senior Project meeting this evening while I baked cookies, watched Veggie Tales with the kids, and blew bubbles for them. It was great!

Oh yeah...... and less than one week until Grace is out of school!! Woohoo!

Mungo Jerry knows!

I love Summer. It gets so hot that you have to wear shorts, a light top, or a swim suit to survive. I get to LIVE IN MY SANDALS. I can USE MY BRONZER. We get to swim, sleep in, go pick berries at local farms, visit family, and stay up late without consequence. This Summer I will be completely done with school, so I can devote my time to my kids. It feels WONDERFUL! Bryan is booked through September with a client, but we will still be able to take a few weekend getaways, and I am looking forward to that. I can also take full advantage of the uninterrupted time with the kids and make Andrew run around in his undies to complete his potty training. Woohoo!

The major thing that will be missing this year is a trip to the beach. With the oil spill still flowing freely in to the water, there is no way it will be safe for us to venture to the beach. It makes my heart break that the water is becoming so polluted and causing so much destruction to the whole gulf area. If the kids were a little older, I would take them to see if we could volunteer to help clean for a few days. I doubt that would go over well with a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Oh well.

So we will probably go somewhere near a lake or perhaps we will go to San Antonio. Who knows?! Either way Grace will be home, I will be done with school, and we will get to SLEEP IN.

We cut Grace's hair to get ready for the heat, and I will most likely be wearing lots of braids, because my hair likes to do a Diana Ross impression in the humidity when it is short. Andrew is hopefully going to get his mop buzzed this weekend, and he will be set for the first half of the Summer. I bought some open-toe black shoes for church to avoid that stinky foot syndrome I get when I wear close-toe shoes in the heat. I even bought some new sunglasses! I can also fit in to a juniors size 7/8 now!! I was in a juniors 9/10 not even 5 weeks ago. My womens size 6 shorts are getting loose on me, but I think that is just that the brand runs a little large.

This year has been such a fun year for transformations. Grace is almost done with Kindergarten, Andrew is making huge leaps in progress, and I have been feeling fairly accomplished. Bryan got an amazing job doing Citrix engineering, and I have been finding myself doing a lot more happy dances and random outbursts of song over the past few months.

Do I have to say it?

I do!

LIFE IS GOOD!

A Lifetime of Enjoyment

Bryan bought us memberships to Lifetime Fitness 3 weeks ago. I had a membership to LA Fitness before we moved, and I even taught classes there. But LA Fitness was the class chump compared to Lifetime Fitness. This place is ridiculously amazing! It is not a gym, it is a "fitness resort". Downstairs there is a salon where you can get your hair done, your nails done, and choose from many different massages. The children's center has organized physical activities and camps, and face painters come in weekly to entertain the kids. This Saturday they are having Family Fitness Day, with balloon animals, face painting, organized activities, and snacks. The pool area includes an entire wall of hot tubs with waterfalls, and there is a family pool complete with splash areas, water slides, and lounge chairs inside AND outside. The locker rooms have steam saunas with eucalyptus, and there is a co-ed dry sauna in the pool area. There is an all-organic cafe downstairs where you can get smoothies, protein shakes and bars, and a number of delicious meals (the mediterranean salad is AWESOME). There is a family locker room where you can take the whole family to change and shower, complete with huge private family showers (more like a small lobby with a shower on one end). I haven't even gotten to the actual fitness part of it all yet. The trainers are incredibly personable, and I LOVED the results of my fitness test. The fitness equipment is very nice, and they even have my favorite Precor elliptical (it's easy on my bad knee). I haven't checked out the group fitness classes yet, but I have a feeling they will be just as great as the rest of the gym, I mean "fitness resort", has been so far. It has been worth the extra cost of membership so far, and I am looking forward to dropping off the kids in the children center one day and getting a massage instead of working out!

Fun in the sun

This morning was lovely! I got to take Grace to school alone while Andrew slept in with Bryan, and I adored the moments I got alone with her. She is such a sweet girl, and I cherish those moments so much.

After I got home it was time to straighten the house a bit, take a shower, and get ready for the weekly play group. This one was at Bear Creek Park, and Andrew had been dancing around happily, singing songs about seeing animals all morning. A friend from church came and picked us up, and off we went!





The boys braved the ropes, and one of the moms even gave it a shot.



We saw all of the animals at the mini zoo, and I got to see my favorite, the catalina macaw



Then we fed the geese (and a few ducks) some bread





... and called it a day. I came home to a lunch of chocolate that my honey gave to me as a surprise from his business trip to San Antonion yesterday, then settled in to tell you all about our morning. I hope the second half of the day is as good as the first half!

Final Days of an Old Life

I started my last semester of school this week, and it all feels a little fantastic and strange to me. Career development and my Senior Project are all that I have left, and the syllabus suggests that these courses will be easy to pass. I am nervous and excited about the whole idea of being done with school, and I have finally realized that my slate is blank 7 weeks from today. 7 weeks from today I will have more time for other activities, but what activities will I choose to fill that time? Napping? Reading? Exercising? Taking classes at the community center? Babysitting?

I know that I will spend some of that time with Bryan and the kids, doing more things outdoors, doing more crafts, taking in more evening and afternoon activities, and just enjoying more free time. But if you know me, you know that I wont let myself have too much free time for long. I like to be involved, learning new things, going fun places.

The amazing thing is that I get to complete one of my many resolutions for the year. I get to graduate with a BSBA. That feels so amazing to me! So far this is what I have completed on my list of resolutions:

We paid off our car
I lost 20 pounds
I am enhancing my spiritual awareness
I am growing another garden
I updated the landscaping
We updated the house somehow (new light fixtures here and there and a new faucet)
I am teaching Andrew ABCs, numbers, colors, and shapes
I bought some tailored jeans, they were cheap!!

and in less than two months I will have completed my coursework for my BSBA.

This year has been stuffed with amazing accomplishments and blessings, and I am grateful to Heavenly Father for pouring those blessings upon us. He has made all of this available to us, if only we find it and seek after it in righteousness. It is amazing to see the full circle right before my eyes. We do well, we are blessed, we are grateful, we give some of what we received to others, and then it repeats. The love I have in my heart for my family and my savior right now is overflowing. It was a beautiful Sunday to fast and give thanks. Even the songs rang out with merry measure, and the birds, trees, and flowers all seemed to sway and sing along.

All creatures of our God and king, lift up your voice and with us sing!

This is a surreal moment. Everything is in harmony with joy.

Thank you to everyone who has directly or indirectly supported our family through the years. Your help will never be forgotten.