Welcome To the World, Peanut

Oh, I didn't tell you? Yeah, I'm officially an AUNT now. My brother- and sister-in-law added a beautiful baby girl to their family last Sunday. Julia Emmalyn...6 pounds, 15 ounces, 20.5 inches, born at 3:21 pm. Although I haven't met her yet, she looks absolutely precious. See for yourself. :) Here she is just hours old...


And sleeping in her carseat...


And wearing the Texas onesie that Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lee got her. ("Someone in Texas Loves Me")


Julia, I can't wait to meet you! Happy birthday, squirt. :)


~Hooks

...Or Not

I won't keep you in suspense. We didn't win a Porsche. :( We got one of those things in the mail - you know: "You have won one of these exciting prizes! All you have to do is come claim it!" I know what you're thinking...scam. But we had actually entered a drawing at the State Fair in October, and Lee's entry form was included with the flyer. So we decided to take an overnight trip up to Tyler, TX (near Dallas) and find out what we had won.

It turned out as we expected - salesmen pressuring us to buy a timeshare, a tour of a crappy resort, and no Porsche...but we did end up getting a cruise and an "exotic island getaway." The island vacation doesn't include airfare, so we probably won't be able to do that, but we could do the cruise at virtually no cost to us, since they have ships leaving from Galveston (about an hour away). And even if we decide not to do any of that, at least we got a nice weekend together. We stayed at a Courtyard Marriott that was really nice! Thanks, Lee! :)


Of course, my favorite part was the jacuzzi. DUH. So here it is, the saga of the tub...


Yes, indeed.

~Hooks

And We're Off To Get Our New Porsche

I'll update you tomorrow. For now, I'll just keep you wondering...

No New Blogs In Over a Month? WAY Too Long...

I'm sorry! I think about blogging all the time when we do new things or when students say/do funny things, but I just never seem to get to it. I mean, I haven't even blogged about Christmas yet, and that was 2 months ago! What gives?! I finally realized my problem is that I keep thinking I can't blog about new things when I haven't finished the old stuff... but I recently decided to let myself off the hook and blog about new things -large or small. And the old stuff? I'll get to it when I get to it. Hope you don't mind. (Plus, Jackie taught me about Blogger's post-dating feature. Basically, I can lie about when I write things...muah ha ha ha haaaa! What's that you say? Of course I wrote about Christmas on December 26th!)

In addition to my apologies, I thought I'd also use this post to upload these ADORABLE pictures of Ryan helping his daddy wash my car. No, it was not forced child labor - he wanted to do it.


Here's how it happened: A few weekends ago, Becca came over to my house to read. YES, we had a reading date - don't judge. We ordered fajitas for lunch, and talked for a while before we got into our books. She had been telling me about how often Peter cleans their van, and the wheels in my head started turning. You see, remember the post about our move...when I described how our little African violet took a tumble in the car? Yeahhhh. That dirt was still in the center console. I know, I know. We're disgusting. But there's also no Delta Sonic around here (sad face), and plain old Sonic is NOT the same thing. I checked.

So I told her to talk with Pete, and see if he would be willing to clean my car for me if I paid him. They went through the whole, "Oh you don't have to pay us" thing, but I was like... Umm, dirt from 6 months ago? YEAH. I do... And thank goodness they accepted because I was beginning to fear my car would never get clean. Plus, I got the bonus of spending Saturday afternoon outside with my cousin and her family, watching the "show" while sipping coffee. Ahh, that was the life.


See what I mean? So stinkin' cute. His shoes and pants were soaked by the end of it, and I think he sprayed Pete a few times too (hence the "show" lol). And you should have seen him when I gave him a dollar later on as a tip. His little face spread into the biggest smile as he ran to go put it in his bank.

Saturday's like that should be bottled and kept forever... :)

~Hooks