SPRING BREAK has come & gone

AHHHHH.... the kids are back in school. What a week.



I will start with the most startling news. I went camping. real honest to goodness in nature out in the middle of no where camping. There was a campfire, marshmallow roasting, sleeping bags, and not a store for miles and miles... Now that I have done that I think I'm good for another few years.



Amy, Aaron, Jason, Auty, Gunnar, and I all drove up to Doss on Monday.... The5 hour trip took a bit longer than we expected.... two hours longer. We got to the campsite around 9PM. Thankfully I have one of those simply amazing daddys that puts the tent and cots up so that the kiddos only have to drag a sleeping bag out and crash. (since I have a thing against bugs, I slept in the RV) The kids made their own dinner, filled up on marshmallows and soda then in true camping style... went to bed without brushing their teeth. (yes I know they are nasty... I was just too tired to care at that point)



the next morning dad made the kids grits.... gag! I chose not to partake of the grits as they make me want to throw up no matter what you do to them. all but 2 of the kids agreed with me after trying them. Dad took us to meet the cows.... we fed them some cow candy... they would not take it from my hand.... I thought they were jerks. One is a big fat black one that is super moody.... but she is pregnant so we forgive her. One is small and black and has a sweet face. One is red with a white face.... she is the one that will supposedly eat out of your hand. Dad has named them.... stroganof, T-bone, & Ribeye. I was annoyed.



Mom and E showed up a little while after breakfast. We worked on putting the skin on the frame of the RV cover. Did not take as long as I expected. Mom left, the kids E and I stayed for the rest of the day.


After Dinner, Amy, E, Auty, Gunnar and I said goodbye to Opa and the boys (Aaron & Jason) so we could head home. We did not get out of there till after 11. It is still a LONG drive. E is a trooper and stays up with me the entire way home. We must have seen over 200 deer.... no kidding.



We got home around 5:30.... everyone went to bed but Gunnar who had to jump in the shower because Gretch was gonna pick him up around 6:30 after the bus came for Zane. The bus wound up being late..... he was picked up late... but it all worked out well. I crashed once he was gone. (only to be up again around 10:00AM)



Ela helped me to clean up after Ashleys little mutt... she thought it would be a super idea to pee on my floor. DANG DOG!!!! That took a while... because pee on carpet soaks in. DANGIT! so we then installed a gate at the bottom of the stairs so that the little turd was not able to go on carpet at all.



E and I hung out all week.... she thinks I shop a lot. I think she is a lot of fun and I missed her a lot!



Dad Aaron and Jason came back on Friday.... we had burgers. F, E, & Dad all stayed up all dang night.... and were very tired the next morning... but had to get up cuz Aaron had a game. They lost.... it was a hard game though.... both teams were fighting hard..... but the other team fought a little harder.



Alicia Michelle came into town over the weekend and surprised us yesterday when she stopped by. We stayed up all night catching up.... and now I am so freaking tired that I need to go to sleep :)




these made me smile :)

Well we have made it through high school cheer banquet and try-outs.

Banquet was fun.

Tryouts lasted all week. Results were posted on Friday.
only 11 kids made varsity this year (the bar was raised from last years requirements)
Amy made varsity. She seems excited about cheering next year.

Aaron had his first game with the Falcons today.
They won 13-6. No one scored the entire 1st half. Was a pretty amazing game.

Auty is sick. :( He started with the sneezing and now its full blown snotty nose coughing fever yuck stuff. I am a fan of nyquil :)

I am supposed to be taking the boys to Doss to hang out with my dad over spring break.
Decided to wait till Monday evening to go so Austin would be able to rest and get over this funk.

Ashley moved out. Mixed feelings but glad that she is taking the step to spread her wings. Now maybe I will be able to find my blowdryer and mascara.
she did not take her dog.... yet.

Amy Danielle Cara and I will be going to Kentucky at the begining of April. A & D will be doing the U of K cheer/stunt clinic. Cara and I will shop :)

oo

FRHS had another cheer banquet meeting last night.

no kidding... this is how it goes

get off work at 6, stop by the store, call kids on the way home and say get out here and help unload, get home, unload, put groceries away, wonder at what the heck the man I am married to is about to feed my children only to realize that I really don't care that much because I am not eating it..... get a text from Cara that says "I'M HERE!!!! :)"

run out to her car, jump in, stop by sonic, head to Kim's for our 'work meeting'.

everyone shows up and dumps a bunch of crap in Kim's living room and in her sweet super southern voice she assures everyone that life is good and wrecking her place is just fine. crazy nut :)

now i have to tell you that I am afraid to touch anything because Tonya is a bit... uhhh... detail oriented.

Tonya 'hoped it was okay' with the rest of us but she went ahead and picked the sides for the meal. The kids picked a champagne and herb crusted chicken breast. (alrighty....) and Tonya vetoed the regular mashed potatoes because she felt that there would be too much white/cream on the plate and went instead with baby new potatoes in a butter herb sauce because the red skin on the potatoes would compliment the chicken well. I sat there (dumbfounded) thinking boy its a good thing your in charge of this rodeo... I would have thrown some pizzas on the floor and said dig in! I simply agree with the rest of the people who were in shock over this type of attention to detail that indeed the new potatoes will work. Don't get me wrong... Tonya is great and I like her... but I am afraid of people like this.

we start off by replacing the 'fake family' in the photo frames that are gifts for the girls with a FRHS something or another. see. i told you. scary! at first Tonya thought we would have to unscrew the backs of the frames to get the fake family changed out. then someone informed her that the little tabs could be turned and then the back could be lifted off the frame. amazing how that worked. (I am starting to understand why Cara brought beer with her)

so we start on the programs. Again... good thing I am not in charge. I would have printed the entire thing on one sheet of vellum paper and attached that one sheet to a slightly larger sheet of heavier paper tri-folded it and stuck a sticker or stamp of the Eiffel tower on the front. DONE :)

no. this is a program that is layered. it has 5 sheets that are all different lengths, on top of card stock that is scalloped on one end and has the corners rounded on the other end.. the layered papers are then placed on the card stock and the top scalloped edge is folded over. then two holes are punched in the top and ribbon is wound through the holes and tied off. different tasks get doled out. somehow I'm in charge of scalloping the edges of 140 sheets of card stock. WOOHOOO!!!! all the while I keep hearing "don't worry... if I have to I'll take it home and redo it tonight" WTH!?!?! why are we here if you are just going to redo this crap!?!?!?

I hear all kinds of things about weird stuff... and to be honest... figure out why my daughter is taking a gay kid to banquet.

thank you Amy... seriously for not being boy crazy and full of that kind of drama. Thank you for being so in love with yourself that you simply can not allow another person in :) Your amazing!

Paige shows up about an hour into this hen fest. She tells Stephanie that she is 'doing it wrong' with the cutting of the layered pages and undoes what Stephie has done and gets everything out of order making a HUGE mess. Then she informs us that she is leaving at 10 which is in 10 minutes. yipppieeeee.... in her defense though... she does get it done...

all this to miss the SPURS vs mavs game? holy hell! spurs lost btw =(... (must be because Stephanie's husband is 'out of country'... sorry inside joke)

Kim and Tracy are in charge of folding / and corner rounding. They apparently do a great job without any drama :)

The ribbon cutting turns into a mess and it is a slow process when you cut only one ribbon at a time.... since the scalloping was done I pitched in to help them and cut 5 ribbons at a time... amazing how that sped things up :)

Finally we are done. Cara and I get the hell out of there. We laugh at silly ladies, and go home

Then today... ill be darned! there are pictures from this little shin dig on facebook. Imma kill Lisa! :) (who by the way was smart enough to bring her own beer too... kinda made me wish I drank there towards the end!.... the drama not the pictures... cuz pictures of me drinking beer would only add to the drama that is life!) Here I thought she was taking care of important cheer/baseball business at the meeting last night. no.... apparently not :)

btw... that Eiffel tower... ugh... what a pain in the butt....its going... kinda. thankfully the man I am married to (who by the way went to college for architecture) has decided to help us out. now I just have to figure out if the Eiffel tower is the one that leans a little or the big space needle/pyramid looking thing....

kidding...

i know its the one that leans ;)

haha... sorry.... just had to stress Tonya out a little :)

NCA GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!!

Lightning...

did it again....

another perfect season.

On Saturday Amy and I head out to Dallas around 11:00 in the morning. She wants to get checked into the hotel and her uniform/makeup on before TOP GUN goes on.

by the time we get to the convention center she has about 30 minutes before TG goes on so we head over to A hall and find seats. and that is about the last I see of her on Saturday except for the 2 minutes and 30 seconds she was on the mat.

diddy amy chelsey and ashley at prelims showing lightning spirit :)

After they went on and had a team meeting, found out that we were in first place with the stingrays and Laredo close behind us.

Some of lightning decided that it would be a great idea to go to dicks for dinner. on a Saturday night. needing a table for 20. a freezing Saturday night... and the girls were still in uniform. one of the girls calls... the guy says 45 minutes. sounds good.... too good to be true even. we drive the two blocks over.... and find out it was. would be two hours for a table... and our barely dressed girls need to ... wait outside ... no wonder it is called dicks ;)

ok hooters is next door... we tromp on over. uh... nope... two hours.

so we decide to head back to the room and order a pizza... it is almost 10 now.

Janie was so sweet... she volunteered to drive Amy and I back to the hotel so that we would not have to wait for a shuttle. The drive that should have been less than 10 minutes wound up being quite the little adventure.

Somehow we had the wrong hotel in the navigation system.

Shelby Amy and Caroline were in the back seat giving directions.

We were driving on this road that looked a little odd and then right before it ended and went into traditional tracks, we discovered that we were not on a road... we were on TRAIN TRACKS! the gps could not really decide which way to take us... so we went in circles a couple times. on the second time around this little loop we made we saw a train flying by where we had been on the first loop.

We wound up in the hood. (REALLY) then we finally have 'reached our destination' and let me tell you... I am aware that sometimes things look a little different after dark... but this was NOT the hotel we checked into that morning. =]

The entire time Janie and I are laughing so hard we can hardly pay attention to drive. There were a couple red lights run and one way streets traveled the wrong way. We even wound up on the famous Harry Hines...

At one point a homeless man approached the car and the girls freaked.

During this adventure Caroline started crying, Shelby got upset with us because we kept laughing, Amy the little piggy sat in the backseat eating her way through every ones snack bags.

Finally we figure out that Shelby was giving us directions to the wrong hotel... we punch in the correct address... turn around... drive past the convention center and were back at the hotel in under 10 minutes. it was about 12:30 at this point.

Peggy and the girls come into our room to hear about our adventure, we order a pizza and are asleep by uhhh 4? good grief!

Sunday we are up by 9:30 (yes if you are keeping track that is only 5 1/2 hours of sleep) meet the girls josh and Johnathan for breakfast.

go back to the room.

Amy gets ready.

get on the 12:00 shuttle to the convention center.

Josh H and Ashton are there waiting for us.

find out that in the prelim interview Laredo All-Stars were asked what their goal for this year was. the reply... "to beat Champion Cheer Lightning" wow... what a compliment...

we find seats and then....

watch sparklers (amberly)

RUN to the arena....

watch diamonds (heather)

watch top gun

watch fierce katz (CA)

watch spirit

RUN to B hall

watch burn (desi)

watch jr awards. Burn won their division!!! YAY

watch a billion other teams.

spend WAY TOO MUCH money on a small garden salad ($8.00)

FINALLY it is time for Amy's division! But they are near the end of it. So we start watching their competition. Being in first means we go last. When they get to Laredo... we start paying attention. They did not look as good as they had the day before but still solid. Then came the Stingrays. They definitely did not look as good as they had on Saturday. A lot of the parents were worried about lighting because the girls were competing so late.... 9:00.

there was no reason to stress....

When they finally hit the floor, they hit everything and deliver an amazing LIGHTNING worthy routine. You could tell when they left the mat that those girls knew they had nailed it!

They were the last awards ceremony. One of the first awards handed out was the superior sportsmanship award.... and LIGHTNING GOT IT!!! :)

It came down to three on the mat. The 3 we knew would be there. Laredo was again in third and that left two. "and your 2009 senior level 3 NATIONAL CHAMPION.... (come on guy knock it off) ..... from...... SOU....." the girls went nuts. He said from Souhlake Texas... Champion Cheer Lightning!!!! I'm sure of it... but we did not hear him. and that is okay because the confetti raining down on the girls said it all.

Amy even cried which surprised me. But I understood why when she explained it. They have a bunch of seniors on lighting this year... and this was their last competition all together.

then we had to go to get jackets and take pictures... that kinda took forever! :)

While the girls were getting jackets.... they find out that not only were they the division champs... but they also got the Herkie High Point award which made them GRAND National Champions!!!!

Amy and Marissa (diddy)

Dusty (coach) Diddy Amy & Marcus (coach)

TEAM HULK!!!!
(Amy's stunt group)

Wow!

Austin is back at school... lets hope there are no more issues with pocket knives.

today was taks....

Aarons first game is in a couple weeks. YAY!