Ty's first day of Kindergarten

To summarize, his teacher's name is Mrs. Kopycinski (Ms. K), they have less than 20 kids in the class and the school is fantastic. Ty's description of his day:

• "It was OK, I mean, GREAT!"
• "We practiced a lot off stuff today." (They learned how to buy food at the cafeteria with their "number".) "We learned how to go home from the gym."
  
• "We ate lunch in the cafeteria!"
• "All the teachers are really nice!"
• "We didn't get to go on the playground." :(
• "Tomorrow is science day!"
• "We only had one kid who cried."
  
• "Why do you want to keep talking about my day?"

And that was the end of our conversation about the day at school!

See this link to Jennifer's personal blog perspective:
http://jenngribble.wordpress.com

All is back to normal here...Ty's watching animal shows, wearing his Star Wars shirt and playing with Lincoln Logs and Star Wars figurines. Life goes on...

Pomp and Circumstance

Congratulations to Jennifer's baby sister, Lee Blackmon, for graduating from high school last month! We are so proud of her and wish her well in all her future endeavors. Next stop for her is at the University of North Texas! Love you, Aunt Lee!

Best story from the weekend was Jennifer flying home standby with the kiddos...we were running a little late to the airport (well, VERY late, actually) and we were going through security. They were bored, evidently, and decided to get cute and tell us that they needed to re-scan the kids loveys (stuffed animals). Jennifer looked at them and quickly snapped "No time for that, we have a flight that leaves in 12 minutes!" She threw Lily in the stroller, told Ty there was no time for him to put on his shoes and raced to the gate. We made it, just in time! It was like the Amazing Race, family edition.

We heart California

Ok, so our posts are generally about the kids but this time, we'll be a little selfish and talk about our recent vacation to Northern California to Wine Country and San Francisco. This is our 2nd trip there...our first was for our 10 year anniversary 1 1/2 years ago. We were lucky to travel with friends Catrice and Nathan this time (SO much more fun with others to share it with!) and to celebrate Jennifer's 36th birthday while there. Woo-hoo!

Yes, we like to taste wine, that is one of the reasons we go, but much more interesting than the wine is the STORY behind the wine. Talking to the winemakers, asking what makes them special, different, etc. We love discovering new (to us) wineries and have enjoyed every time we have been there. Here's some of our favorites from this trip:
Benziger, Buehler, Hanna, Merry Edwards, Hartford, Sebastiani

Then it was off to San Francisco for two nights and we fell in LOVE with that town! It reminds us of New York but more "manageable". :) We did Chinatown, biked across the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Ghiradelli Square, Lombard Street and rode the Cable Car a few times. From the public transportation, to restaurants, to the shops we really liked the people...very friendly and helpful everywhere we went. You know you had a good time when you are sad to leave.

Thanks for listening...enjoy the photos. More vacation shots will be posted on the photo site soon. Stay tuned!

Sink or swim

Lily turned 2 1/2 years in February which means that she can officially start swim lessons on her own at Houston Swim Club. For us, it's not about creating another activity for the children to do. They are so young and busy enough with church and school that we don't add to our schedule unless it's important. Since we have a pool, it's not really a choice whether our kids learn to swim. It's just a matter of safety!

Lily and mama took "Mommy and Me" swim classes last year when Ty was in school and she had the day off. We learned that she was SO different than Ty (not that big of a surprise, I guess). She was eager to do anything, so brave but also had no skill in swimming or floating...dangerous combination!!

So, Lily started swim lessons last month. The first two weeks are daily lessons so they can really teach them the basics in a short time period. She is modeling her new swimsuit in the photo before her first lesson.

Ty had his lesson at the same time. We included a photo of both of them in the pool at the same time. That is Lily floating and Ty splashing in the pool from the slide. How fun to watch them both at the same time.

This is embarassingly late to be posted...oh well. January flew by. I guess when you total your car, have to buy a new one in a week, get a new job, and all that jazz it gets busy.

Attached are a few of our favorite wedding photos of the kids. They were so ADORABLE and aren't Jacque and David just beaming? We were honored to be a part of their special day and were especially proud of how well behaved Ty and Lily were.

Favorite memories from the wedding, in no particular order...

Lily dancing, dancing, dancing
Ninja Turtle Grooms Cakes!
"All the Single Ladies" by Beyonce (or Sasha Fierce?)
Jennifer eating reception leftovers at 2:30 a.m. at home
Ty in his Batman costume at the reception
"Low" by Flo Rida
The Anniversary Dance with all the married couples
Sparklers!!
"I am one classy lady!"
Jacque's big sob right before she walked down the aisle
True love...

:)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It SNOWED here last week!!!! Woo-hoo! I love snow and it was so fun to play in it with the kids. They were not as excited as I was because it was so COLD but we had a good time. No big accumulation and it did all melt by morning in our neck of the woods, but there were places in Houston that got 4 inches!

I have included photos...don't make fun of my definition of snow. It has been 4 years since we have seen snow here!

Humpty Dumpty

We had our first "emergency" with Ty the other day. He was running around the house to the front door to ring the door bell while I went through the house to answer the door. When I opened the door, Ty was crying with blood dripping down his forehead. Yikes!

Evidently he tripped on the front doorstep and land head-first on our "exposed aggregate" (engineer speak for pebble-y and rough) front porch. Poor little guy. I laid him down and applied pressure to try to stop the bleeding. Lily was crying because Ty was crying so I decided someone had to be calm and in control (even if I had to fake it!). I sent Mark a picture with my phone so he could "see" it from his office. It was small but deep and as head wounds are known to do, it was bleeding a lot. Mark and his engineering buddies decided it would be best if a doctor looked at it, although one of them thought it would be cool for Ty to go to Kindergarten with a scar next year!

I continued to apply pressure to his wound and after 90 minutes I had to agree that we need a professional to help. We sent Lily to stay with our amazing friends, the Kutz family, and headed to St. Michael's Emergency Clinic. We had a great experience there...Ty got a popsicle and lots of TLC. The doctor used Dermabond to glue it together (it's just like super glue, really!) instead of stitches, thank goodnees. We've included some pics from his little adventure.

I did want to share a few comments on my Facebook posting of the picture of Ty's wound from some very funny friends and family:

From Holly Moore: "Awww, man! Falling -- not fun. But gluing your head back together? AWESOME!"

From Ty's Uncle Chris: "Chicks dig scars. When he's older he can make up some story about rock climbing. "

P.S. The doctor confirmed he is healing well. It's just going to take a little time for a gash like that to really go away. Hopefully he'll be looking good in time for his Aunt Jacque's wedding photos in 5 weeks!