Site Seeing in Corpus Christi

DAY 5
We decided to go site seeing. It was the first day we had a working vehicle that we didn’t have to worry about. We drove into Port Aransas and took the car ferry over

to Portland and then onto Corpus Christi. We had lunch at a place called Blackbeard’s. It was a really fun little place that had GREAT food. I highly recommend it!

We then went to the USS Lexington. It’s an old naval air craft carrier that has been turned into a museum. I’ve been on a few air craft carriers in my life since I am a navy brat, but this was a first for Ray and my kids. They had a great time! While there we saw a short film called “Red Flag”. It was about an air force pilot and how he went through this training exercise called red flag. We mostly went because we thought Kyle would love it and he did, but he only watched the first half before he fell asleep. It was cute! After the ship visit, we went to pick up our vehicle that was really, finally fixed! Woo hoo, even though it cost a ton of money! After that we headed back to camp and cooked and then the kids crashed and Ray and I played cards with our friends outside. It was a very enjoyable day!
DAY 6
We headed out for some more fun! Corpus Christi Science and History Museum. We love going to the kids museums when we can. The kids always love them and we always feel like they are worth the money. This one have a definite pull because they had the ships that were built for the 500th anniversary of Columbus. They were really neat and we even got to go on board one of them! The kids played literally for HOURS inside the museum on the all the play stuff and it was a cool area to spend the day. Stella showed off her ropeing skills. She showed a bunch of boys who had been trying for awhile, it was kinda cute. :)

We headed back to camp, cooked and then went down to the beach for the last time. My dog, Casey really enjoyed the beach as well and even showed off some of her swimming skills! She won’t go NEAR water at home, so it was a nice surprise!

Ray, Cambria and Kyle sitting out in the ocean! :)

Fredericksburg - Last Part of our Trip

DAY 7
We hated to leave the beach, but we had planned on spending a day in Fredericksburg on the way home. We decided at the last minute to stay at a KOA right in Fredericksburg so we could be close to the town and have some amenities that were much needed like laundry and full hookups. We also decided to stay an extra day and really enjoy ourselves. About half way there, we had some more trouble! We blew a tire! Yep, one of the tires that we just replaced a year ago! It was so bad that there was only rim left, and when Ray took the rim off, he had a heck of a time getting the rest of the tire to disengage from the axle. He was able to and we did make it into San Antonio to a Wal-mart to have it repaired. We made it into Fredericksburg by about 5:00 pm, set up the trailer and then headed in for some yummy german food. We ate at the Aufslander and I would recommend it. Especially the appetizer titled the “The Farmer’s Platter”, it had sausage, cheese, crackers and pumpernickel bread. Very good! The rest of the food was good too, but that was my favorite part.
DAY 8
We spent the whole day in Fredericksburg. I drove into town first thing and grabbed a dozen kolaches for breakfast, then we all showered and took our time getting ready for the day. We all went to the Christmas store which has some GREAT items and we headed over to the Wheeler’s restaurant for lunch. It was very good. I couldn’t pass up the homemade chicken and dumplings which didn’t disappoint. We all split up for the next several hours to shop. Ray and Kyle went together and they visited the Nimitz museum and hit a few shops. Grandma and Stella were shopping partners and Cambria and I were together. We all had a great time and I’d say my favorite store was the kitchen store. It’s like a candy store for me. Haha! We went for a drive and then came back for a late Mexican dinner which was very yummy as well.

Cambria and Stella goofing around while we were out to eat at the Aufslander in Fredericksburg.

Stella trying to get away with not getting a picture taken, it didn't work, hah!

Kyle riding a pay horse outside the ice cream shop. It was homemade ice cream and was soo yummy! Especially with it being sooo hot!

This is Stella standing by a silly sign in the scrapbooking store. I loved that scrapbooking store and they had toys for the kids to play with while I looked around! Yay!

DAY 9
We started our day at Andy’s for a buffet breakfast that was great and such a great price! We stopped by some local stores for meat and veggies and the broke camp and had an uneventful drive home. Thank goodness!

All in all a GREAT vacation and we were able to recognize our blessings in amongst all the havoc. Thanks for reading!

An Update

Just an update because let's face it, it's been tooooooo long without one. Everytime I come to my blog I do think of something I could blog about, but then I think about the fact that everyone that possibly reads my blog already knows all that stuff. However, times like today I think, well someday my kids will have this to read...so I blog! :)

Life has been interesting lately. Everyone (except me) was sick in April. I actually missed an entire month of church because someone was always sick. All the kids got better, but Ray is still having some medical trouble. They still don't know exactly what the problem is. It all started rather normal. He has some congestion, coughing etc. Then it just wouldn't go away and his cough got progressively worse. One morning, I was laying in bed half awake and he was getting ready for work. He was coughing pretty badly and then all of a sudden I heard no more coughing and a loud THUD! Yep, he passed out and fell down! It was very scarey for me. I ran in and after calling his name twice he came to and stood up thinking something was wrong with me because I was yelling of him! LOL! He actually didn't believe me at first that he had passed out. However, he had hit his arm pretty badly on the way down and there was already a big bruise, so I was able to show him that to "convince" him that he passed out. Sooo, he headed off to the doctor, who then sent him to the ER to have some testing done. They cleared him there of anything too serious, called it bronchitis and sent him home for 4 days off work and some antibiotics and an inhaler. Well, nothing changed. He has been back to the doctor many times, there has been an MRI of his head done (everything fine...go figure, hee hee); sonogram of his heart (nothing major found); he is wearing an event monitor for his heart to record what his heart does while he has one of his coughing episodes; he went to the allergist and found out he has severe asthma (he's now on 3 different inhalers); most recently they did a CT scan of his lungs (still waiting for the results of this); blood work to check for antibodies for whooping cough; and a possible CT scan for his upper GI will be done. Hopefully he will find out what's going on soon. In the meantime, he is trying to just plug along, working 6 days down at work, trying to keep his church calling of scoutmaster going and also have time for us and the house and yard. Whew! Good thing he's a strong and amazing man!

I am trying my best to carry what load I can. My mom had knee surgery and we were pleased that she is recovery very nicely from that. Her surgeon is amazing! We had about 3 weeks left of school for the girls, Kyle has one more week left at museum school and Stella is on her break from Texas Girls Choir. She goes back for 3 weeks in June, they have practices for 2 weeks and then one week is camp. It will be Stella's first overnight camp. I think she is excited!

Cambria is doing sooo well in school. She has been receiving some speech therapy at school since she was missing some important ending sounds. She has worked very hard and is already able to say those sounds. We hope to keep her progressing over the summer. She is just starting to really read and she loves to do math. Her glasses didn't work as well as we would have hoped for correcting the right eye weaker eye. So, as of now we are patching her left eye (the strong one) for 2 hours every day to hopefully strengthen the right eye (the weak one). She is suppose to do activities like reading, writing, coloring while wearing it. The best time right now for that is during school hours. So, that's what she's doing. She is amazingly strong! I did go in and speak to her K class myself to explain about it and they seemed very willing to accept it. We also did some role playing at home so she could practice answering questions about her patch. Let's hope the patching does the trick because we only have until she's 8 to fix it. Right now even with the glasses she can't see as well out of that eye. There are no surgeries or anything, so this is the last hope I think to correct this problem.

Kyle is doing great! He is talking more and just growing up right before my eyes. I am sooo thankful I will have him at home for one more year. He of course refuses pretty much to potty train, but he is in for a rude awakening this summer. LOL! I think the time has come to use the toilet. His lazy diaper days are numbered! He totally knows WHAT to do, he just doesn't WANT to. Silly boy! :)

Well, I guess that leaves me. I have been really enjoying my garden this year. I am doing my first square foot garden and it's been soo fun for me. It was super easy to do and I really feel a sense of accomplishment. If you want to check out what I'm doing with it, go to www.allysondomestication.blogspot.com
I also post other things on that site like recipes and such that I try, but my garden is a big part of it.

So, I guess that's most everything. Hopefully I blog a little more frequently. Feedback and comments are welcome, as a way to show me the love for posting....hint hint. HEE HEE!!!

Allison

Beautiful Stella!

I had fun with some pictures again!

Life is Crazy but Blessed!

I figured I better blog about something since it's been awhile! Life is great! Ok, so I haven't really been feeling like life is great lately, but when you get ready to blog about your life you suddenly realize in retrospect that you actually are very blessed. Silly me!

Stella stays busy with the Texas Girls Choir, which in turns keeps me very busy. She took her first portion of the TAKS test (the Texas state test for school) and is pretty sure she did just fine. She finished it before lunch even though they had all day to get it done. She read books for the rest of the day. Our weather up until today had been very warm. In the 80's and the kids love those days. They play outside as often as possible. The other day Stella came inside very excited because she had found a 4-leaf clover. She is the tall tale girl, so I didn't believe her at first. However, I saw it myself and it was indeed a 4-leaf clover. Pretty cool. I took a picture to share with, but it's hard to see that it does have 4 leaves. Guess you'll have to take our word for it. Ray's response was this: "Yep sometimes they do that" Whatever, hahahah!

Lately I've been so busy that I haven't been able to make it to the playgroup get togethers. However, last Friday our friend Melanie invited us all over to play and have lunch. We had a great day and we wore the kids out pretty good. Always a good thing. Here is Kyle playing on the swing set.

Ray is very busy with work. They are on mandatory overtime, so he is working 6 days a week now. They changed his job on him down at Lockheed, so he now works on the flight line which is fun but very fast moving and kinda stressful most of the time. He is trying to adjust as quickly as he can. With the 6 day work schedule it makes scout campouts and family campouts difficult. We'll see what we are able to work out hopefully in the near future.

I've been sick with a stomach bug the last couple days. I am NOT enjoying it whatsoever, but I hopefully am on the upswing now. Today my mom kept Kyle for most of the day so that I could sleep and rest. I had just finally gotten to sleep and the school nurse called. Ha ha! Murphy's workin overtime! Cambria had a headache. So, I climbed out of bed and didn't even bothered trying to make myself presentable. I took tylenol and claritin down for her to take. As I was walking into the nurses office, so was Stella. She had apparently hit her elbow and said she felt a big rush of fluid run down from her elbow to her hand. Haha, the nurse and I had a good chuckle over that one. We told her she just hit her funny bone and it was fine, she would just be fine. When she got home from school, she kept saying that she had "activated her funny bone". Whatever! She cracks me up!

My cute dog is outside right now. It's about time to bring her in. She is too funny, she's chasing around a small rock. She pushes it with her paw and then chases after it. If only my kids could entertain themselves so well. :) Here is a recent picture of Casey just because she just made me laugh!

Videos from Stella's concert!

As many of you know, Stella is now a member of the Texas Girls Choir. It's a very big deal. It has definitely consumed my life, haha! She practices every Monday after school until 6:30 pm and then again on Saturday mornings from 9:30 until 11:00 am. They have a strict wardrobe and go through dress checks before each concert. They start off in the Prepratory Choir for the first semester, then they move up to the Main Choir and so on. The higher level choirs do travel and go on tour which will be a possibility for Stella later on if she decides to stay in. Stella loves to sing and has a talent for it, so it's nice that she is able to find a wonderful organization to be a part of that aligns so well with the standards of our family. I am sure this is a first post of many about this great choir! :)

(I had the edit the= post and take the videos out - apparently the person did not have permission to post them on youtube) Probably most of you saw them.

I am hoping the following videos work. I found them on youtube. Thank you to whomever for catching the videos. I had given my camera to Ray for his scout campout and he forgot to bring it when we went to the concert. The video quality isn't too wonderful, but the sound is fair. You can at least get an idea of what it sounded like. We are quite proud of our Stella. She has only been in the choir for 3 weeks. In fact the entire middle section of the choir is the Prepartory Choir and they started 3 weeks ago. That is a lot of music and movement to learn in such a short time. But they were all wonderful!

He's 4!!!

Yep...my baby turned 4 last Sunday. Not sure how it happened, but pretty sure there was nothing I could do to stop it. LOL! Kyle is an interesting kid. He reminds me a lot of Stella, and yet he's so different because he is definitely all boy!

He's stubborn! Not sure at all where he gets that from, hee hee! Actually, I do. Our poor kids get it from both sides. :) He pretty much refuses to potty train! He knows HOW to use the potty. He will use it on occasion. Just, mostly doesn't want to be bothered with it. Stella was JUST like that! I struggled for years with her on the potty training issue. So, after her I vowed to be more relaxed with potty training with the other kids. It worked like a charm with Cambria. I just waited patiently and when she was ready at 3 1/2 she trained overnight. Never looked back, hardly any accidents. It was bliss! So, I figured I learned my lesson. Well...here is Kyle at 4 years old showing NO SIGNS of being willing to do this. So, I'm trying to "encourage" him without showing that I really care. Not so easy to do. Ha ha! In my sane moments I know he will figure it out eventually. You know that moment where it becomes "worth it" for them. But, during those insane moments where he poos in his diaper at the most inopportune time, I get really frustrated and think he will NEVER be out of diapers. I have afterall been dealing with diapers for over 9 years straight. I feel sooo done! I think it's harder to be "so close" to being done, yet not done, then it was when the end wasn't even in sight. Ha ha!

Anyway, enough about that! Kyle wanted to celebrate his birthday at Chuck E Cheese. He loves this place with an insane passion. It's quite funny. Our friends the VonNiederhausen's joined us last Thursday night and between our 3 kids and their 5 kids and the 2 grandmas. We had a great party! He got some really GREAT presents and has white cupcakes with blue frosting. Blue is his favorite color and he's not big on chocolate cake. So, just like that my Valentine baby a day late turned 4.

I dont' think I've ever written down his birth story, so I thought I would so that it is written down somewhere. Feel free to skip this part. :)

Ray and I always planned on having a large family. We wanted 5 children and just assumed it would be 5 girls. We were completely fine with that. Stella came after a somewhat short wait and then we had a terribly loooong wait for Cambria. I felt somewhat satisfied after Cambria because I had waited so long for her. She was also a very colicky baby, so I was ok with waiting for a bit after her. When we finally decided to have more, it was a very exciting time for us. We got pregnant rather quickly this time, but the pregnancy was very different. I'm usually sooooo sick with my pregnancies. I threw up literally every day of each pregnancy. Except this one. I knew before I even went to the doctor that the baby wouldn't make it. I miscarried at 10 weeks into the pregnancy. At that point I really didn't know if we were going to be able to have any more kids. I was approaching 30 and it seemed the odds were against us having a large family. We decided to just not "prevent" any pregnancies, but not to worry about it. Well....2 months later we were pregnant again. I was very sick again, and as crazy as it sounds, that comforted me. The due date was Valentines Day, February 14th, 2005. I'm a planner so I always liked to know what sex the baby is. We took the girls with us to the ultrasound and it was a boy! I was sooo shocked, yet soo excited! I started having strong contractions on Valentines Day, so we went into the hospital and were admitted. I don't ever progress enough on my own and so always need pitocin to help me along on my labor. This was no different. We got in the hospital in the afternoon and it easily went into the nighttime. The nurses checked me often and I vividly remember one nurse overnight having fake fingernails. And, it bothered me so much to think that those "things" were touching my baby! Well, it was definitely not good becuase when Kyle came out his face was facing outward. So, instead of them touching the crown of his head, they were touching his face. He came out with bruising all over his face. :( The doctor finally came in the morning and broke my water when I was dialated to a 10. Water went everwhere! It was crazy! When the doctor realized that Kyle's face was facing outward, he was worried about getting him out safely. He was on the verge of doing some sort of emergency help when he told me to push as hard as I could because we needed to get the baby out NOW! So, I did just that and Kyle came out! He was absolutely beautiful! He looked right up into his Momma's eyes and spoke volumes to me in those first few seconds. He still is the sweetest little boy there is and it is such a joy to be his Mom! :)

Happy Birthday my lovely son! :) You're the best ever!