A few pics I promised...

These are just a few shots I took at Mom's b-day party and then with my new lens at Emee's skating. I was at the TOP of the Civic Center. They aren't too exciting but I liked her ponytail in the pictured when she "jumped" - she has improved SO much! The cross was made by Mom's dear friend, Delores. We worked together to get the jewelry to her without Mom knowing it - it is all of my grandmother's (who passed away in October)"costume" jewelry and then she put it all on the cross. She even lined the sides with old beaded necklaces. I am afraid that the photograph really doesn't do it justice - it is incredible and so very special to my mom! Thanks Delores for an incredible 70th birthday gift!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

It has been a whole week since I last wrote here and we have been busy. I had Rachel again last week. We LOVED having her with us & will miss her! She was probably ready to be away from us - from me dragging her around to find party goods to us blasting the Mama Mia soundtrack and dancing through out the house - I'm sure she wondered where these crazy people came from!! Mike, Amy & their kids came in Friday night to spend the weekend going through Hi-De-Do's house - let me correct that - to START going through her house (honestly, I can't even begin to describe how much stuff there is...I'll start by saying she was a Charter Member of Precious Moments and had over 400 figurines - complete with boxes)!! However, the REAL reason they came was that we had a "surprise" 70th birthday party for my mom Saturday night. She had pretty much figured it out since family kept coming in, but we had a good time anyway. The service at the restaurant left a LOT to be desired, but overall, it was a good time. I have pictures that I will try to get up later. Speaking of pictures, I got a new lens for my camera (it helps when you work for a couple of weeks!:o)) and I am so excited!! It is a telephoto zoom so I didn't really get to try it out until Emee's ice skating lesson yesterday! LOVE IT! We are also very excited because our photography class starts Thursday night! Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Skating!

Last night we had Skate Night with our church. I took my new camera and tried to take lots of pictures. I still don't know a lot about the manual setting so I just stay with the automatic ones. I am reading a book and hope to learn LOTS in our class (it starts on the 22nd). If some of the pictures look "foggy" - that's because it is - they had a smoke machine on!! We had lots of fun and I don't think anyone had to go to the hospital this year! Thanks to our church for providing us with such a fun night!!

The Last Few Days...

Rachel & I have been getting along great (I think) and having a lot of fun. I think she likes me but I KNOW she likes it after 1:30 when we pick Kendie up!! Monday morning we pretty much stayed home and she looked at Kendie's new Wizard of Oz pop-up book - which she LOVES! It has "Emerald" glasses with it and she really likes them! We went to WalMart too - pretty uneventful! Wednesday, we went to Brush With Art and she painted a horse. She was going to do a bumblebee too, but got kind of tired so we decided to wait on that! She & Kendie played until it was time to get "the sisters" and then we got ready for Emee's ice skating. The girlies had LOTS of fun at the ice rink - LOTS more fun with Rachel than without! You can see that Rachel & Kendie just LOVE to be together! Also, here are some pics of Kendie with NO front teeth!

Long Awaited Slideshow!

A big thank you to Leslie at Slide for getting this to load for me!! Here are a "few" of the pictures - we took a LOT since we were both playing with the new camera! I think that we hit the highlights - we did do a few things without the camera: lunch with people I have met on the internet that have also had Acoustic Neuroma surgery, our favorite Mexican food place (Lupe's - YUM!), Rockets game that they won in double overtime and probably much more that I am not remembering right now! Once again, thanks to Grandma & Granddad for making our week there wonderful and to Mimi for all of our great gifts here - the scooters were a HUGE hit!!!

I just pulled Kendie's 2nd top front tooth so I'll have to get some pictures of that! This tooth has been loose since long before Christmas (& the other one that she lost in Houston). I kept telling her that all I wanted for Christmas was for her to lose her 2 front teeth! I finally got my wish!

Update on Slideshow...

Well, obviously I don't have a slideshow up yet, BUT can I just say that Slide has been WONDERFUL to work with?? "Leslie" has been helping me out and has been so great! She was able to put the saved information onto my account and so all of the time spent was NOT in vain. However, it is still giving me an error message when I try to post it. Apparently, it works fine when she does it but not on my end. She & I are getting to be great e-mail buddies!

On another note, the girlies are back in school. Addi is trying to get caught up after having missed the last week of school before the break. They all 3 seemed to have good days yesterday. Kendie feel asleep around 6:30 and the other 2 went right to sleep too - it's hard getting up at 7 when you are used to sleeping in! Yesterday morning, my new friend, Rachel, came over. She was just here in the morning yesterday as Dave had another little procedure on his face yesterday afternoon (he's OK). Today, her dad took off to hang out with her but the rest of this week and next, she will be with me while he is working. She is 18 and a real sweetie! Our big outing yesterday was to Wal-Mart - whoo! I will be taking pictures while she here and putting them up here so her mom can see what all we are doing while she is visiting. I know we are going to a have a LOT of fun! :o) They didn't get to be together yesterday, but Kendie and Emee are REALLY looking forward to her being here in the afternoons when they get out of school. Better run - hope everyone out there has a Terrific Tuesday!

Camera!!

I don't think that I shared on here that I got that new camera that I was wanting for Christmas!!! SO excited! I actually got it a bit early & that is what I took the picture with for our Christmas card (that went out on New Year's Eve day!). Dave wanted me to have it early so I would have a little time to play with it before we left for Houston and Christmas morning. It is a good thing too since I have never had a REAL camera (SLR), I needed a few days to familiarize myself with it before I was consumed with trying to get toys out of packaging. (I have said it before but do they really have to make the toys so that you have to have a degree in engineering to get the doll out? Do they have that much trouble with theft of Hannah Montana's brush??) Anyway, it was one of the best presents ever - part of the reason is because I know that I will really put it to good use taking better pictures of the girlies' events - thank you to Dave and his parents for getting it for me. Dave & I are taking a photography class at the community college (starts 1/22) so that we can really learn the ins and outs of it all - I'll let you know how that goes! Did I say that I LOVE it & am so excited?? Now I am researching the best LENS for the money!! :o)

**I finally got a reply from Slide & they think they have put the SS on my account but I am too tired to even look at it tonight...hopefully tomorrow...**

More trouble...

I spent a LOT of time day before yesterday making a slideshow of EVERYTHING we did over the holidays (I spent a bunch more time than I should have) & then it wouldn't work when I tried to load it on here. The WORST thing is that when I went back to my Slide account, they have NO RECORD of it!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! Anyway, we have the code that I copied & pasted (I had saved it twice) on another tab & have e-mailed the Slide people. I am hoping that somehow I can take that code and put it somewhere (where they tell me) so all my work is not lost!! Anyway, that is why I haven't posted - we are kind of afraid to do anything because we don't want to lose all that work!! Wish us luck!