First Day of School 2007

First day of school went very well. Drop off was a bit crazy and chaotic but it will get better. They had nothing but good things to say when I picked them up from their after-school program. No homework yet but it's coming! Tomorrow is our first day of soccer practice.

Drew on his first day of 1st grade at Bear Creek.

His teacher is Ms. Simmons.

JB on his first day of Kindergarten at Bear Creek.

His teacher is Ms. Pounds.

Mom's Night Out - 8/18/07

Ezra's Mom (Chris), (Kyle & Brandon's Mom (Annette),

Ashton's Mom (Jessica), Lauren's Mom (Mirindi), and Drew & JB's Mom (me) getting ready to go out. We joked that we would introduce ourselves as our child's mom. Well, we thought it was funny!

We started out at Firewater Grill and then went over to Red River (much to Chris' objections) and we had fun hanging out. I had the most fun being with the girls but I've certainly decided I am way too old to be hitting the bars. Sunday was a complete waste of a day! We closed the bar down and then came back to my house and got in the pool. I got to bed at about 3:30 I think. The other girls were better trooper's than I was. "Let's do this every month!" Are you kidding me? My life expectancy is 102 right now. If I did that every month I would only last until about 75! Especially since I think I'm invincible and rode the mechanical bull! What an idiot!

The videos below were filmed by the girls cell phones so they're not the best quality. You can't really tell that's it's me so you'll have to take my word for it.

Of course, I tipped the controller to take it easy on me. My favorite part of it is Chris' laugh in the background. I stayed on for a while and knew I was ready to get off and just started laughing. Here's when I got thrown off.

Calling the Tooth Fairy

JB lost his first tooth today. It was just barely dangling and it just took one quick little tug and out it came! He lost it on his Grandma's birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma. She's on vacation in Europe!

JB just went to our favorite dentist, Dr. Ellis at Gateway Dental, and his xrays show that his two front teeth are coming in completely sideways. You can see it poking through a little in the picture above.

We tried to get Drew to let mom pull his bottom tooth that is super wiggly but he wasn't having any of that! His tooth is coming in behind his baby teeth. We've been talking about the orthodontist a lot lately. Oh my!

Well, we hope the Tooth Fairy got the call that JB lost his tooth! I guess she'll have to make two trips for Drew's tooth.

A Home Depot Story

I had to buy a toilet for the remodel of my bathroom. So, I take myself over to Home Depot one Wednesday night. I find the toilet aisle all the way in the back and there are two men employees there. I tell them I need a toilet. They ask, "The tank, the bowl or what?"

I tell them, "I need the whole kit. And, my contractor told me to get an American Standard brand. There's one that resists mold and all that crap. (Just put in your own potty joke here) And, it's about $150."

They kind of chuckle at me like I was some stupid, silly girl. So, we start going through the options. This one will flush golf balls.
This one is pretty.
This one this and this one that.

"Now, you'll want an elongated one."

My immediate response was, "What? Are you saying my ass is fat?"

One guy starts finding the components and I realize, "Oh! Am I taking this with me? I thought my contractor would pick it up. Can I lift those?"

"Oh, honey, you can let your husband lift it out of the car."

I’m totally offended that every man in this world thinks you have to have a man around to get things done! "Look buddy- it's me or nothing. I don't keep one of those around my house."

So, we load everything up on a cart and head over to the seat aisle. Do I want a cushy seat or wood seat or a plastic-no-slam-seat or a regular plain Jane or the beautiful expensive seat? I figure what the hell, I'm spending all this money, go ahead and get the expensive one. And make sure it's elongated for my fat ass!

So, while I'm getting all of this attention I start asking questions about hand saws and jig saws and what do I do about this or that. I notice that one guy has a humming tick and the more he talks, the worse it gets. I couldn't understand what he was saying anymore. I was starting to get a little flustered myself.

So, we move on and I check out and the humming tick guy helps me to my car and proceeds to ask me out. I'm dumb founded! He proceeds to tell me his whole life story over his smoke break! Well, I'm sorry. I don't date smokers. THANK GOD! This is his speech pattern- "So-hummm, can I buy you-hummmm a drink sometime? Or a-hummm a Coke?" Smoker, 10 years older, working at Home Depot as a second job (for fun I'm sure) and totally out of shape with a humming tick? Really? Do you see me going out with this person? Those are the kind of men that hit on me! Joy for me!

Poor guy. I’m sure he’s very nice. He was helpful but, get this- after all that discussion about toilets and fat asses…I ended up with a round toilet and an elongated expensive seat!

We've Moved!

JB and Drew O'Pry


Mom got everything moved over on June 23rd and we are officially in our new house!

Our first official guest were our friends from Park City, Zac and Sarah Cronin. We played and swam and we can't wait for them to come back. We can't wait to see you, too!

Zac Cronin

May 25th - 27th, 2007

I had the most comical weekend ever. It was one stupid thing after another! It starts with me driving home Friday night after work. It was raining like crazy. Some big 18 wheeler cut off this little Civic which in turn cut me off. Lucky for him I'm an execellent driver. I slammed on the breaks and that damn Ford Explorer came through for me. I thought for sure I was headed sliding into the wall. I'm sure that would have been a nice end to the conversation I was having with my mom on the phone. (I had the ear piece in and both hands on the wheel.)

I drove to my new house to just check it out and make sure it was still standing. I hadn't been able to go over since Monday. Well, I got there and looked out on my beautiful little pool and the damn thing was GREEN! Green as green can be. Oh no! I go out and look at the chemicals, reading the instructions. I go up to the store and they tell me what to put in. I go back to the house and slip and nearly break my wrist and tear my cute new pants! Now I'm pissed.

Well, the whole algae situation was my fault. I hadn't tested the pool since I owned the house. I thought I had a little more time and my pool school was scheduled on Saturday. It's a good lesson for me to have right off the bat. I'll jump ahead to the pool guy- Jay. He showed me the equipment and we shocked the pool. It's a cloudy blue now. I need it to stop raining so I can get a hold on this situation but still, I look out and it's raining. I know I can take care of this pool if I can just get it back to normal. Wish me luck.

I go home and I'm gathering boxes from the garage and what do I do? I stubb my big toe and blood is going everywhere! Time for me to call it a night, I think.

I did get my car loaded up with some stuff and Saturday morning I get up early and go get the oil changed. No problems there thankfully. I go over to Dollar Tree and Walmart and Lowes. Load up on the essentials of cleaning supplies and painting goods. This parts not really that funny but I do have a very productive weekend getting the house cleaned up. I got the refrigerator, microwave, oven and kitchen cabinets cleaned up. I put up the sample colors of paint I picked up. The green is fine but the blue is too bright. I go back and forth with loads of boxes and call it a day. No need to over do it. But before I go home I decide to stop by several of the furniture stores over in my area. No luck finding a dining room table, rug or media unit.

Sunday, it's raining cats and dogs. It's a damn down pour. Where as I was blessing the rain the previous Monday because I would not have to worry about watering my lawn, Sunday I was damning it for creating a hassle for me to get the pool worked out! I go to Starbucks and relax a bit waiting for the rain to let up a little, then get over Lowes for a new sample and then to the house. Paint, clean, unload. That was my mantra for the weekend- Pack, Unpack, Clean, Paint. Paint includes the taking out of old nails and screws, patching and touching up. And, of course, I threw in shopping. Shopping for paint, shopping for furniture, shopping for cleaning supplies. And I found a table and chairs that I think will go perfectly in my dining area. It's the right size and I think the color will be good, too. Yay me!

I finally get the paint squared away on Monday and the blue wall is complete with the green wall on the schedule for next weekend along with a slew of other projects. Monday was another productive day with much of the same of the above. And then trouble strikes again! I was settled in my bed after my shower and reading my book. At about 11pm I hear the first troublesome beep. Have you ever wondered why smoke detecter batteries only go out at night? I have 4 smoke detecters in less than 1100 square feet! Locate the problem. Pull the battery. Still beeps. Roll my eyes. Get dressed. Head out to the store. I'm on the road and realize I don't have my fake tooth in. Turn around. Install tooth. Drive to store. Resolve the smoke detecters issues and go to bed.

I wish I could tell that I rested peacefully after all of that but no - I tossed and turned all night dreaming of this and that. I'm pretty sure my weekend was a sitcom in the making!

When I get some photos of the new house, I'll put them up. I need to blog about my mother's day weekend. I have some photos of the boys that I want to post up when we went to see the painted Longhorns. Stay tuned.

Much Overdue Update

November 2006
We went home for Thanksgiving and that was good except the traffic. Overall, there just was a lot of traffic but there was an accident in Waco on Sunday morning when we returned. It took us roughly 3 hours to get from Killeen to Waco. We were literally stopped, car turned off on the interstate. We had a good turkey day at my parent's house though. The boys had a great time running around with their cousins.

December 2006
The boys went with Andy to Park City. They stopped by at my old office, Jess Reid Real Estate. They went skiing and visited their old school. They had a great trip. We went to Refugio for Christmas. The boys raked in lots of goodies from Santa. My niece, Mckenna, had a movie birthday party and we saw " Charlotte's Web." We had a great visit to my aunt's house in Houston at the end of December. We got to see my cousin, Julie and her family who are now living in Chile. I had met her oldest son before Julie and Kelly moved to Chile but we had not seen each other in about 8 years! So, it was fun to meet her other 3 and they got to meet Drew and JB, too. We also got to meet our new cousin, Audrey. It was just fun. The boys never knew they had so many relatives. They'll bring it up now and then saying something to the effect, "Do you remember when we went to see ALL those cousins?"

January 2007
The New Year rang in without too much excitement. We're just trucking along in our daily routine. We saw some really cold days with snow and ice! I was not pleased at all about the cold days. I thought, "This is one of the reasons I didn't want to live in Utah anymore!" We had our family portrait taken this month. They turned out cute and it was really hard to pick the poses to buy. The rest of January was pretty boring, I guess because I don't know of anything else to tell you there.

February 2007
This was an eventful month with Andy coming down with pancreatitis. He was in the hospital for about 5-6 weeks, most of that in ICU. I can tell you in January, we were not getting along that well. But, I had never actually thought about what it would be like if I had to tell my kids that their dad might not make it. And, to think about the future if Andy wasn't apart of their lives was extremely hard. It was a very emotional month. The not knowing what was going to happen was tough. Luckily, Andy's parents were able to come and help Andy. They took the boys about once a week which gave me a little break. And thankfully, Andy has recovered very well. I tell everyone that he's a walking miracle. I have to mention my friend, Kristi, here. Andy has a Boston Terrier named Brutus. I cannot thank Kristi and David enough for taking Brutus for Andy. I am living in a small apartment right now and having Brutus there full time was not at all what I thought to be a good idea. In fact, I don't know what I would have done without Kristi over this past year. I cannot thank her enough for everything she has done for us. We also started looking for a house in February and found one in March.

March 2007
The boys and I looked at about 10 to 15 homes in the area I wanted to be. There were some that were quite nice but really out of my price range. Then, there were some that were just outdated and all I saw was a lot of needed update work.. But I think we found the perfect home for us. It's on a corner lot, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a pool. The sellers have updated the kitchen and the main bathroom countertops. Darn! They didn't get to the master bath but I plan on updating that before we move in. The down side to the home is I think it may be a little small. But, on the other hand, that may not be such a bad thing. Less to clean.

April 2007
Not too much going on in April. It feels like we're just in a holding pattern right now. It seems like we're just waiting for the time to tick by. The one thing that happened this month is I had a tooth extracted. It's right in front, too. I'm going to be toothless for about 6 months. The surgery went fine. I don't remember a thing about it. My mom and dad came up to help. It was good to hang out with them for a couple of days. So I have a retainer type device where I can pop the fake tooth in and out. It's hideous! I hate it. It's uncomfortable and hard to eat with. But, I don't want to go around toothless either. Oh, the price I pay for beauty...or just normal. Ha!

May 2007
Well, May is here. We're looking forward to a lot of things in May. Visiting Zac from Park City at his grandma's house in Fort Worth. Mom's coming up Mother's Day weekend to bowl. Closing on the house. Last Day of School and so on. I'll try to update you before October!

Fishing, Funeral & Halloween

This past Sunday we went fishing with my dad at his ranch. It was a lot of fun. JB & Drew had the best time. It's so funny because Drew is always so gun-ho, ready to go. JB is a bit more reserved, not so sure. It's fun to see the differences in them. It was even funnier when JB pulls up his line and screams, "I caught the biggest one!" My dad and I were both just laughing! And then he caught another big one. Oh, and one more big one. Needless to say, Drew wasn't happy about that. Thankfully, Joe took him on a ride on the four wheeler and that was over.

My boys are definetly more on the city slicker side. We need to get down to the ranch more often. When JB came back from his four wheeler ride he had some cow poop on him. Well, we all thought it was funny. But JB, no- not so funny to him. JB got to pet the cows. He pet a mama and after that Joe said that every cow was "Hi Mama Cow!" JB is so funny!

The boys also went to their first funeral and they did very well. JB was a little giggly but I kind of thought that Uncle Henry would actually like that even though I told him to be quiet. When I first told them that we were going to a funeral and explained that my uncle had died, Drew announces, "Mom, we're sad too because we didn't get to meet Uncle Henry and we really wanted to." I thought that was so sweet.

We are heading back down south for Thanksgiving. It will be the first one in years. I'm not sure that I've been back home for the holidays since the boys have been born. It has just always been too expensive. Of course, I'll have to fix Drew a hamburger because the boy is pickier than I was when I was a kid! It will still be fun to be all together. JB's birthday is that Sunday so I'm sure we'll have cake or something.

Oh- Halloween was a hoot! Drew dressed up as a vampire. And, since it's his birthday, there is always a lot of commotion around the day. JB dressed up as a red PowerRanger. I wish I could get them to dress up in a theme like Scooby and Shaggy or Woody and Buzz. But there's always one character who is cooler than the other. I'm not going to give up on that though. Maybe one day they'll see it my way! We went trick or treating with my good friend from high school, Kristi and her kids. Dawson is about 6 months older than Drew and then Elizabeth is in the 2.5 range. The kids were the only ones out on their street. Drew and Dawson ran from house to house and probably could have been done in 15 minutes if we didn't hold them back so the JB and Elizabeth could keep up.

One of the cuter parts of the night was when JB ran up behind Dawson and Drew finishing up at one house, he got his candy and the lady was trying to close the door and he stood there yelling, "Wait! Wait! We've got one more!" And here comes Elizabeth to get her candy. It was too cute! I'm really glad that Kristi called Halloween night and we went to her house instead of going to Main Street here in Grapevine. We drove past Main Street on the way home and it looked like a zoo. This was way better! It reminded me of when I was a kid.


There's your Halloween & November Adventures!

Catching Up

Well, it's hard to stay caught up when you have two little boys that keep saying, "Mom." "MOMMY!" "MOM, where are you?" "Mom! I need you!" "Mom, play with me!" "Mom, I want to listen to Real Gone." That's what is buzzing in my ear right now.

We got to our new apartment on July 1st after driving for 3 days without any MAJOR problems. We stopped in Childress to stay the night and woke up to a flat tire. Everyone there was very helpful and we got on the road about an hour after I had planned. It was kind of wierd being here in an empty apartment after the boys went with Andy. I was so turned around driving, I was afraid of to wander too far. I got a map and well, I still go the wrong way all the time but I at least feel like I can figure out where I am and get back the right direction.

We went to Wimberley over the 4th of July for the Gumm Family Reunion. We had a great time. The boys had a great time swimming in the river and I was glad to see all of my family. Drew was diving down in this deep hole and picking up some pretty big rocks. JB finally got comfortable on the last day! Of course. They've been swimming a lot since we've landed in Texas and they are both quite the little fish. Drew has no fear and swims quite well while JB is a little more conservative and they both have awesome tans now!

The job search has been complicated. I interviewed and was offered a job with Ebby Halliday but I turned it down because it wasn't enough money. I may be kicking myself in the long run especially since I started fighting the traffic over to Addison for a temp job. I'm working at The Staubach Company scanning lease document right now. Being in the copy room all day is not my dream job and a lot slower pace than what I'm used to but it's a paycheck while I look for something else. I have several interviews this upcoming week so we'll see what happens.

The boys started school on the 14th and thank goodness my mom was here visiting or I might have gone stir crazy! They are liking their school a lot. Drew is in a private kindergarten class with 7 other kids and we're focusing on reading. His afternoon teacher is Mr. Cory and is a blast! JB's teacher is Ms. Annabelle. She's from the Bahamas originally and is over 70 years old. She stresses a lot on manners! Halelujah!

I know there is a lot more to write about but Drew's wanting to play so I better run. I'll try to write more soon.

January, February and March

Well, so far, I'm not doing very well keeping you updated on our lives. I've been spending time on myspace.com writing about nothing and meeting new people. And, I'm sad to report I have no photos to post with this update. Maybe next week.

January was uneventful. Not too much going on . The boys started ski lessons at the end of the month. They took 2 classes a week for 3 weeks. Thank goodness the school took them. Andy has taken them skiing quite a bit and he says it hilarious to see them zip down the hill with their helmets bobbing all the way down. Drew advanced to skiing a black with his dad...hmmm...I am certainly glad mom was not included in that little adventure.

We've had a lot of illnesses lately. Drew had a touch of bronchitis in January. JB had strep throat in February. I had a touch of a stomach bug at the end of February. And, finally today, Drew is home with Andy with a little stomach bug, as well. I'm afraid to eat out most days with the fear of getting sick.

Leigh Ann and her clan are coming out next Monday, the 13th staying through the 16th. We are all very excited about them coming out. We've got the countdown going on the refrigerator.

Then, on the 18th, my high school friend, Bo, is coming to hang out for the day. I haven't seen him since we went to New Orleans for Pearl's wedding- so I'm looking forward to that as well.

I am looking forward to my trip in May to NYC with Leigh Ann! She has a full schedule packed with things to do and places to go. I'm looking forward to the scenery change.

Park City is its full glory today- snowing like hell! Mother Nature is just lauging at me as I swear the whole time I'm getting from here to there! Love living in the mountains! (That's sarcasm!)

Okay take care and I'll try to do better here.