Rain!

I'm not sure if it will ever stop raining here. We have had our fair share. If it keeps it up, we'll have to build an ark!

On the road again....

This time we're DRIVING!! :) We are headed out of town this weekend to see some friends. No, we never really do stay home! :)

Not too much other than traveling is going on here. I have my new teacher orientation coming up in July, as well as a family vacation with my parents, sisters, niece and nephew. We are going to Arkansas. Later in July, Stephen's parents are coming to TX for a visit. We are excited about that.

Stephen is having severe allergy problems. We have had so much rain.

Our Alabama Trip...

This weekend we went to visit Stephen's mom and dad in Alabama. We flew in Friday night and returned home today. We had a good visit and of course our time was too short. Of course I got to hear Stephen grumble about the Bulldogs' quick exit at the College World Series.

We were able to see Stephen's friends, Chris and Katy. It was really good to be able to see them. Plus, we ate some good ol' Alabama BBQ at the famous Big Bob Gibson's.

The fun part came today on our flight home. You know it's going to be a bad flight when the pilot comes over the speakers after take-off and tells the flight attendants to stay seated and not begin beverage service. We didn't know how bad it would really get. At one point I closed my eyes and started to sing "Lord I'm Coming Home". That was the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. The whole plane was shaking really bad and we dropped so much altitude. I almost vomited. I never get sick on planes but today was definitely an exception.

Alabama is praying for rain and we're praying for no more rain. There were some really bad floods today, which is really sad. Several people lost their lives. Everyone in Alabama wanted us to bring rain with us. We would have gladly obliged them if we could have!!

Have a good week. This day has worn me out, time to retire and get some sleep!! :)

It's Official!!

I am going to be teaching 3rd Grade at Richardson ISD! I was offered the job Monday and I accepted. I am very excited! I am happy to be back home with Stephen! We won't know what to think....we will both be working full time and live in the same house. In our 4 years of being married, this will be a first. We celebrate our 4th anniversary next Thursday, June 14th.

It's Sunday...

and I don't have to leave home to go to Nac.! :) What an awesome feeling. It is good to be back home. We are still trying to get all of my "stuff" settled in here. It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate!! We have officially filled up 2 5'x10' storage units. That is so sad!!

We were able to attend Prestonwood Baptist Church today. It is so awesome every time we get to go there!! The worship experience is indescribable!!

I am waiting to hear from an interview I had Thursday. It went really well so we'll see. It's all in God's hands right now. I am having to learn to be patience and have faith which is something I struggle with daily. I want everything done in my timing and God has taught me so many lessons about that. I just pray that He gives me the desires of my heart. Please keep me in your prayers until that happens. Thank you so much!!

Whew!!!

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I have posted. I have been so busy! Things finally seem to be settling down for once. My last week of school was something else!! Awards ceremony, field day, LUAU! Wow! That was a lot of fun! We didn't roast a pig but I felt like I was roasted! :) We had limbo, games, food, music....and fun! I had to say goodbye to the kids and I was sad. But, I am glad to be back home.

Still waiting to hear from a job. I'll let you know as soon as I hear something.

Aloha, Alto!

As of 1PM, Friday May 25th, Stacey will complete her classroom duties at Alto Elementary. It is an exciting, yet stressful, time for us. While there is a degree of sadness for Stacey leaving behind a class she loved and the friends she has known for years, there is a nervous anticipation of what the future holds. Today, she held a luau for her class as a way for everyone to say goodbye. I'm sure once she gets settled back into the metroplex, she may even share stories of it. Through the ups and downs of it, I'm glad Alto offered Stacey the chance to get back into teaching after the two years of not being able to get a job in Alabama and allowed her to do something she enjoys.

This weekend will be the second straight weekend of me going to E. Texas to bring a car load of supplies home (okay, storage unit). So far, our second 5X10 storage unit is not ready to burst, but that'll probably change after the weekend.

While we continue to receive inquiries from interested schools, none have yet to make an offer for the 2007-08 school year. We are praying that we will hear something soon, but we are fully aware that we will wait on God's timing. Yet, it is time to enjoy the holiday and hopefully, be back on the trail come Tuesday.

We appreciate your prayers while we await the next direction we go.

The countdown continues...

If you talk to Stacey, you'll know that the end of school countdown has begun. Not that she is looking forward to saying goodbye to her class, because she is not, but she is looking forward to being home for the summer. Likewise, it is the same for me. After spending a large part of the last 2 years splitting time between our respective job locations, I'm getting excited over the prospects of having her home everyday. Stacey's class did well on the TAKS with both sections scoring in the 80th and 90th percentile. I guess I had better enjoy this weekend since it'll be my last one in Lewisville until the month of June due to the arduous task of bringing in all Stacey's school supplies and having them removed from the school by the 26th of May.

Meanwhile, we continue to get lots of storms. Two sleepless nights this week interrupted by overnight thunderstorms with intense lightning displays. We managed to see the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays play between storms over the past weekend and that was a good time with pleasant weather. As for me, work has been really busy and stressful trying to nail down a solution to a longstanding problem. I have been visiting grad school programs at TCU and UT-Arlington checking out MBA options and have started reading a riveting book by John MacArthur called Hard to Believe.

Not a lot to report on the job front for Stacey, but she has had some interviews that seem fairly positive. Regardless, it's in God's hands now. Once again, His mercy came to us today when we were trying to stretch my paycheck over three weekends and we received a dividend check from our insurance company. He's provided for us all along, I have no reason to doubt Him now.

I think I'll call in sick tomorrow....

Nah, just kidding. Although today, would you like fries with that sounded awfully appealing!! It has been one of those weeks!!

Here is a synopsis:
Monday: School goes into lockdown...long story which I won't bore you with!
Tuesday: My sister becomes really ill at school which I get to deal with...
Wednesday: Parent (school) being irrational over something I have no control over...
Thursday: Another parent being irrational....

Spring fever has become an epidemic in my class......need I say more???

Not to mention...the job search is still going on in full force, still with no luck, which is becoming very aggravating......

Pray for me!! I need it!!

Take Cover!

Ahh! Once again, we got hit with bad weather. Tuesday made the third time in less than 2 weeks that we've seen storms, hail and tornadoes. We had a weak tornado go through the adjacent suburb of Flower Mound about 10PM last night, fortunately no one was injured and another went through the town to the north, Denton. Fortunately, we only had to deal with a lot of rain, about 5-8" around here, but the lakes are so low that it's welcome.

The Texas Tornado...

This was the tornado that hit Haltom City yesterday, which is fairly close to where we live. We were eating dinner with Missy and Ryan and never realized it got this bad until we got home.

photo courtesy of Dallas Morning News

Congratulations!!

Congratulations Justin and Sara, our friends from Lansing. They are new parents to Miss Ellie! Welcome Ellie!! We can't wait to meet you!!

Yes, this is East Texas!!

My brother-in-law decided to take his little canoe trip that he usually takes on Easter weekend. This is a 32 mile trip by river. Let's just say his trip was cut short due to the "blizzard". This is what it looked like when he got ready to leave. I have never seen weather like this in East Texas in April!!! Let's just say he was glad to be back home in the warm house!!! This will be a family joke around our house for quite some time needless to say!!

Ailments, Aberrations, and Astros = Adventure

After being with various ailments from allergies to some type of strep throat illness, I finally headed out to Nacogdoches to spend time with Stacey's family over the Easter Holiday. I didn't even feel up to talking or eating until Thursday evening with all the fun I was having with my tonsils being swollen together.

Once I got to East Texas, the weather was changing. Friday's weather was okay and in the upper 60's, so I really didn't think much about it. The Weather Channel was saying that it would be 70 degrees in Houston, so I didn't bother packing warmly to head to the Bayou City. Somehow, I knew I was in trouble when I started recalling a conversation Stacey and I held earlier in the week when I said, "I know it's impractical, but I'd really like one of those Astros sweatshirts." Thus, we head to Houston, it's 42 degrees in Nacogdoches, but remember, the Weather Channel says it's going to be 70 down there. We get about 2/3rds of the way to Houston when Stacey's sister calls and says that it is snowing in Nacogdoches. Ahh, whoopty-do, did they see one snowflake and panic like every other East Texan? - I thought. So, we keep going to Houston and stop off at a couple of sporting goods stores and there is that Astros hooded sweatshirt, almost on cue. Then again, I'm thinking, okay Minute Maid park is a retractble roof stadium and has A/C, so surely they'll turn the heat on, right? So, I bypass the $50 sweatshirt and head to the stadium. We get there and it's raining and 43 degrees on the outside and not much warmer on the inside. Yet, we proceed to enter the stadium with the Astros T-shirts and the medium weight jackets we have. That's right, this sucker ain't heated and we're freezing our booties off. To add to our misery, we are hearing stories that it's still snowing in the Nacogdoches area and Richard's canoeing trip ended early (see below). Still, I'm not totally sold on this idea of it really being that bad in the Piney Woods.

Since the Astros had started off 0-4, and were playing the World Series Champion Cardinals, we weren't having real high hopes for a win. Yet, Roy Oswalt took the hill and we knew they had a chance as long as he wasn't pulled for Lidge or let Albert Pujols hit the train with another of his bombs. Oswalt came through with a complete game, Pujols didn't crush anything, Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee homered, and the 'stros won 5-1.

Now, time to go home. Okay, so now it is 37 degrees and raining cats and dogs. By the time we get 40 miles from downtown Houston, the temperature starts dropping and we start seeing sleet. So, maybe they weren't exaggerating about the weather. Go another 20 miles and the temps are hovering around 34 and it's sleeting and snowing. Hey wait a minute, this is East Texas, not Michigan, eh? About half way home and it's coming down so hard that visibility is less than a mile and I'm having flashbacks of driving in the Michigan winters again. Next, we encounter freezing rain and 31-32 degrees nd the road has turned to slush. Stacey starts asking whether this is anything like Michigan since I'm not appearing nervous. We get to Lufkin and now the trees have snow on the branches and the cars are all covered. Thirty minutes later, we make it back to Nacogdoches and it's still snowing. Fortunately, we were blessed to get home safe and sound and no accumulation.

By the way, anyone think I can get that sweatshirt now?

Photos C/O Houston Chronicle

What time is it?

Have you ever felt like you just didn't have a grasp on what time it is? Well, that's what I've been going through the past week. Somehow, the IT department at work failed to upload the daylight savings time patch on my computer and that has me all out of sorts on my appointments. Secondly, not living a full year in Texas means I still don't know when it is supposed to be daylight (or daybreak to some of you), so getting up in the mornings has been a bear. Next, I have been working issues with a client in Singapore, who is 13 hours ahead, meaning that I'm working until 7-8PM on the nights we have teleconferences with them. Finally, Monday morning, I made a rush trip back to Alabama and returned home on the red eye Tuesday meaning I was up at 3:30AM in order to be at the Birmingam airport by 5.

All Aboard the Yard Heathen Express

Ah, it's great to be back in the metroplex again. Stacey and I took a few days of her spring break to venture off to Alabama to see my family. Good time, good BBQ, just not long enough, but we can still see that their Lab, Buster, is still eatin' good in mom and dad's neighborhood.

For those of you who don't know me very well, the term "yard heathen" was introduced in the 2001 time frame and it originally was intended to mean any child under the age of accountability (check your Baptist Theology if you don't know what that means) who tends to be the little kid who plays in the yard and makes mud pies, plays with all the critters that can be found, and comes home with dirt from head toe. This is in contrast to rug rat who stays in the house all the time.

One of those weird things happened to us again, somehow we figure it must be God's way of showing us some humor since we don't have children. First, there was the kids eat free night at Dickey's BBQ and now we were on the Yard Heathen Express. On Saturday afternoon, we flew from Birmingham to Dallas. I knew something was bad when it was a full flight. Then we got onboard and the flight attendants were grousing about some car seats for someone's yard heathen. You can see this is about to turn into a comedy of errors. Well, they had to delay taking off to get some of these child seats onto the plane, then as we're taxing down the taxi-way, we have to stop to move an infant away from the exit row area. BTW, did I mention there were something like 5 of these yard heathens under 5 sitting within 5 rows of us? Nothing like a blood curdling scream from one of these toddlers as the plane is taking off, poor Stacey almost lost it.

I know, one of these days it will be my turn, but hopefully, I'll be blessed with one of those gas guzzling, soccer mom SUV's to drive back and forth to Alabama.

12th and final SEC School

Well, I finally made it to all twelve SEC schools and have visited each campus. While I was growing up and was in school at MSU, I made it to all 11 campuses and SEC Football stadiums (including second home fields like Legion Field and War Memorial), except for one, the University of Arkansas. I don't know nor do I care, but they always seemed to have an aversion to playing MSU in Fayetteville and we ended up in Little Rock. So, being less than 2 miles from Fayetteville town limits, I drove on over to the campus to see the house of horrors disdainly known as UPig or University of Wal-Mart by the MSU faithful. Not a bad place, just very hilly, which is pretty standard for NW Arkansas. Felt bad for the students, they must need thighs and calves like tree trunks to handle all that walking. Have Mercy!

Sooner or Later

I had to go back through Oklahoma again and let me tell you, it was desolate. I'm currently in Springdale, AR attending a class for work and using the hotel computer. 5 1/2 hours through the backwoods of SE Oklahoma and NW Arkansas will give you a new appreciation for the 5 million inhabitants of the metroplex. Needless to say, my co-horts have lots of dueling banjo stories to tell. There's no telling what will happen before the week is up...

Let me end it by saying that I know why Carrie Underwood wrote a song about not being in Checotah (OK) anymore.

The Dust Bowl

Instead of the Cotton Bowl, Dallas is now home to the "Dust Bowl". This is what we lived in this afternoon. Yuck!!

Up, up, and away

THEMIS took off from the Cape Saturday at 6PM. NASA's most daring attempt at launching a satellite occurred with it releasing five separate probes to study the effects of solar storms on our atmosphere.

Now, with TAKS week here, let's hope Stacey's class has a success like this!