I can't believe another year has passed by again. It just seems the older I get the faster time flies by. It would be nice if it would fly by while at work and slow down when with family and friends! Denise, Brianna and I have been in San Antonio for the last four days just having a jolly good time. We give our kids all the best comforts of home but they just love being away from home in a hotel. We have been staying at an Embassy Suites and the kids love the indoor pool, the happy hours and the breakfast in the morning, not to mention the suite it self, it is like a mini apartment. They have voted this the best hotel in San Antonio to stay at. We brought along a few of their Xmas gifts to pass the time, Uncle O and Aunt Libby gave them each a kid's art studio set with an easel, acrylic paints and canvas pictures to paint. They have loved painting those canvases and the mess was made in the hotel not my house! They also brought along their Crayola crayon maker and glow dome that Santa gave them. We went shopping one day when the weather was bad and bought Cupid the hamster a new ride. Of course Cupid is with us and we would have brought Maxie too, but she wanted to stay with Dennis. She thinks we travel too much! While in SA we were able to visit my Uncle Junior and Tia Julia along with my cousins and their families. Oh my, a house full of Lacayos can be very entertaining! It was great to see everyone again especially Belinda, Darin, Emily and Matthew who I haven't seen in a very long time.

We hope to see all of you again next year sometime. Who knows, we may just have another crawfish boil just to get you guys to come to Houston! Yesterday, we went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Not all the rides were open, but we had a great time because it was not hot and not crowded. The only long waiting time was for the Road Runner roller coaster.
Six Flags does a good job of decorating the whole park for Christmas and they added a small hill of snow for sledding and a place to make smores while drinking hot cocoa. The kids wanted to see snow this year so I told them this was going to be the best I could do. Our stay in San Antonio has been fun and a good way to end the year. I wish everyone a very prosperous and healthy new year.

Merry Christmas One and All!

We wish all a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Our Christmas was great, with lots of gifts and good eating. In fact, too much eating!

Winter Wonderland In H-Town!

We woke up to some cold weather and what started as a drizzle turned into snowflakes. This is the most I have ever seen it snow here in Texas. I dropped off the kids at school and headed for work. It was hard to work with all the snow falling outside. Everyone kept walking over to the windows to watch the snow and no one was actually working. Once the temperature dropped to 35 degrees it started to stick and Halliburton decided to let us go home. I left work early and went to get the kids out of school to play with the snow.
The kids had a blast and made a foot tall snowman with the snow they collected on the patio furniture. They stored their snowman in the freezer next to the snowball from the snow we had last year! If we keep getting snow each year I won't have any space in the freezer for food.

Happy Turkey Day Everyone!

On Tuesday we drove to Port Arthur to visit my mom, dad and my visiting cousin, Estevan and his wife Georgetta from Surinam in South America. I have not seen him since I was about 5, but I still remember when he lived with us for a little while. He and his wife have retired and are visiting family and friends in the US. It was such a nice visit with them and we enjoyed spending a little time with them. On Wednesday we were all going out to eat at Texas Roadhouse in PA but it was not open until 4:00 pm so we went to Sartin's in Nederland instead. The lunch all you can eat was great, shrimp, catfish, crab balls, french fries and salad. It was way too much to eat but I somehow made room in my stomach for it! After eating lunch we said our goodbyes and drove over to Baton Rouge to visit the Shaffers. The roads were full of cars and it took us an extra half hour instead of the normal 3 hours. Today, the guys were frying the turkey while Denise and Brianna made pilgrim hats for dessert. Sue cooked all the sides and brisket also. My niece, Samantha looked so pretty I asked her to try her hair skills on Denise. They looked so pretty for stuffing their faces. Yum, yum everything was great. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I just have to say many, many thanks for my wonderful family and friends.

A Bright New Look

We were happy to have Uncle Boogie with us all week to keep us company. Brianna was the happiest because she finally got her room painted. I have been putting it off but could never find the time. Thanks, Greg for such a good job. Brianna is growing up so fast and wanted to get rid of all the Disney princess stuff in her room. She is now into monkees! Yesterday was the last soccer game for this fall season. Denise's team, the Panthers did well, they won five and lost two. Denise made her first goal on Thursday night's game so she was extremely excited because most of the time she plays goalie. Today was their trophy party. She now has 13 trophies, ten of them for soccer and the other three for baseball. Once again Coach Joe did a great job on the season DVD with pics of the girls. I'm glad I was able to contribute with all the pics I took.

What's Happening With the Shaffers!

It's been a long time since I made an entry into our blog. Life is just so busy with my work, the kid's piano, dance and soccer, not to mention their birthday parties and Halloween. Brianna's 8th birthday was last weekend. My mom, dad, brothers and sisters all came over for grilled chicken to help celebrate and then she had a sleepover with five other screaming girls that were non-stop noise until 2:30 am. Not sure if I want to this again next year. I am going to try to talk them into going somewhere like San Antonio or Disneyworld for their birthdays! Dennis and I also celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. I can't believe we have been married that long! Seems like we just got married yesterday. Oh well, one day we will really celebrate when Brianna gets older. It's not her fault she decided to be born on our anniversary day. This past weekend we journeyed out to McNeese State University in Lake Charles on Friday to watch Alicia play volleyball. Harv, Sue, Nanny, Michelle and Greg met us there. Although they lost, we had a good time visiting with family. We had a good breakfast the next morning at the Comfort Inn and drove back to Houston with Greg. Uncle Boogie is staying with us for about a week to help Dennis with a few projects. We made it in good time for Denise's soccer game. They won 5-0 and Denise played really well, almost making a goal. After the game they had to get ready for Halloween. Brianna was dressing up as a zombie doctor and Denise was a zombie gladiator. They looked really scary. This is the first year they were being something scary, I guess the princess days are gone! We went to a party where they went trick or treating, had a haunted house and played games.
Lots of fun but way too many kids! I had left Greg and Dennis in charge of all the candy at our house to give out. They really weren't too happy about that, because LSU was playing Tulane at the same time all the kids would be coming over. They did a really good job though, all the candy was gone so they must of ate it or there must have been plenty of kids show up at our house. Denise and Brianna collected lots of candy, enough to last a while if they keep it away from dad!

Happy Birthday Denise!

Yesterday Denise hit the double digits! She is 10 now, can you believe that! We started off her birthday weekend with a bang. We had a garage sale that just wore me out bringing all the stuff down from the attic and upstairs in the guest room, where I had been storing some stuff. I woke up at 3:30 am to start setting up. It is amazing how much we collect and don't use anymore. The recession has certainly hit the garage sale world. Everyone wanted to pay 10 cents for everything. I think the biggest item sold was for $17. Kid's clothes, shoes and toys were the big hit. We made about $120 dollars and what was left over we gave to BCAM(Bear Creek Assistance Ministries). I was not about to put anything back into the attic! Denise had a soccer game at 2:00 pm. Unfortunately, they lost their first game of the season 3-0. When we returned home her girlfriends started coming over for the birthday sleepover.

I had made a strawberry sheet cake for them to decorate. They put all the icing on and tried to make a soccer field on the cake. It came out okay for amateurs. There were 6 kids altogether including Denise and Brianna. Not too bad, but they were just as noisey as it would have been with 12 kids! I believe they stayed up until 4:00 am. Not sure, I was so tired I could sleep through a train passing next to the house. The next morning when I was just about to sit down and read the Sunday paper they woke up early at 8:00 am asking what was for breadfast. They were supposed to sleep until 10:00 am! As soon as they left except for Maddie, we got ready to go to the Houston Dynamo and LA Galaxy soccer match.
This was one of the gifts that Denise wanted for her birthday, so see David Beckham play. He hadn't played the last two years against Dynamo because he was hurt or suspended. It was a beautiful day and the game was really good, except that they ended up in a tie, so both teams are still tied for the Western champs.
Beckham played the whole match and was in a small fight with Dynamo's Ching who was issued a red card and had to leave the stadium. I was not too impressed with his moves, actually Dynamo's Holden and Galaxy's Donovan who both play for the US soccer team are much better players. Beckham definitely had the women swooning especially after he took off his jersey and threw it into the stands. I personnally think he needs to get rid of the beard and smile a little bit more. At least he was wearing Emporio Armani underwear! Besides all that, Denise was happy with seeing him play and getting all the freebies at the game. At this game they gave away Dynamo jerseys to the first 5,000 fans and we all got one. All in all, Denise had a wonderful birthday.

Happy 101 Birthday, Nanny!

Nanny is 101 years old today. All I can say is WOW! I can't imagine ever living that long. We may have missed this party but we will certainly be there next year for 102!

What A Day!

I am totally exhausted from a full day of kid activities. It all started with taking my youngest kid, Maxie for a 2 mile walk. What happened to the cool weather we had the other day? Already sweating, and when we returned Dennis wanted help with spreading the mulch. Lucky Maxie got to go inside to get cooled off. After wards, I made a trip to Sam's to buy sandwich and snack stuff for the Dennis' card game tonight. It is his turn to host the game. I had signed up Brianna for a dance clinic with the CyFalls High School Sky Dancers so I had to drop her off by one o'clock at the gym. They would be learning a dance for tonight's half time entertainment at the football game. Next up was Denise's soccer game, the first of the season. She really played very well in all 4 quarters, 2 as a goalie, then forward and defender. They actually won 2-1 and were really happy because last spring they didn't even win a game. It was so hot, I thought my skin was going to melt off. Dennis was happy because he was watching the LSU Tigers win their game on the computer through the ESPN360 website. After the game we headed home to get ready for the football game. Brianna was there already with all the Sky Dancers and other kids sitting in the stands. She was all smiles so I could tell she had a good time today. At half time they took the kids on field to do their dance routine, there must have been about 200 kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. Brianna was all the way to the back probably because of her height but we could still see her dance away and she did well.

CyFalls didn't do as well though, we left right after half time and they were losing 21-3. Watching the band and the football players sure brought back memories of high school. What fun that was! We got home and the guys played their card game while I watched a very good football game between Houston and Texas Tech until midnight. Houston won of course. My pillow felt so good when I finally laid my head down.

Last Weekend of Summer

This past weekend was considered the last weekend of summer so we decided to spend it at the last weekend that the New Braunfels Schlitterbahn was open. I believe other people had the same idea because it was still crowded. To ride what has been voted the best water ride in the US, the Master Blaster it took us an hour and a half to get through the line. The ride was worth it.
It was like a water roller coaster. I think I screamed more from the cold water splashing on me! Denise rode with me and laughed all the way down at my screaming. My other favorite was the Whitewater Tube Chute which was a lot of fun. It uses the Comal River water, like most of the tube rides do and the water was a little bit on the cold side. At least we weren't complaining about the heat.
The kids really enjoyed all the rides and can't wait to go back next year! I hope some of you can join us next summer. We stayed at our timeshare near Canyon Lake so afterwards we went back to watch all the college football games and eat spaghetti and meatballs. They had given us one of the Ambassador suites which was huge, with two kitchens, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and 5 TVs. We could all watch what we wanted including Maxie!

Go Mavericks!

This past weekend we made a trip up to Arlington to watch Alicia play in a tournament. The rain began as soon as we hit Conroe and never let up until we returned back on Sunday afternoon. I haven't seen that much rain in probably 4 months. Our first stop was Friday night at my sister Rebecca and brother-in-law Gary's house in Ferris, TX. The minute we walked in, Denise and Brianna went straight to the foosball machine. Their Uncle Gary has taught them well, he now has to play using both hands instead of just his left hand. Thanks for the hospitality and the fantastic breakfast the next morning. We left Saturday morning to go watch Alicia's team play against Arkansas. They started off a little sluggish and ended up playing well, but still lost the match.
Alicia was playing very well and played her heart out. Denise and Brianna had fun running around in their usual manner! Afterwards, we checked into the hotel and us girls went shopping at the mall to pass the time before the next round of games while Dennis stayed at the hotel watching all the college football games. LSU started at 6:00 pm but we were only able to hear on the satellite radio station in the car. We left to watch UTA play the Oklahoma Sooners. They gave it their all and went to 5 games, losing the match. This group of girls are all young and will be really good next year in their Junior and Senior years.Afterwards, we went and stuffed our faces at Cheesecake Factory with Alicia and Elda, one of the girls on the team. We ate so much, we didn't even have room for cheesecake! This morning it was still raining, Alicia came over to the hotel to eat breakfast with us before we took off for home. When we got home we walked into a hot house. Our AC wasn't working. To avoid the high cost of having someone come in and fix the AC on a Sunday, we are spending the night at my brother, Orlando's house for tonight and Dennis will have one of his guys repair it tomorrow. Next week, we will try to make it to Schlitterbahn for their last open weekend.