Missy

It's been a while since I've posted any new photos of our dog Missy. Tuesday I stayed home and I was alone except for the dog. She seemed to wonder why I was there and not her favorite people Marty and Heather. But she was happy enough with me as long as I let her out in the living room to play and look out the windows.





She will be spoiled rotten this weekend when my mom arrives for a short visit. Missy was a gift to us from Mom but Mom still adores her.

Don't talk to me before I've had my morning coffee kibble!

Awwww doesn't she look sweet?

Can I go outside to play now???

Is it almost time for Marty and Heather to be home to play with me???

Starsteppers 2008

Heather recently recieved this year's dance team and individual portraits and I just never got around to posting them. While I have some time to work on "pre-posts" I thought I'd work on some blogging so you have something to look at while I'm away from my computer for a few days. I found plenty to post on my other blog, but am not finding much to post here. I spotted Heather's photos and decided now is a good time to post them and I'll just wait and post the band portraits by themselves when they arrive.

I can't wait for football so I can see what the girls have been working on this summer! I didn't make it to one day of dance camp this year to take any photos so I have no clue how they look yet.

Heather will be one busy beaver this year during football if all goes according to her plan. She will again participate in band, dance team and is also the photo editor of the school paper this year. She always performs part of the half time show with the band, wearing her dance team uniform, then when the dancers take the field she runs her horn to the sidelines and joins her team's formation for the dance then leaves the field when they do. This year she wants to do all that, then be able to photograph the last half of each game for the paper. She is working with her dance teacher to see if that will actually work out. Heather had a plan in place to present to her not knowing the reaction she'd received. Her dance teacher thinks it might just work. This Friday's the first game so we'll see how it all comes together. I have to miss the first game but Heather's youth worker at church, Billy has agreed to take some pictures of Heather for me since I can't and I have photos of her from every game. Thanks Billy!!!

Heather is in the back row, 3rd from the right hand side.

Heather's friend Ryan will be the mascot this year so I'm looking forward to getting some photos of him as well!

Happy Birthday, Heather!!!

My baby turns 17 years old today. My how fast the time has gone! Seems just a few years ago that I held her as she was looking up at me with those huge beautiful eyes for the first time. And wow how we've filled the time since then!



We celebrated her birthday last night with dinner in San Antonio at the Magic Time Machine. It was a fun place for her! Movie characters were the wait staff. The hostess was dressed as some sort of animal and everyone was in character.

We didn't tell Heather her cousin Chris was home this week so she could be surprised when she saw him. He will be transferred to Arizona (Air Force) soon. This is Heather with Chris' wife Cil and Chris:

Heather with her buddy Ryan. They have been friends since 7th grade and we were so glad he was able to come with us to help celebrate her birthday. What a couple of cut-ups they were the whole evening!

The salad bar in the restaurant is a car:

Ryan's and Heather's talents extend even beyond their musical abilities in the high school band! It would appear Ryan is more talented than Heather in spoon balancing!

Napolean Dynamite was our waiter and here he fits Heather with a special birthday girl hat!

Another waiter Shaggy from Scooby Doo dropped by our table from time to time as well. Here he's just jumped through a window to come after my niece Cheyenne who's just shouted across the restaurant that something he said was lame.

Heather was brought a plate of cookies that made a lot of smoke. She was trying to figure out how they made it smoke so much.

Shaggy, Napolean Dynamite and Jack Sparrow all sat her in a chair and sang "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" to her. It was so funny!

Jack Sparrow singing to Heather.

Shaggy's dance was a little disturbing....

Our friends Reva and Mitch (also our pastor) joined us to celebrate as well.

Heather and her grandparents: Freddie, Heather, Granny (Billie) and Freddie's Mom, Jean.

Mitch began spitting lemon seeds through a straw at Heather.

Heather retaliated by spitting ice chips back at him!

Heather and Aunt Debbie.

As we were leaving Shaggy tried to steal Heather's gift.

On the way out the door Heather and Ryan found a booth with a peace sign window in it and wanted their picture taken peeking through the peace sign.

Happy Birthday Punkin'! What a fun way to celebrate!

1st Day of School

Today was Heather's first day of school....even though she's actually been AT the school for a couple of weeks now with band and dance camps.

I can't believe she's a junior in high school already! When we moved here she was in 3rd grade and she seemed so little and that seems like just last year!

I teased Heather that she'd already put all her stuff in the car and it doesn't look like a 1st day of school photo without the backpack, books, etc. She just gave me that look that those of you who know her, know. I threatened to take a photo as she got out of the car to go into the school but was told that would be lame and people were behind me in the car line. I did almost feel sorry for her as she lugged her horn in its big case, her dance bag, her purse, her school camera, and her school stuff out of the car.


She said she had a pretty good first day, but it was kinda boring. Hopefully it will be a great year for her!

Lana's Baptism

Our friend Lana was baptised at church today. This may sound selfish but I was so glad when the pastor told me last week there'd be a baptism today. I knew it would be Lana's and I knew I'd get to be there for it. I'll be out of church the next couple of Sundays so I was glad the date she and the pastor scheduled was when I would be there.

End of Summer Bash

Summer's over and school starts Monday. I decided to have some friends over to splash in the pool, roast hotdogs over the fire and whatever else we could find to get into. I thought we'd play some volleyball as I'd finally convinced Marty to put up the volleyball net this weekend too. But, with all the trees everywhere we could not find anywhere that worked very well for volleyball. We'll have to work on that....besides it rained most of the afternoon anyway.




The adults opted not to swim even though the rain stopped. The water was much too cold for us, but not the kids! They swam anyway...all but Heather. She had to work but she got off early enough to join in some of the fun before the evening was over.

Our friends Dave and Lana

Marty was trying to frown for the camera!

Male bonding??? Marty, Dave and Jason

Jason and me roasting our dinner

We're always teasing Erica about what a pyro she is because she loves helping build the campfires. So, here she's very much acting the part of a pyro! Too funny!

Erica and I look like we sure take dressing our hotdog buns seriously!

Heather got home in time for food!

Dave and Heather

We sure enjoy these evenings of hanging out around the fire pit.

Can you tell how much Holly loves marshmallows???

Ashley looked so sweet trying to roast her hotdog all by herself.

Riley, Marty and Ashley

After they ate the kids started a game of keep away. Here Holly is trying so hard to catch the bottle they were throwing!

When we'd all had enough of hotdogs, marshmallows and playing in the fire we went inside. While the little girls played Barbies, everyone else played 3 rounds of Catch Phrase!!! Thanks, Paula for loaning us your game!!

Of course as always: Girls Rule and Boys Drool! The girls won 2 out of 3 rounds!

Cameron played the game for the first time and was really good at it! I loved how animated he became when describing his words for his team!

What a fun night and a great way to end our summer. Although I'm sure fall will still find us sitting around the fire with friends on occasion!

Another Amazing Sunset

Tonight as I left to pick Heather up from a church youth event the sky was bright pink. I caught the very end of what must have been an awesome sunset. I stopped the car twice on the way to get out and take pictures...the camera was only in the car this time because I hadn't bothered to take it out yet. I really didn't expect to photograph anything today.



Sometimes I adjust colors some in photoshop but these photos haven't been touched. These shots are all straight out of the camera. I wish I could have seen the whole sunset tonight!


It was almost getting too dark to take pictures as I was taking these but the colors still show up well. If I'd had time I may have set up the tripod to snap a few more but I didn't want to be late getting Heather! Maybe next time....

Coffee and Bloggers

Today was a HECTIC day! To top it off, after work I rushed to Heather's school for "Meet the Teacher." Heather was released from dance camp early so she could meet her teachers and obtain her schedule for school. She had a 30 minute window to get to all her teachers, but we didn't get to them all. We met several though, and spent too long visiting with her web mastery teacher when we discovered he is also the Photography Club sponsor.




As soon as Meet the Teacher was over I took Heather to meet Marty and I left them to meet fellow bloggers downtown for coffee. What a great way to unwind after a busy day! Erica and I met fellow blogger Thien and chatted the evening away. We'd never offcially met Thien before but the 3 of us often read and comment on one anothers' blogs. Erica and I discovered we'd been pronouncing Thien's name wrong all this time (we were pronouncing it Theen and it's actually pronounced Tin). Thien didn't even notice our mispronunciation...or she is just a great sport! :0)

Local bloggers from left to right:

Me, Erica, and Thien

We chatted about blogging, our families, how we started blogging, and our shared interests in photography (wow all my favorite things!).

Erica and Thien

I truly enjoyed the evening and look forward to another such outing in the future! It was so great to finally meet you, Thien!