Riding Precious

Riding Precious at the new barn!

Pictures

Just some fun pictures we have taken the last few days!

Jade's Pigtails

So I have waited for so long for Jade's hair to be long enough to do pigtails and guess what....
it is long enough!! Courtney my niece put her hair up and so we took about 1,000 picture but I will just post a few! When Courtney was little I would always put her hair in pigtails so it is kind of our thing. :)

Precious Update

We moved Precious to the new place on Sat. The pictures below are at the old place where she has been almost two years. Notice her blue shipping boots on her legs. Those keep their legs and ankles safe while in the horse trailer. Precious is so funny when she has those on because when she walks she picks her feet up real high. It is cute! The move went smooth and Precious did really great like she always does. We went out on Sun and she was pacing out in the pasture she was turned out in which means she was not real happy. That made me feel bad but today she was doing a lot better. I went out and spent about a hour with her. I am going to try and ride tomorrow if there is enough time. I am also going to try and take pictures of her at the new place.

Precious

Update

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be taking a few days off from blogging. Lots going on this weekend. Moving Precious (my horse), family in town, friends in town. Hope everyone has a great weekend!! I will leave you with this...


If you loan someone $100.00 and they never pay you back and you never see that person again, it was probably well worth the $100.00!!

Update

The boys had their Dr appt yesterday and they did great. Kyler's pfts are back up! Yay! Branson's were the same but the Dr doesn't think Branson is doing the test right. They both got their picc lines out today (we had to finish the antibiotics we had left) so the are very happy!

The Dr talked to us about a new med that is still in trials but they are having good results. They are going to get a trial here in Austin and we talked about putting the boys in the trial. The drug has been in trial for a few years so it is not as risky as a brand new drug and the data so far has
been really good. The only issue is if they do go into the trial they have to go off one of there inhaled meds called hypertonic which for us is a very important drug that works very well for both boys. Now if the new drug works then it won't matter but we also have the chance we will be in the placebo group and if that happens not only will we be on something that won't do anything for us but we also will be off the hypertonic so we have to really decide if we want to chance it. Anyway just something for us to think about.

Hope everyone is having a good day!

Swim Day With Jade

Me and my niece, Courtney took Jade swimming!!

Update

Finally the scale went down!! Wooo Hoooo!! It went down 3 pounds!! One day I was the same and the next day I was down 3 pounds! I still think something is up with the scale! Clothes are fitting better and better or should I say looser!! :)

So one reason I wanted to reduce my weight is because we are going to Cabo soon for our 11 year annv!!! My sister and niece are watching the kids and we will be on a beautiful beach for a week!! I cannot wait!! So I want to be able to wear the 3 bathing suits I got just for this trip and look good in them! We were going to go to Hawaii but we waited too long to book the tickets so by the time we got around to it the prices were sky high!! Our good friends/neighbors are going too. They will be celebrating their 10th annv.

So we went to the dr last thurs and both kids pfts are up but the dr asked us if we wouldn't mind doing another week of iv antibodics because the levels were off untill the last 4 days of the first two weeks. They like to have a certain amount in the blood stream and both boys were too low which means they metabolized it too fast. The dr thinks it is because of all the running they do. I asked if we should stop that while doing the iv's and he said no because it is so good for them. Anyway we go back to the dr tomorrow and hopefully be finished. Over all the boys are doing great!!

My niece is in town for 3 weeks so we have been hanging out. She starts college in the fall and I am very proud of her!! We are going to lay out today and see if I can get a tan for Cabo!!

I am also waiting on the air conditioning guy to get here to put in our new unit!! Last night was the hottest and it was unbearable. I did not sleep good at all! I tried to go upstairs but it was freezing so I couldn't sleep there either. I will be glad when we get that fixed!!

I also found a place for Precious (my horse) and it is close by!! Maybe 10 to 15 min drive. It is really nice and the have jumping and dressage which will be nice to have both. The place I have her now only has dressage so I have missed jumping! And this place is cheaper!! Yay!! We are moving her Sat or Sun. I do always feel bad when we have to move her. I am sure it is hard when you go to a new place and have to leave your old home but she has always adjusted well so I am sure she will this time too.

Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Hot And Takes Me Back Home...

Our down stairs air conditioner went out on Sat and so the down stairs is VERY hot!! We have the upstairs air on full blast but it is not helping much down stairs. Our new unit will be in on Mon or Tues so we have to live this way for a few days. It is covered under warenty thank goodness! The funny thing is it reminds me of growing up. My parents would only run the air if it was over 100 outside and so if the air wasn't on we had the windows open and floor fans on. I always hated the floor fans. They were loud and to me just annoying. My parents would also sleep at night without the air on and windows open. The nights were not too bad because in Amarillo at night the temp will drop to 70's or 60's. I would fall asleep and my parents would come in my room and turn on my floor fan. I would wake up with it blowing on me and turn it off.

Last night I layed in bed with our ceiling fan on high and to me it felt like a floor fan. Of course we couldn't open the windows here because even at midnight the temp was 90 degrees. But the heat has brought back some good memories as well. In the summer you could always hear kids playing outside even after it was dark. The ice cream man coming down the street with his music on. I have not seen an ice cream man in how long?? The birds singing early in the morning. They sing so much louder in the spring and summer it seems like. I remember starry nights, long swimming days, running through the sprinkler, playing hide n go seek on our block with all the kids till dark, sleep overs, riding bikes after dark, roller skating, parks, and the list goes on and on.

So the air going out hasn't been a total bad thing. Now if we were to have to pay for a new unit that would be a totally different story!!

Happy Birthday Bob!!!

My dad's Bday was actually yesterday on the 19th so I am posting this late!! Don't worry, I called him and sang Happy Bday!!!

I love you Bob!!!

Paul's Sisters And Brother

Aimee

Laurie

Holly

Matt

I do not think I am going to do pictures of all the nieces and nephews because on Paul's side alone there are 11 kids total! Anyway hope you enjoyed meet our family!! Paul is the middle child of his family. He was after Laurie. We all lived in the Dallas are till about 2 years ago. We moved to Austin and his sister Aimee moved to Germany. We miss everyone! And this will end the pictures of family theme! Hope everyone enjoyed it!! Now I need to think of another theme!!

My Brother, Sister and Nephew

So are you starting to see the theme I have going?? So this is my brother Lindsey, my sister Diane and we are at my nephew's wedding. Ben (my nephew) is my brother's son. My brother is 16 years older than me and my sister is 12 years older than me. Can you tell I was a little bit of a suprise? I am only 5 years older than my nephew. Jade was only 3 weeks old at Ben and Sarah's wedding! In every picture I strategically placed a kid in front of me to hide baby weight! LOL! Ben and Sarah have been married over a year now! Yay! Love you guys!

ps. I am sure my brother and sister love the fact that I am telling everyone how much older they are. LOL! They don't read my blog so oh well!!

Interesting Timing

So my cell phone rings this morning (Fri) and I don't recognize the phone number but answer anyway. It is my horse's owner before me. And like I have said in the past he calls every few years wanting to buy Precious back and remember I have had her now for 18 years (I still can't believe it has been that long!) I told him I am not interested in selling her. He said he just bought 300 acres about an hour and a half away from us and that we were welcome to bring her out there to stay at his place and take advantage of all his land.

I did think this is interesting because number one- we do need to find her a new place since they are selling the place she is at now and number two- even though she is not ready to be retired now she is getting older and I have wondered what I am going to do with her when she is ready to retire. I will always keep her no matter what but I wold like for her to have a nice place for her to retire to. He asked me to come out and take a look at his land and see if I would want to keep Precious out there. I told him I would think about it and call him back. I do think it is interesting at the timing of his call since I do need to find her a new place to live. But honestly it really is too far away from me. I would only be able to see her on weekends and I wouldn't be able to go out that far every weekend.

Even when I do retire her she really couldn't be that far away from me but if he was closer that would be a great deal to have. Let her hang out with other horses on 300 acres. Maybe I will tell him to move closer and we would have a deal! LOL!

I have two places to look at tomorrow for her. One is kind of a drive and the other is pretty close so I just have to see if I will like it. We looked at a place last night and it was nice but just too far out. That is about it as far as the Precious update goes!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Paul's Mom And Dad

Here are pictures of Paul's mom and dad, Glen and Helen. Can you guess where Paul got his looks? Paul has 3 sisters and 1 brother and all of them are close in age! Can you believe how great his parents look having 5 kids close in age? I don't know how they did it!! I go crazy and I only have 3 kids!!They did a great job raising everyone!! We miss them very much!

My Mom And Dad Pictures

Here are pictures of my mom and dad or as I like to call them Mother and Bob. Yes I call my dad Bob. He is my real dad. When I was a baby I did call him dada and daddy but my mom wanted me to call him Papa (I have no idea why she came up with this idea) well I would not call him Papa and around two years old I started to call him Bob (his name is Robert but he goes by Bob). At first everyone thought this was cute that I was calling him Bob but then I didn't stop and so when everyone kept trying to get me to call him daddy again it was too late, I was set on Bob. The funny thing is when I say Bob in my head it means dad unless I am talking to someone else called Bob and in that case it is just Bob. I asked my dad one time if it bothered him that I called him Bob and he said that all he hears is dad. Aw! I love my mom and Bob!!

ps. Tomorrow you will get to meet Paul's Mom and Dad!! Stay tuned for more family pictures...I have a theme now!

Precious And Finding A New Home

So can I just tell you how much I hate trying to find Precious (my horse) a new home? Man I hate it!! Why? Why? do they have to sell the place she is at now?? Why??? Well I do know why but Why I ask Why???

Ok enough of that.... So lets do a flashback to when we lived in the Dallas area. I had Precious at a pretty nice place that was about 15 min drive at the time well they got a new guy to live and take care of the horses and I started to think he was starving my horse so I decided to move her. Well you look on the internet for places that board and on the internet pictures will look amazing and you think you have found a great place but then you go see it in person and the place will look nothing like the pictures or will be a dump or the people taking care of the horses aren't that great, ect, ect. I swear I looked for about 2 months and had almost given up hope mean while I was sneaking food to my horse everyday since I thought the guy was not feeding her. Now in Dallas they don't have much land left because they have just built houses everywhere but out of the blue I found a place with over 500 acers (which was a miracle in its self) and was perfect! I never wanted to move again but then we moved to Austin.

The search began again and my time ran out so I just picked a place that was ok but quickly found out that it was not going to work out. But as luck would have it a person at my husband's work knew of a place close to where we live and we checked it out and move Precious there the next day. That is where she is at now. Well I have till Aug 15th to find a new home and let me just say the search for the new place is on! Things have not changed much as far as searching goes. I was looking on the internet and found one place and all the pictures looked awesome then I started to wonder why I was not at this place already and then the last picture came up of the barn and I remembered back when we first moved to Austin that we did check that place out and it was a dump and it was a not a lot of land which means riding in circles which is get very boring fast! It is amazing how good you can make a place look in pictures! So the search continues.

It is just one of those things that has to feel right. Your horse has to be happy where she is at and I have had her at places that she was not happy and you can just feel it. It really affects a horse if they are not happy. It just has to be a place that you feel is right and I sure hope we find it soon cause the clock is a tickin! Wish us luck!

So I am sitting here drawing a blank on what to blog about. It is funny because when I am running, in the shower, at Target, driving I think of a million things to blog about. In fact I will type out every detail in my head and have a very long blog idea in my head and then I get to my computer and Bam....NOTHING! I know, I know I need to write down my ideas but I am lazy. Or it is too hard to write while running. So here I am with nothing to write and here you are reading my nothing and I am sure by now you are getting bored reading my nothing that I am going on and on about.

So I will try and make some chit chat while I try and think of something to say...So I am sure you heard but Jolie-Pitts had their twins! Very exciting news! Now they have 6 kids! That is crazy to even imagine but at least the got the money to have nannies. Lets see what else Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman split up. That was pretty shocking since they have been together for 5 years. Of course they were not married so maybe she wanted to get married and said either get me a ring or get out and he said see ya and now Sarah is like oh s*#$! Didn't count on that happening! But don't worry Sarah you are probably better off without him! Khloe Kardashian was sentenced to 3 days in jail for not doing community service for a DUI....Don't know who she is? She is Kim Kardashian's sister from the reality show The Kardashians....not very important..just a rich girl that is kind of spoiled. Well this was some kind of info right? I know, I know I got it from people.com but still it was better than no blog at all right? I promise next time I will have something meaningful posted! I will start taking a pen and paper every where I go in case I have an idea!! See yall next time!! :)

Pictures At Paul's Work Party...Main Event

Monday Update

Hello! Hope everyone had a great weekend! So diet still going the same. Nothing new to report which is starting to make me mad! I have become obsessed with the scale and with working out. The more the scale stays the same the more I work out. I get up every morning M-F and run anywhere from 20 min to 45 min and last week I went from 30-45 trying to get my number on the scale down...did it work? No! Then I go up to the school Sun through Thurs and do the Fun Run although it is not so Fun to me anymore. I run 1 and 1/2 miles to 2 miles and last week after running I have been riding my bike for 10 to 20 minutes. So you see, I have become just a little obsessed about this. I will say my clothes are fitting better and better so I know the exercise is working but dang it is it too much to ask for the scale to validate it? No, I don't think it is. Now on a good note...I did wear a pair of shorts this weekend that I could not button about 3 weeks ago so I guess that is my validation. I have been doing really good on food. Still sticking to calorie counting trying to eat below 1100 a day. That is really all about my diet update. I really am happy about the progress but I really want my scale to prove it to me!! :) Maybe it is broken....wouldn't it be funny if Paul was somehow making the number stay the same just to drive me crazy? Hmmmm Paul, I am watching you! LOL!

We had a fun weekend! Paul's company had a party on Friday and they rented out Main Event (bowling, games, laser tag, golf, rock climbing, food). We all had fun but the kids really had a blast! This is the 3rd year we have done this and the kids look forward to it every year. I will post pictures of that later. Sat we went to lunch at Fajitas Warehouse and that was good. Then we just hung around the house the rest of the afternoon. Kids rode their bikes and played outside. Then Sat night we had a sitter and me and Paul went to Z-Tejas and then played pool. Sun I took the kids to a movie. We saw Meet Dave with Eddie Murphy. It was pretty funny. It was cute for the kids. Then we walked around the mall. And then we did the Fun Run and rode bikes.

Here is a picture of me doing the Fun Run! Doesn't it look like fun?

Remember This Toy?

When I was 4 me and my mom went to a garage sale and I got this toy for a quarter. I remember this because at first my mom said I could not have this toy and I started to cry and to keep me from going into a full fit she handed me the quarter and I got the toy. This toy became one of my favorites for years!! I could play and play with this toy and never got tried of it!! I loved it!!


The years passed and I out grew the toy and I am guessing my mom sold it in a garage sale for a quarter. Well I was thinking about this toy when I was pregnant with Jade and looked on ebay for it and I found it. Not only did I find it but I found a bunch of them listed for sale on ebay and can you guess how much I got it for? I will give you a hint...NOT a quarter!!

I got it for a cool $115.00!! Thats right...$115.00!! And that was cheap compared to some of the others! I saw one sold for $150.00 and another one close to $200.00!! But I got it because I loved it so much when I was a kid and so I wanted to share it with my daughter. The other day I got the great idea that maybe my sons would like to play with it to so I got it down from my closet and Kyler and Branson looked at me like I was crazy...Guess they are too old for it and guess it is more of a girl's toy. So up in the closet it went till Jade is a little older and won't lose any of the parts...after all it was a VERY expensive toy!!

ps. Shhhh don't tell my husband how much it really was...he thinks it was a quarter....

Branson Can Ride A Bike Now!!!!!!

Branson can ride a bike now without training wheels!!!! He asked us the other day to take off his training wheels and he jumped on his bike and off he went!! It was that easy!! We were all shocked because it took Kyler a few days back when he was learning to ride a bike.

There was no holding the back of his seat, running behind him, ect. He just jumped on and off he went! Now that he has been riding for a few days it is almost as if he never had training wheels at all!! I am really proud of him!! Go Branson!! Yay!!!

Rougar

And to keep with the cat theme here is a picture of our 3rd cat named Rougar. He looks a lot like Zinger but they are not related although we did get him the same time we got Zinger. Yes I know....I look like a crazy cat lady but actually I am just a crazy animal person!!

When we went to the spca to get a cat 11 years ago we went to get one. Well they had sooooo many kittens they were giving two kittens for the price of one (adoption fee) and we felt really bad because they really had a TON of cats at the time so we figured at least if there were two they would always have each other and one would not be lonely. So we got Rougar and Zinger.

Three years later my husband saw Cinder on a sidewalk of a very very busy street. He pulled over (she was just a kitten) and it was so hot outside she was stuck to the sidewalk! The sidewalk had burned off all the hair on her belly. We took her to the vet and the vet didn't think she would make it through the night. Well she did. We tried to find her a home but no one was in the market for a kitty at the time. It was their loss because she is the sweetest cat ever!

So that is the story of how we got 3 cats!

Paul Now Had A Blog

Paul (my cute husband) now has a blog so check it out!

Zinger

Zinger has been doing great and here are a few pictures of him at his fav spot to sleep..On my feet!