Wednesday

Noah Alexander...

After a 5 year wait and an odyssey to get here, Baby Noah Alexander arrived this morning via a C-section at 9:25, weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs and 20 inches long and he's two weeks early. Can you imagine what he would have weighed if he had gone to term?

Last year it was discovered that Heather had fibroid tumors and she was blessed to find a Doctor in Dallas that would remove them instead of telling her that there was no hope and remove everything. The surgery was a success and in October she was pregnant. Dr. J. Michael Putnam pioneered the instruments and surgery to save a women's uterus so they could have children. We are very thankful for Dr. Putnam and his team of professionals.

Only could our kids come up with a name that would tie into a hurricane that is about to hit the Texas/Mexico coastline. ALEX, is his name fate or coincidence? I wonder if Noah Alexander will live up to the name of his hurricane?
Happy Trails...




Thursday

The Dreaded T Word

Yes there is a word that starts with T that is dreaded by everyone. Let me just say this, one particular set is now DONE! One down one to go. My computer crashed last year and it took a long time to get it fixed and back after several miss-starts with the company that was fixing it. When the computer crashed I lost a lot of valuable information and had to rebuild which was not fun and is still not fun but I am chipping away at the T word and will be done with the whole mess soon until next year. I defiantly learned my lesson on all of this. BACK-UP, BACK-UP, BACK-UP!!!!!!! I cannot stress this enough...BACK-UP YOUR FILES!!!!!!

Well the girl may make it to July after all , That baby boy has decided that he does not want to come yet. Friday is her last day at work and then she is going on leave from her job. As of last week he was 8lbs. 11oz. Everyone is excited and I know she is ready for it to be over with. We can hardly wait for Baby Noah to get here.

Soccer!!!!!!! Go USA!!!!!! We advanced out of our group along with England and will play Ghana Saturday. We will be in front of the TV cheering on Team USA. Watch out guys here comes the Red, White and Blue!!!

Happy Trails....





Sunday

Father's Day...

To all fathers, step-fathers, fathers-in-law, grand-fathers and everyone who plays the role of a father, thank you.

Happy Trails

Eyes of the World...

The Eyes of the World are on South Africa this month as World Cup Soccer (Football, a game in which the play is made with the feet or head) gets under way. Most of you (5) who read this blog will say "who cares!" Well that would be us, we care, and the many families we have associated with over the last 20 years as our girls became soccer players, for rec. teams, classic clubs, high school teams, college teams and for a few, semi-pro teams. When our girls were first introduced to the sport we had no idea what soccer was. We knew it as a boys sport something girls would not play as it was deemed "too rough". But as the sport was introduced to more and more girls, daddies became interested and learned all they could about the sport. Hence my hubby.

For the next month our evenings will be consumed with the "beautiful game". Our family will watch the games and cheer our USA team on in hopes of advancement out of Group C. The USA team is a young team in terms of the sport of Soccer as American Football (a game where the play is made by handling the ball and running with it or throwing it to score and players crash into one another trying to get possession of the ball), Basketball, Baseball and Hockey dominate this part of the world.

The powerhouse teams are in Great Britain and Europe. The big game last night was between England's national team against the USA's national team, "those poor Yanks across the pond" as they refer to us. England was the team to watch as they were suppose to dominate us and walk away with 3 points. But we, the USA, put a finger in their eye and we both walked away with a 1-1 tie and 1 point each. Bully for us! Tim Howard our goalkeeper was outstanding "man of the game". He really is something to watch, poetry in motion.


Most people think soccer is a boring game. It's not at all, it's just not a high scoring game. It is a game of extreme skill and finesse. Soccer players are some of the most conditioned athletes in the world as they run constantly for two 45 minute halves being allowed only two substitutions. Try that with American Football.

Well, the next game is starting and I'm off to watch Germany, another powerhouse team and Australia play. Ghana beat Serbia this morning 1-0 on a penalty kick.

Go USA!!!!!!!!!


Monday

A Festive Weekend...Graduation, Birthday and Baby Shower

Off we went to Texas Thursday night after I got off of work. We made the trip in 6 hours because we stopped for dinner in Marietta, OK just North of Thackerville and the Winstar Casino . We also ran into one heck of a thunderstorm just this side of Ardmore. Otherwise it's a 5 hour drive if we go down to Dallas and over to East Texas. This way we had 2 full days and a partial day with family.

The weekend was full, a graduation from High School on Friday night for Dillon, J's Nephew. Saturday was J's 31st birthday and Sunday was the last baby shower for Baby Noah. Friday was spent cleaning and sprucing up the house. We cleaned surfaces and got lots of crosses and pictures hung. Everything looked nice. I know the kids appreciated all the help. Dave worked on planting flowers and pulling weeds. Heather, Christie and I (when my back was not killing me) worked on cleaning the floors and carpets, bathrooms, kitchen and getting the nursery ready to present to the guests.

The graduating class Friday night consisted of a total of 8 students, 4 boys and 4 girls. The kids had been together since Kindergarten and they were like one big family, their slide show was a testament to that. I have been to quite a few graduations but I truly think this one beat them all. It was so intimate and personal. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. At the end of the ceremony each of the graduates gathered roses and went to their families and handed out roses to all the mother, grandmothers, aunts and people that meant something to them. It was so touching. Dillon heads off to college in the fall, I know he is excited and he will do well. We went out to the family home for a graduation after-party and lots of food and merriment was had by all.
J had a great birthday on Saturday. We got him a Marvel poster by his favorite artist and a Marvel Chess Set. He also got a Sam's club membership. There was a huge crowd out at Robert and Shara's house. We had lots of food and some went swimming and got a good sunburn.

There's nothing like a fun time in the ole pool.

J loves Marvel anything. I think Spiderman is his favorite character. When a new Marvel movie comes out they always see it on the first day. We were down in Texas when Iron Man 2 came out and we were there along with Heather and J on the first day. I will say this...Iron Man 2 was good!

The baby shower on Sunday was wonderful. These two kids have so many people who love them. They were showered from all sides. I swear there were at least 35+ people in their house. Some of the ladies even drove in from Texarkana to celebrate the anticipated arrival of Noah. I think they are pretty well set now and can just relax and wait for Baby Noah to arrive. J's mom Irene, made her famous chicken salad croissants, deviled eggs along with her potato salad and guacamole and a mango-papaya chutney with cream cheese. J carved a fruit basket out of a watermelon and did melon balls with a honeydew melon, cantaloupe and watermelon. He also made his favorite...Onion Dip with wavy potato chips. One of the hostesses brought a veggie tray and another hostess brought a fruit punch made of Raspberry Gator aid with Seven-up. And last but not least there was a cake. All of it was really good.















What was funny about the whole day was the neighbor across the street was having a baby shower for a friend of hers at the same time. So pink balloons on one side of the street and blue balloons on the other side of the street. It was quite a sight with all the cars lining the street.
I on the other hand was somewhat down and out for the festivities. Earlier in the week I had somehow put a rib out and it caused an asthma attack to which I had to get some really expensive meds to treat it. On Friday morning I had to have Christie do an adjustment on me and then spend a lot of my time on a heating pad, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory pills. By Sunday I think the worst was over and was able to make it all day without any medication.

We found the cutest baby bedding set on Overstock.com decided that it would go with their theme of red, white and blue, so it is in transit now. His Auntie Shara is going to paint Spiderman on a sheet and then put it up on a wall as a big mural. She is an accomplished artist and teaches art at the school where Dillon graduated from. She is also one of the schools drama teachers. That's the thing about small schools you have to be a teacher and able to juggle many hats. I really admire her and all that she has accomplished. Auntie's Stephanie and Shara, Cousin's Abbie and Dillon and Uncle Jamie.

We are now placing bets on how long Heather will last. Christie says two weeks I say three but no more than that.

Sunday evening found us on the road heading home at about 7:35 and we arrived home at 12:45 with a 15 minute stop just outside of Dallas to take a quick break and get some coffee. Coming home was uneventful and Christie drove the whole way. The dogs were good travelers and slept most of the way.

Today was a bit tiring but it was a good day and went fast as I was training our new student.
We are now on BABY WATCH!!!

Happy Trails....