Fishing on Labor Day weekend

We didnt have anything truly exciting planned for the holiday weekend.
Joe and I are getting serious about this home remodel we have been talking about for the last 18 months (sigh). We looked at lots of paint this weekend and lots of carpet. We did manage to sneak away ALONE (- kids) for lunch at Chipotle, that is exciting, for us anyway.
Monday right after dinner we took the kids to the pond directly across the street from our very own development. Yes, I will be honest, we did not know it was there the whole five years we have lived here. Ha ha!
Joe casted Eden's line first and one minute did not even go by before she had her first fish.
Its funny because Eden loves to fish, she is pretty patient considering she is only five but she is scared of these fish. I mean she reels them in and once they hit land she takes off and runs the opposite direction. I have to coax her back for the pictures.
So Eden had her first fish in one minute and then by the time Annika had her line casted Eden had fish number two! By then Annika is recasting over by where Eden has been set up, lol. As Joe said, it really "steams her weanies" that Eden seems to catch all the fish. LOL!
Long story short Eden caught SIX fish tonight. Annika caught three, Clay caught two.
Annika caught the last fish of the night, it was about 8:15pm at this point and really pretty dark. Joe was taking the hook out of this 5 inch bass when all of a sudden this little Asian man walked up from his evening walk. He asked Joe in his very thick accent if he was throwing it back. Joe said he was (Joe cannot kill an animal), and the man said, "I take fish."
He took this fish right out of Joe's hand and walked off with it.
We stood there with our jaws flapping open and then we laughed. What else do you do?
Poor Annika did not recover very fast and I did not get a picture with the bass, the only bass of the night. The rest of the fish were sunfish.
It was a fun evening.

We also saw lots of turtles and even snakes out in the pond tonight. Good times.

Obama speaks to our children?

Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.
That is an example of a patriotic speech.


After this week, it really needs to be said that respect does not equal following ones leader blindly.
That is a very dangerous thought process, to respect just because.
Disrespect is to say Obama is stupid or unqualified and doesnt deserve my attention.

It is not disrespectful to say I opt out of listening to something Im unsure of because its unprecedented. Because I dont trust that it wont become partisan.

The land of the free and all that.
Its the very core of who we are as Americans. I am patriotic and a very proud American. That does not mean I cant question the agenda of our president.

This was not intended as a harmless story time or simply giving props to our teachers for the awesome responsibility they have in shaping young minds (pro education). I wish it was.
There seemed to be agenda. But we cant even be certain w/o a transcript which we werent offered initially. Once we got a look at the outline there were many questionable aspects. Lets write a letter explaining what we (the children) can do to help president Obama? Surely he meant how we can help our country??? Lets make sure we read and study up on Obama?
How about read and study up on the benefits if staying in school or higher education because afterall, this is going to be a pro education speech, correct?

For older children such as Clay (middle school and beyond) I feel its likely harmless and may even prompt fruitful discussions at home. Older children are more inclined to look past smooth talking and ask the hard questions. Looking at the facts.
For the younger set, like my two young girls, I will not be made to feel guilty or be told Im unpatriotic or disrespectful because I have concerns about the intent and outline.
If I wanted to watch a movie on tv BEFORE I allowed them to see it, or read a book to myself before reading it to them I would be considered to be a responsible parent. I dont see how this is any different?

Im not wrong, overreacting or *ridicules* for wanting to have a more clear understanding (transcript if you will) of what will be said since this was not routine (such as math,reading, ABCs) school curriculum we were talking about.

Blindly following your leader just because he is your leader is not respect. Its dangerous. No matter what your political affiliations are.

Reality Bites

Back from vacation. Back to reality. Back to SCHOOL!!!
We got home from vacation on a Friday at midnight.
I had one weekend to finalize the back to school supply shopping and send those kids back where they belong. SCHOOL!!! Ha ha!
And we reached a big milestone. No more kids at home. Sniff sniff. Eden, the baby of the family turned 5 back in June and now she is a full time Kindergarten student who rides the bus! No way?!
I have from 8am- 3pm to myself. Whatever will I do with my time? ;)
I got pictures of everyone but Clay. Clay started middle school this year but Clay has been too cool for Mom's picture taking for some time now ;)

Rocky Mt High...........Colorado!

So The Brim's took their first week long family vacation that did not include visiting relatives back home in The Pacific Northwest. Instead we packed up a rental van (brand new Town & Country) and drove to Colorado Springs. Im sure a lot of you are wondering how the drive went because it was indeed a loooong, brutal drive. That portion of Texas & Oklahoma as you head toward Colorado is known as the plains (or grasslands). Its more boring then you can even imagine with exception of the windmill farms and oil pump jacks :) Well, the kids did great. Seeing how they cant be in a room together for 30 minutes without having issues we thought for sure the drive would be a nightmare. It wasnt. The kids did not fight. Not one time. And they also did not start asking, "are we there yet?" until we were 60 miles away from being THERE! LOL!

The first two days we explored Boulder and Denver. We met up with my friend Kim who lives in Boulder and enjoyed a dinner with her. She is lovely. Then we fished. We fished a kids pond right next to Boulder creek. We fished some more at Cherry Creek Reservoir and at Rocky Mt Lake.
The girls caught fish (and crawdads), Clay only caught some crawdads :)

We also spent a day in Breckenridge resort. We went to Peak 8 where there is a family fun park. We did all the activities there and then explored the downtown area. The kids loved this. Breckenridge was super cold(39 degrees) and wasnt having the best weather the day we were there. That was the only thing I did not like.

The day after Breckenridge we went to Estes Park. Wow. Beautiful. Although the drive to the top of Rocky Mt National park left a lot to be desired in my opinion :) Scary much? We did some hiking, visited Bear Lake, visited the waterfalls before the drive up though & it was amazing stuff.

The highlight of the trip for me and the kids was on the 2nd to last day we were there. That day we were suppose to drive up Pikes Peak. We started the day at Academy Riding Stables. Our intention was to go on a *quick* horse ride for me and the older two kids with a pony ride tossed in for Eden. We ended up doing a tour on horse back through Garden Of The Gods. It took up most of the day but boy was it beautiful. It was an unforgettable experience. I was not thrilled to be on the horse initially. Its not that Im scared of them. Im not. Its just that they are huge and seem somewhat unpredictable. But after about 15 minutes I felt pretty certain the horse and I were going to get along and she wasnt going to hurt me. After that I relaxed and just took it all in. It was the hottest day of our trip and it was great. Being on that horse, in the sun, riding through all the rock formations was something I will not forget anytime soon.
We never did make it up Pikes Peak. We ran out of daylight. But something tells me we will be back to Colorado again. It was a fantastic trip :)

This is just a sampling of the 400+ pics I took that trip :)

So what do you do when its over 100 degrees out?

You swim. You soak. You spend the entire day in the swimming pool your husband hates.
Its too hot to do anything else.

A conversation with Eden today

Eden: When are we getting ready & leaving?
Me: getting ready? For what? We arent going anywhere today.
Eden: stares at me blankly for a moment
Me: Sometimes its nice to just take the day off relax and not have plans.
Eden: Well ok but the house could be a little cleaner I think.
Me: you get on that then Eden.

My baby is a 5yr old now!

Its official. We have no babies in our house now. It seemed like we were never gonna get there a lot of times. Now that we are its bittersweet. Eden turned 5 and this August she joins her sister at the local elementary school. Clay will start middle school.
We had a party for her at a place called Kids N Art. The revelers painted a canvas to take home.
They ate cake and drank juice ;) Thanks much to John, my friend Luisa's husband who showed up and photographed the event for me so I could relax and take in the party. Good friends are a treasure wouldnt you agree?

A nice way to kick off summer

School has been out for summer break just a little over a week now. We all look fwd to grilling outside, lots of time in our pool, taking walks after dinner and stopping at the playground on the way home. We dont usually have to worry too much about severe weather unless your counting heat waves. However, on Wednesday evening I ran to the market to pick up coffee,milk, bread the stuff that we seem to need replenished every couple days during the summer. I wasnt even home 5 minutes and still unloading the stuff when out of the blue our tornado sirens went off. I ushered everyone into their hiding spot (our downstairs powder room) while I turned on the bedroom tv and turned up loud so I could listen from the bathroom (we need a weather radio). Yep, we had approx 12 minutes before a severe thunderstorm would be right on top of us. As I was watching the radar 11 rotations sprouted up across the radar so there was potential for serious tornadoes.
Our far North corner of Plano faired well this time. No roofs, no fences were lost. No stray trampolines in our yard (or trees!). West Plano seemed to get pummeled and many residents were without power for a couple days. In 100+ degree heat that is huge drag. The next night there was a repeat of storms on the West side Dallas which is pretty unusual for June. Expected in April but strange in mid June.
I stepped outside and snapped some pictures of the red sky as soon as the storm passed over us Wednesday night. The pics are fuzzy because it was still raining and I didnt take time to steady the camera. The pictures of the yellow sky were snapped by a friend of mine the next evening, she sent them to me so I could share them with you.
TTFN

Spring Break

We just finished spring break about the 2nd week of March. I had a nice surprise in store for the kids. The grandparents! The grandparents had decided about January they were going to drive down to stay for the week. I had to keep it under wraps for 2.5 months, which was no easy task.
We couldnt have asked for better weather. It was in the mid to high 70's all week. The boys golfed, the girls did what girls do. We shopped, cooked and there was some craft making involved. We visited the Dallas Arboretum, sampled BBQ and tex-mex as well. It was a very pleasant week.
We were so glad they got to come.