Basketball Pics

I finally got the kids basketball pictures recently, so I thought I'd share them.

Academic Excellence Banquet

Ashlyn had such good grades this year that she got invited to the Academic Excellence Award Banquet for Mason high which was last night. Those invite all had 3.95 GPA's for the first 5 6-week periods of the year and they all got a plaque. I was so proud of her! If she gets this all 4 years of high school, she'll be in a drawing for a computer her senior year.

Here she is with her award:


And not to be outdone, here is Colten, with a fish he caught while we were visiting Omie & Opie A while they were camping at South Llano River State Park.

Rain!

We were very blessed this week and got 3.5 inches of rain over two days, it was wonderful! I wish everyone around here had gotten that much, but we'll take it. Everything is much greener now and I got to see the dry creek below the house with some water in it for the first time ever!

One exciting bit of news is that I'm writing this blog from home on our new high speed internet connection!!! :) Granted, I can't use it for work, but they were offering HughesNet satellite service with no installation or equipment fees (usually about $500) and with a reduced monthly rate, so we jumped on that offer. It's great to kind of be in the 21st century out here finally!

Since it's been awhile, here are some photos from the last few weeks:

Colten's field trip to the alamo:

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RAIN!

Water in the creek:



Ashlyn driving! (scary!) She finished the online driver's ed class and will start the (parent, aka John, taught) driving part when she gets her permit after she turns 15, yikes!

Easter

Hope everyone had a nice Easter! Ours was good, we had our usual BBQ (that was actually a fish fry this year due to the burn ban) and sunrise service. Here are some pics from the weekend:

Easter 2011

Tomorrow, John & I are going with Colten on his school field trip to the Alamo, should be fun :)

The kids finished up taking taks tests this week, I think they did alright, Colten said his were easy but long!

John was supposed to go to Junction today to help with the 6000+ acre wildfire going on there, but fortunately, it was under control enough that he got to turn around in Harper. I hope they get it out soon, all these fires are nerve wrecking!

My weeks have been messed up lately and my usual Monday Austin trip has been on Tuesdays or Wednesdays lately. And next week it looks like I'll have to be there 4 days for training, yay. Please continue to pray for my manager, he's taking leave starting May 1 to focus on his health. He is fighting pancreatic cancer and has been losing a lot of weight and is sick from the chemo treatments. I really hope he is able to be cured. In the meantime, I have a different manager which is taking some getting used to since I've had the same one for the last 9 years or so.

Bluebonnets

Here is this year's bluebonnet pic of the kids, with the one bluebonnet in Omie B's yard. That's about as many as we've seen :(

Enchanted Rock

We had a great day at Enchanted Rock Friday - the weather was beautiful and there was hardly anyone there. We met the Harwell's there and the kids had a blast. John, Ashlyn, and Colten went through a cave where flashlights were necessary, but the rest of us were chicken :)

Here are the kids on our way up:


We were going to go up one of the other rocks, but John got a fire page so the rest of us went for pizza. John didn't get home until 12:30 that night all because of a guy camping and trying to cook lunch :(

Saturday Ashlyn and I had a great day shopping with my mom, Oma, Rena and aunts. It was a great girls day and we found some summer clothes for Ashlyn. She's not fond of shopping for long periods though and was ready to go after we found stuff for her. I'm going to have to get her over that!

Sunday we went to church and came home with an orphan calf to bottle feed! My parents found it (long story) and decided to give it to the kids to take care of. We named her Bluebell or Bell for short and the kids are having fun with her so far.

Cub Scouts

Our scouting year ended with the blue and gold banquet last night. John & I got everything ready for it and were ready to get it over with. Of course, Colten got of the bus with a headache, so John wasn't able to get there as early as he wanted, but thankfully Colten started to feel better and was all better by the time we ate. I was able to get everything decorated and organized mostly before he got there though. The banquet is when the boys get their patches and awards for the year and when the oldest boys cross over to boy scouts (Colten will be doing that next year). Everyone brings food and we celebrate another successful year (and now we only have one more year as leaders yay!). Colten got his Webelos badge, colors and several pins and also got an award for selling over $600 worth of popcorn.

Here's Colten getting his badge:

Here he is with the colors and pins on his shirt (under the flag) along with his badges.


This is a short week for the kids, their spring OFYP days are Thursday, Friday and Monday so they get to have a long weekend. I was hoping we might go camping at enchanted rock Thursday night, but I have a training session I have to call in to for work Friday morning so I guess we'll just try to go Friday afternoon. The kids are probably going to hang out with Omie B some, too. It's a nice break, I just wish they'd have it at the same time as Spring Break or a little further away. Oh well well take it!