More Port A pics

We haven't had much going on lately, so I thought I would just go ahead and post more Port A pics since we have a ton of them! Pray for me. I have an upper respiratory infection that I just can't kick. I've had it for two weeks and it's not going away. I feel like poop. Otherwise everything is going fine here. Hope is cutting more teeth and is somewhat cranky lately, but is otherwise in good spirits. Her vocabulary is beginning to really amaze us. She is still full of her girly attitude and is always up to something! I can't believe she'll be two in less than a month!! It's crazy! Stephen is acting like a madman trying to get VBS done. We have less than a month now and he's in charge of it. He could use your prayers too as he tries to find voluteers, coordinates with people, etc. We are glad that we have a three day weekend this week to catch a little break! We hope everyone has a great and safe Memorial Day weekend!

Here's Hope in the car, hamming it up for the camera...

Destroying Daddy's sand castle...

In front of the USS Lexington...

Watching the dolphins at the Aquarium...

All three of us...

More digging in the sand...

Walking on the beach...

Trip to Port Aransas

We just got back last weekend from taking a week-long vacation to Port Aransas. We had planned to go in July, but the prices were cheaper in the spring and the resorts are less crowded, so we just decided to go ahead and go. Our trip was wonderful. We stayed in a condo with a balcony that looked out over the beach. We enjoyed playing at the beach, swimming in the heated pool, visiting the Corpus Christi Aquarium, eating out, and just relaxing. Stephen's parents came in town over the weekend and we enjoyed eating, visiting, and, of course, playing dominos with them. Stephen went fishing with his dad one night. They caught lots of catfish and enjoyed having some male bonding time. Wehad lots of fun with them and wish we could see them more. On our way home we stopped by and visited my mom in Marble Falls. It was good to see her so close to Mother's Day. I hope all you moms had a great Mother's Day. Mine was really nice. We, of course, had a busy day since it was Sunday, but Stephen spent plenty of time spoiling me. We are looking forward to summer. It's still pretty cool up here (in the 60's with lots of rain), but it is supposed to warm up soon. It's amazing what a difference there is between north Texas weather and south Texas weather. It was so warm down there already! We hope you all have a wonderful summer!

The men posing with their catches...As an aside, Stephen grew his facial hair out this past week and refuses to shave it. I don't know if this is some manly rite of passage or what...

Hope playing in the sand. It's amazing what a bucket and shovel and some sand will do for a baby. She was thoroughly content for hours just to sit and put sand in her bucket, pour it out and then start all over. Now I see why some parents have a sand box in their backyard!

Our feeble attempt at family pictures. Hope was scared of the beach for the most part. I guess she was scared we would throw her in or something. We were hoping to put these on a Christmas card, but I don't think that's going to happen!

On the ferry going over to Aransas Pass. Hope was scared...as usual...

Swimming in the pool with Daddy...

Walking along the beach. She was fine as long as someone was carrying her...

I just had to add this. We saw a coconut washed ashore! Crazy huh?! I wonder how long of a trip it had...

Just some random shots...

My grandpa Smith passed away this morning...

Just wanted to update you all. My grandpa Smith died suddenly this morning, April 23rd. He had a series of strokes last week, but pulled through them, making a good recovery. However, he passed this morning unexpectedly, 6 years to the day that my grandma lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. I will be leaving tomorrow morning to attend the funeral. Please keep Stephen and Hope in your prayers as they will be staying here. Love you all...

Trip to Granbury and the Zoo

We had a great weekend last weekend. Stephen has wanted to join the Singing Men of North Central Texas (a group of active and retired music ministers) for a long time now. He finally decided that since their next concert was in Granbury it would give him the perfect opportunity to visit Aunt Sara and Uncle William and to join the group. We drove down to Granbury on Thursday morning and met Aunt Sara for lunch at a tea room with amazing sandwiches. Stephen left to go rehearse for the day with the Singing Men while Hope, Aunt Sara and I went shopping at Walmart. We all met up for dinner with Uncle William at a new Chinese restaurant in Granbury, then we headed to the concert. The church was packed with people. Even the overflow room was packed out. We were glad that some of Sara and William's friends saved us a seat. I had to leave early because Hope was not thrilled at all about being in the nursery, but what I saw of the concert was amazing. The room was so full of energy, and it was so good to see so many people worshiping. There were over 100 Singing Men performing and they had an orchestra and handbell choir too. Hope really took to Aunt Sara and Uncle William quickly. She figured out pretty fast that they are cool people. Thanks Aunt Sara and Uncle William for taking such good care of us while we were down there!

We saw this out the window on our way to Granbury. It is called a circumhorizontal arc. It looks a lot like a rainbow, but it's not. It is a rare optical phenomenon. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

"The arc is formed as light rays enter the horizontally-oriented flat hexagon crystals through a vertical side face and exit through the horizontal bottom face. It is the 90° inclination that produces the well-separated rainbow-like colours and, if the crystal alignment is just right, makes the entire cirrus cloud appear to shine like an undulating rainbow."

It was SOOO neat to see and we got lots of cool pictures of it!

On Saturday we decided to get out a little early and head to the Dallas Zoo. We weren't sure if it would be rainy or not, but we checked the radar and felt confident that the weather would cooperate. We were wrong. It rained quite a bit, but we still managed to see most of the animals. Hope is obsessed with animals, so it was a lot of fun.

The ride home from the zoo... She was tuckered out!

A few pics of Hope...

Lots of pics of the pigtails...

Hope finding her Easter basket...

Small update and a few pictures...

Hope is feeling lots better lately. It took her about 2 weeks to get over the bronchitis, but I think we're in the clear here, thank goodness.

Hope is growing so fast and learning new things everyday. She's like a little sponge. She can speak in 2-3 word sentences now, can sing her ABC's (on pitch too!), can count to 10, and is just running around all over the place being a busy little girl. We have been working with her on shapes and colors for awhile, but I think those are such abstract concepts that it is going to take her a little while to catch on. She finally has enough hair to do little baby pigtails (YAY!), so hopefully no more old people will be calling her a little boy (even when she's dressed in pink from head to toe)! We are really enjoying this stage. It is so neat to see her absorbing everything. She is still a GREAT eater and sleeper. She will eat almost anything we give her, which is great. She sleeps from 8 at night to about 8:45 or 9:00 in the morning and does a two hour nap in the afternoon, so she gives her mommy and daddy plenty of rest, which is nice.

Stephen and I are well, just busy as usual. Stephen has been preparing for the Easter service, getting all the music ready. He is also busy with Children's/Preschool stuff, which means he's completely in charge of VBS this year on top of everything else he has to do. If you have ever been in charge of a VBS, you know what a huge feat this is. Thankfully, he's got some good children's workers who are very helpful and supportive. My internship is still going well and I am learning a lot. School is going well too. I have finals in a couple weeks, so pray for me! Barring any huge tragedies I should manage A's in both classes. I'm also still busy with MMO and helping Stephen out at church.

Ok, now for the good stuff....

My sister came in town last weekend for my cousin's baby shower. She had lots of fun with Hope. I did get more pictures than this, but they are all on my phone and I have lost the adapter, so I guess they are forever stuck on my phone...

Bed-head

Our budding pianist...

Hope you enjoyed. I have a ton more (especially of her pig-tails, we are just so elated that she finally has hair!!!), but will have to find the adapter first before I can post them. Love you all!

Update

Many of you have been asking how the internship has been going, so I thought I'd update real quick. It's been going really well. I'm learning a lot, but there is SO much that I don't know, especially when it comes to graphics, animation, movie-making, etc. That's all part of it too. You have to know how to make weather maps and then animate them to show fronts moving and that kind of stuff, so I really have a lot to learn! Sometimes it's kind of frustrating because I feel like I should know more, but I just have to remind myself that I've never done this before and that I'm just an intern. They don't expect me to know everything yet. Anyway, I am going two days a week and have been for about a month now. The guy that I've been working with is really nice and really knowledgeable.

Being gone from my family for just a few hours 2 days a week is a lot harder than I thought it would be. To be honest, I never want to be away from them at all. That's probably the hardest part about the internship. Otherwise, I'm really enjoying it. I think this will be really telling as to whether or not I do this as a career or not. I am coming to find out that I just really love teaching, so maybe I would teach Geosciences somewhere if I'm not going to become a Broadcast Meteorologist. We will see what God has in store for us.

In other news, Hope has Bronchitis. She was running fever on Thursday, but it was real low-grade. She was also kind of cranky and kept telling me her mouth hurt, so I chaulked it up to teething. However, she woke up Thursday night at like 10:30 screaming, coughing, throwing up, and gasping for air (this after an hour and a half under a tornado warning and baseball sized hail! We had cleaned out our hallway closet ready to get in!). It was all really scary. None of us slept a wink that night, Hope just cried and coughed all night long and had a really high fever. It was so sad! Friday morning I got her in right away. They listened to her lungs and they were all clear, so that was good. She got a diagnosis of Bronchitis and two shots of antibiotics in her legs (she also got a suppository for her constipation). She was MAD at me after all that! Now she's on Zithromax for the next few days. She seems to be doing better, although she is still running a low fever and is coughing really badly. Everytime she coughs she starts crying because it hurts so bad. I feel so bad for her. Anyway, just pray for us (mainly Hope right now). We definitely count our blessings because she has hardly been sick at all since she was born. It was just our time to pay some sick dues!

Stephen is doing well, just getting ready for Easter and planning for VBS, etc. He keeps himself busy no matter what time of year it is! Sorry no pictures! I will try to get some up next time!

Love you all!