spending time with family in Tulia

Between reunion events, we got to spend time with Alex's family in Tulia. LOTS of brothers and their wifes, nephews and neices and all their families!!! It was fun!

Gary with Natalee and Kaylin. (Cherri and John's pretty girl!)

Natalee and me!! (Dwight and Andreia's one and only!)

Me and newest baby Sophia (Skyler and Crystal's.)

2 of my cutie pie great neices!!! WOW I'm old!!

4 of my cute nephews, Skyler and his son Andrew, John and his son, Christian! HANDSOME!

Another brother, Kelly and great neice Kiki.

Here is Alex and I with his brother Gary and wife Cheryl!

We got to spend time with family we don't get to see very much. We had a great time!

Isn't my husband the cutest?!! This is our 30th year class reunion this year. We are leaving to go to Tulia/Canyon in the morning to celebrate!! I am excited to go back and see everyone. The next week we will be staying at the Gaylord Texan for a few days for a convention and then we are off to Chicago for a week! This picture is from last summer on our 25th wedding anniversary in Cayman.

Wow!!! summer is half over... good times go fast!

Lindsey and Kristin are moving again. They are moving from their cute loft apartment in downtown Dallas to Uptown. This apartment is in the cutest area!!!! I talk to Lindsey just about everyday, but I don't see her too often, maybe once a week. She is spending lots of time with her boyfriend, Carr. So, basicly when we see Lindsey, we see Carr! He is a sweetie!

Brady is turning 21 on Monday, the 21st of July and moving back to Stillwater on the 23rd. He had his girlfriend come and stay with us last night. She is a really sweet girl. We enjoyed her here.

workin' on the house

Just a bit of an update on our house remodel...

This is one of the first things Alex built for me. Isn't my white fence and arbor pretty?

This is our breakfast porch!

This is our formal dining which is the latest remodel.

We have painted the walls, trim, floors and put in a black decorated ceiling tins. The ceiling is very high here and it is one of my favorite rooms. We can fit around 10 to eat in this room. The closet is a butler's pantry.

My bedroom is probably my favorite. It is chocolate brown and light teal. We had to completely start from scratch here. The original room was rough cedar walls with a franklin stove. We rebulit walls and a linen closet, took out the stove and put in new windows. Alex is an awesome handy-man. The ceilings are a very light shade of teal. They are also very high and are tin ceilings.

We also had to take out a very small bathroom and a closet to make us a larger master bath. The floor was coming up and we could see layers of wallpaper back to about the 1930's! We started all over and did the brown and teal colors, put in cork floors, crackled our tin ceilings and Alex did another awesome job!! We kept the original tub, but everything else was new!

MY CLOSET!!!!!!!!!!

2nd day of summer!

ok, it is officially summer '08! Yipee! another school year accomplished. I just finished my 5th year of teaching at Midlothian and my 8th year overall. Sitting at the end of the year awards with my teammates, Cortni leaned over to me and whispered, I have "21" (or 23, something like that!!) years to teach until retirement. That means she can retire at approximately 50 or so years old.... So, I asked her to calculate when I can retire... 60 or 62! OH NO! that is a long time away!!

Brady is home for the summer. He is doing summer school at Navarro taking Spanish. He is doing ODD jobs, (pool boy, lawn boy, unloading misc. stuff for Pam, special project for MISD, dishwasher unloader... but working) and spending lots of time with us and his friend, Katie. This is Katie and Brady at the Ft. Worth Zoo!

Brady is LOVING college! He is enjoying all aspects of college life! I think the school spirit is definitely his favorite! "go pokes!" Anyway, Brady and John at a OSU game!

Lindsey is teaching summer school this summer and loving getting paid for hanging out all summer... that is the perks of teaching school! It has been a fun year! JAV Elementary had both of us teaching this year, me in 3rd and Lindsey in 1st! We all love JAV! and they must love both Mrs. and Ms. Vaughn!!! :) Here we are at our favorite "OJEDAS" hangout!

Lindsey's new friend is Carr Smith. (Carr is the nephew of my longtime best friend, Lori!) Here is Lindsey and Carr at the lake. (she wants me to tell you not to notice the "ugly lake hair!")

well... that is it for now...

and... "yippee for summer!!!!!!"

the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!

My nephew, Brandon and son, Brady have had their shares of "mishaps!" Both Brandon and Brady are always playing every video game, basketball 'one on one' game, race, monopoly or whatever, like it was the Olympics. Each game was the "championship!!" Well, here is what has happened to both in the past year. Brady has dislocated and had surgery on BOTH shoulders! He was playing football in high school for the original injury. But intramural basketball, fraternity boxing, jumping off cliffs into a lake and throwing snowballs at an annoying kid has been the subsequent reasons for the need for surgery. Brandon is recovering from a broken nose which resulted in surgery a few weeks back and he was diving for the ball last week (in what I am sure was another Olympic championship sand volleyball game) in which he spent 7 hours in the ER and looks like the elephant man.

That led to the discussion of how many times we have visited the ER during their childhood.

Lindsey's were limited to a few breaks, falling out of trees, head butts in soccer and high fever.

But Brady... not counting the many visits for pneumonia when he was a baby, we had to visit often. He almost had his ear completely severed by a golf club by a 4th grade classmate, we found out he was highly allergic to penicillin and then again visited for a really bad reaction to ibuprofen. (I was detained for a bit while they questioned me for possible abuse! That was a scary one, his blood vessels burst all over his face he was swelling so quickly.) Then we have the knee injuries, bleeding head from wake boarding... shoulder dislocations and the other normal ER visits.

But as I sit here writing this blog, I am listening to the yells of triumph and the screams of defeat while some sort of game (I am sure it is for the championship!!) is being played in my living room. Brady is 3 weeks shy of turning 21 and Brandon is 7 months older. I have a feeling that this is going to be the norm for these 2 cousins that have had the worst fights ever, but love each other dearly. When they become married, grown men with their own kids... I doubt it will be any different.

"1st time to blog..."

Well, I have always wanted to create my own blog, but never seemed to find the time. I love to read other friend's blogs, but here I go! Alex and I have been "empty nesters" for 2 years now. Our oldest, Lindsey graduated from SFA in 2007, and our youngest will start his 3rd year at OSU this next fall. We all 4 love to read, travel, ski and mexican food! We all 4 love Harry Potter, going to the movies and just hanging out! We all love Jesus and each other.

"Lindsey"
SFA graduate, AXO, 1st grade teacher
Lindsey and her cousin Kristin live in a loft in downtown Dallas. They are having a blast!!! Lindsey is an awesome little teacher and she has made us very proud!

"Brady"
Junior at OSU, Phi Delta Theta fraternity, living at home this summer...
Brady lives at the fraternity house at OSU. He has some really neat friends, Trevor, John and Rhett. Brady just loves life!


"OSCAR!!"
Oscar is my sweet puppy. He is a Malchi. He is the best dog we have ever had. He loves everybody and everybody loves him!! He minds us so good. I love my puppy!

OK, now Alex and I. We have been having a blast "empty nesting!!" But we always knew we would. We love to go to movies, out to eat, go with our friends and just hang out at the house. We spend a lot of time swinging on the porch. Oh, and we are slowly redoing an old house... built around 1892, we are just taking our time and redoing a room at a time. I will show some of our rooms later.

I am teaching 3rd grade (5 years back at teaching!) and Alex is a VP for Government Relations for a company in Ft. Worth. He is the best husband and my very best friend. We have been married 26 years this June, pretty awesome huh?

I am so lucky to have a wonderful family.

(I just read this to my sister, Denise, and she said...."hey, what about me!!!" I know, yes we are sisters... more about us later... lots!! about my family growing up, too! My parents and sisters, nephews and neices are great!)

Well, here's to my 1st blog....