Ahhhh.....

Jason installed misters today! Love them!

-- Post From My iPhone

Patio Is Complete!

The patio was completed last Friday. We absolutely love it and was worth every penny we paid. We still have other things we'd like to do. Our plans include - new patio furniture, add a ceiling fan, a tv, lights on the cedar posts, and landscaping. Eventually we plan to add flagstone over the cement or do stamped concrete, but I don't forsee that being done this summer. We'll probably wait until the end of summer to buy new patio furniture in hopes that we find some good end of season clearance sales.

Summer Storms

So, last night I came home from work and immediately put on my running clothes so I couldn't talk myself out of running last night. (After running, I had planned on updating the blog with pictures.) Although it looked it might rain, I checked the radar and it appeared to be going north of us. I left Colby on the couch watching TV and Tristen was at football camp. While running, Jason (who was working one of his 24 hour clincial rotations at Addison Fire Dept.) sent me a text telling me that we were going to get hit hard with rain/storms and for Tristen not to start the sprinklers tonight. I blew it off b/c the radar showed it going around us. I get back from a quick 20 minute run around the neighborhood and take a breather. I decided to go sit under our *almost* finished covered patio and read through a magazine while I cool off. While I'm sitting out there, I realize that eh, it might rain. I decided to head up to the football field early just in case they end early due to the weather. As I'm driving up there, Tristen calls me and tells me that they ended early. (We live like 2 minutes from the high school football field.) I pick him up, and we make the short drive home. No more than do I pull my car in the garage, and get inside and then I hear the tornado sirens. WHAT????????? Seriously. I thought it was just a fluke so I turn on the TV and they are talking about the storms, but I was too impatient to sit and listen further so I went to the computer and saw that CRAP....we really were under a tornado warning! Holy Crap! I called Jason right quick and put the dog in the garage. Jason said, 'I told you so!' I said, 'Ok, love you....gotta go.' The boys were in a standstill like what the heck is going on. I told Tristen to get the blankets and pillows and to put them in the bathroom. I grab the candles and flashlight, and then the power went out. The bathroom was HOT and finally I moved us to the hall. It was scary for about 15-20 minutes and then I decided all was clear. After the storm has passed and we had been without power for 2 hours, I decided that we'd go eat somewhere and at least get out of the house. The power company said restoration time was 2-4 hours at about 7;30. So, at 9 we went driving around looking at the damage and we went and ate at Rosa's to kill some time. We get back to the house around 10 and still no power. By this point the house is pitch black, so I lit the candles. The boys took showers by candlelight. LOL! I put the boys to bed and then went to bed myself. I woke up around 1am and the power was back on.

Soooooooo.......to make an even longer story short. We survived. There are trees on our street down, split in half, or small to large branches broken. Fences are down and a business that is near the entrance of our subdivision lost part of it's roof and it is lying on top of a neighbor's swingset/fence/pool. There are scattered pieces of roof all throughout that side of the neighborhood. I took more pictures last night after the storm had passed, but I haven't gotten to up load them yet. The boys and I walked the neighborhood to see all the damage and to talk to a few neighbors. Here are some snapshots I took with my phone this morning. Fortunately, the only damage I think we suffered was a broken tree branch. It flew from one side of the yard to the other side of the yard....fairly close to Tristen's large window. So....it was a scary night. I just can't believe how quickly the storm came in. I'm 99% sure there were still some kids at the football field house that had not been picked up by the time the big part of the storm blew through. There was some rotation about a mile and 1/2 from our house, so it was definitely close. My guess is that straightline winds are what came through our neighborhood and did the damage. In my 8 1/2 years in Dallas, I don't know that I've had this strong of storms come directly through my area.

One of our neighbor's trees

Same neighbor's other tree & speed limit sign

Another view of down trees

This is the only after effect that I've seen around our house. This branch came from our tree on the opposite side of the yard.

Tonight....

My goal is to upload pictures from Memorial Day Weekend vacation, Colby's 5th grade graduation, and our trip to Round Rock.

Our schedule has been i.n.s.a.n.e for the past week. I know I seem to say that a lot, but here is a quick run down of my craziness from the past week.

• June 3rd - work event in the evening
• June 4th - Colby's baseball game (then pack and get ready to leave for Round Rock)
• June 5th - Colby's graduation, last day of school, left for Round Rock baseball tournament
• June 5th - 7th - in Round Rock for tournament
• June 8th - Golf Tournament for work, rush home after tournament ended to get Colby to the Dr. to make sure his allergies aren't developing into a full fledged cold.
• June 9th - 8:15am Dr appt for Colby's ankle, rushed to work to finish presentation, print recognition certificates, and finish a report all by 1:15. Left work at 1:30 to rush back to Lewisville for a Counselor's appt (for Tristen) with Jason at 2pm. Finished up with Counselor, ran home to check on the boys, and then went to my follow-up Dr appt at 3:45. Rushed out of Dr office, home to grab Colby and get to his game by 5pm. In b/w all that, Jason stopped by the house to pick up Tristen for football camp at 4pm. Fortunately, I was able to unwind with a beer at the "moms meeting" before Colby's baseball game. (The boys have to be there an hour prior to game time to warm up, so the moms head down the street to happy hour.)
• June 10th - Jason is doing one of his clinical rotations at Addison Fire Department, so he is gone for 24 hours. Fortuantely, my brother is off today and so he is helping me get Tristen to football camp at 4, so I don't have to leave work early, AGAIN! Colby was supposed to have baseball practice, but thankfully it was cancelled!
• June 11th - baseball game @ 6...if we win...game @ 8.
• June 13 & 14th - guess what????? more baseball!!!!!!!!!!!! Thankfully Colby loves the game and loves playing so much! We love it as long as he loves it!

So, now that I will actually be at home for the entire evening, I hope to upload some pictures!

Colby's 5th Grade Graduation

Colby 'graduated' from 5th grade on June 5th. He was awarded with several awards, including A/B Honor Roll all year and Golden Eagle all year, which is for having a conduct grade each 6 weeks above 90. He brought home his 'Honors Student' sticker, but he said I didn't have to put it on my car. LOL! He was like I'm not even going to elementary school anymore, so what's the point in putting it on your car. LOL!

Seeing this banner....made me chuckle! I was class of '98!

The family....minus Tristen who was at school

Colby, Josh & Hudson

Colby, Hudson, Josh & Mitchell (I like Mitchell b/c at their Christmas class party, he asked Colby if I was his older sister.LOL!)
Colby & his homeroom teacher - Mrs. Reinacher

So busy....

Busy, busy times in the Hopper House. I haven't had the time to update the blog. I have our Memorial Day Vacation blog ready to go, but I'm just need to add the pictures. Sitting down, sifting through the pictures, and putting them on here is the hard part. Actually, finding the time to do all of that is the hard part.

Colby has had either baseball practice or a game almost every other day. Work has been insane with 2 major events coming up. One is tonight, so that will be out of the way. Friday, we leave for Round Rock for Colby's baseball tournament and we'll be there through Sunday. We'll return on Sunday and then I have be up and bright eyed and bushy tailed at my department's Annual Golf Tournament. I need another vacation already.

Tristen tried out for the Wind Symphony band and he made it. While I don't fully understand what the difference b/w Wind Symphony and the Symphonic band is, the Wind Symphony band is the 'better/more advanced' band in 7th & 8th grade. Both bands are combined with 7th & 8th graders, so we are proud of Tristen making the 'more advanced' band.

School is out on Friday! Wooohooo! Colby has his '5th Grade Memories' ceremony on Friday and Tristen has Final Exams today through Friday. Things don't seem to slow down though even once Friday hits. Next week, Tristen has football camp, Colby has a foot Dr. appointment for an ankle that has been bothering him, and then the following week Tristen has a dentist appointment and soon after that an Orthodonist appointment for braces.

Our covered back patio was started the Friday before Memorial Day and it should be finished by early next week. The rain has postponed them working on the patio a couple days, so I'm hoping for no more rain until the patio is done. It is looking great and we can't wait for it to be done. Jason will have his hands full with reviving the grass in the backyard. It is pretty much shot from all of the materials laying on it. Oh well. It will be back to good in no time! :)

I promise to update the blog soon with pictures and our vacation post.

Vacation to San Antonio

We headed out Friday morning after boarding Tigger. We wanted to leave at like 6:30am, but the place where we leave Tigger doesn't open until 7:30am, so that put a damper on us leaving before the sun came up. Kids were packed with their game boys, iPods, word search books and snacks. We made pretty good time and the question, 'Are we there yet?' was only asked maybe 5 times. The first one came - an hour into the trip. We made our first stop in Round Rock to eat lunch and then got back in the car and went to Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. We had the boys choose between the Wildlife Ranch and the Natural Bridge Caverns. They chose the Wildlife Ranch, thankfully. I went to the Carlsbad Caverns (in Carlsbad, NM) so many times in my childhood, I'm set for life on seeing caverns. We drove through the ranch and had fun feeding the animals. The Emus and Zebras were the best. The Emu scared the CRAP out of me and then Jason decided to feed him out of the bag. While the pictures show just a little bit of it, it was quite amusing. The Zebras were hilarious. They would not leave the car. We had people driving around us b/c the Zebras wouldn't move. I was trying to get Colby to hand feed one of them and he got scared. One of the Zebras got a little friendly with Jason and then sneezed all over him. (Thank goodness I'm a prepared mom and packed the antibacterial wipes.)

After our tour of the ranch and getting to see all of the animals, we were back on the road for what we had hoped to be a short 20 minute drive to our hotel. Well, the short 20 minute drive turned into an hour due to a terrible wreck on our route. We finally arrived at our hotel, got settled in and unpacked. We then headed down to the Riverwalk to meet up with Jason's dad and step mom. The boys got to see the Alamo for the first time, but we were unable to walk through it b/c it closed before we got there. We enjoyed dinner on the Riverwalk at Zuni's. It really wasn't our type of 'mexican' food but it was good. We walked around the Riverwalk for a little bit and found our way to Marble Slab. Yum! We finally called it a night and headed back to our hotel. The following morning we get up and get ready. I opened the curtains and saw in the parking lot, my old high school charter bus! Mind you, we are 400 miles from my hometown. I was determined to see someone at breakfast from Wink. Although, any of the kids that were there probably don't even remember me, since it has been 11 years since I was in high school. I did run into one girl who recognized me and then I ran into my old Computer Applications teacher and my old Biology II teacher/coach. It is such a small world!!

Saturday, we got up, had breakfast and headed to Uncle Mike's house (Jason's Dad's Brother) for Jason's Grandma's 80th b-day. All of Jason's Dad's side of the family were there. There were lots of Uncles, cousins and 2nd cousins that the boys and I had never met and that Jason hadn't seen since they were little kids. We had a fun filled day of hanging out, swimming, hot tubing, and catching up. Uncle Mike smoked brisket and sausage, Aunt Kathy made potato salad, pasta salad, and lots of other goodies. We were all fed VERY well!!!!!! It was great for everyone to be together to celebrate Grandma's 80th bday. She made sure to let us know that we had to do this again for her 90th bday. We can't wait!

After a long day of hanging out with family, we finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel to get some rest before Sea World on Sunday. We got to Sea World right as it was opening. I packed a few snacks and a bottle of water in the boys backpacks. We came up with a game plan to watch all of the shows we wanted to see first and THEN go to the water park. We went and saw Shamu, Sea Lions, Water Ski, and we tried to see the Dolphin show, but not once but twice, we got there too late and the place was packed. We finally headed over to the water park but had to wait 25 minutes to get in. Right as we go to the turnstile to get in, it started raining and thundering. So, we waited under the awning for 15 minutes. I was getting antsy. I'm not a 'crowd' type person and I had all of these people around me trying to get in under the awning. Eck....It grosses me out just thinking about it. They finally started letting people through into the water park, but it was still lightly raining. They couldn't open the pools/water slides until they didn't hear thunder/lightning for 30 minutes. It would be silent for about 10 minutes and then a rumble of thunder would pass. Finally, we said screw it. I went and go a locker, put all of our stuff in it and then went about our way back to the rest of the park. It is still lightly raining and at times raining pretty good, by this point. We made our way over for the boys to feed the dolphins ($5 for 3 little minnows or whatever they are!!!!!) We then went to see the Sharks/Coral Reef area.....trying to stall and hope that it will quit raining. Nope...it was still raining when we left the Shark exhibit. We made our way back over to the Dolphin show, mind you an hour early this time. Guess what.....we got a seat! Whew! It was a long hour of just sitting, but it was worth it to see the dolphin show. The sun finally decided to show it's face again. Thankfully, b/c the radar I kept checking on my iPhone during the dolphin show didn't show to be very promising. We hauled booty back over to the waterpark and thankfully did not have to stand in line to get BACK into the water park. The boys were in heaven! They mainly stayed in the wave pool which they just thought was the best thing (even though they've been in one before). They didn't seem interested in riding any of the slides or tube rides. We finally convinced them to go hang out in the lazy river for a little bit. We are lucky that the boys are at an age where we can give them a little freedom, and not have to be by there side every step of the way. They are pretty good about being punctual and checking in when needed. While the boys were enjoying the lazy river, Jason and I decided it was about time to go. We packed up and hit up the gift shops. We gave the boys a certain amount of 'spending money' each day that they could use or carry over to the next day. (My mom did this with us kids when we went on trips and it worked out well.) The gift shops were the biggest BEAT DOWN of all at Sea World. We went to 4 freakin' gift shops and they boys STILL had the hardest time finding something. They wanted to get SOMETHING, but nothing really seemed to catch their eye. It was a jurassic beat down doing this as the last thing before we left, but I didn't want to lug around whatever it was they bought all freakin' day long. After we finally finished up in the gift shops, we made our trek back to the entrance to leave. We 'had' to take a family pic, but it was at the end of the day...a LONG day, so it really isn't that fabulous of a picture. Oh well! While treking back to our car, we found out that J's Dad, Sisters & Family, and Uncle Rudy were all down on the Riverwalk for dinner. We high tailed it from Sea World to downtown just in time for dinner. We ate at The Original (I think that is the name of it). It was damn good mexican food!

Monday, we packed up and headed out. The boys HAD to swim at the hotel pool, so J let them swim while I packed up our bags. We hit some traffic along the way, but nothing terrible. We made a stop in Salado at Dairy Queen. A road trip in Texas isn't complete without a stop at Dairy Queen and a Blizzard!!!!!!!!!