Back to school!

I haven't down loaded all of the pictures from Utah, but here is a short sampling. We had a birthday party for Maren and Jess since we were in Utah for Jess's birthday and since Maren doesn't know the difference. It was fun for the girls. They got to swim and eat and swim, and then open presents. Aunt B got them the cute dresses to match (thanks B), and since we didn't get to go see Skye (Maren wasn't feeling well, and we decided it would be better to save the money) Carol took some pictures around the house in there cute new dresses. Beyond that, we are back in Texas. The drive home was beastly but I am getting better at the staying up all night. I pretty much launched right back into work, I had some meetings on Friday, and started TAing today. I am still trying to track down some lecture slides for the class I am teaching this semester, but I don't have to have that until a week from Thursday (sigh of relief). The girls started school today, Jess is in Pre-K and has the same teacher as Cora had last year. Cora goes to Kindergarten and will be at school all day. Carol was struggling with that thought last night. She is also having a hard time deciding how to balance out having Maren alone for a whole morning with the fact that when the baby gets here she will have to share Mommy again. We don't want her to get used to having no competition and make the transition that much harder, but we also want to give her as much one on one time as we can before she loses that chance. So it is a tuff (that spelling is for Michelle via NKOTB) line to walk. Besides that not much is new. We are heading to Waco for the Labor day weekend, and then school school and more school.
-JOSH

This tube kind of defeats the purpose, you can't flip it. Also it beat my back up pretty good, but the girls loved it, and it was fun when we got grown ups on it and actually got up to speed.

A little wake surfing. Lots of fun.

Uncle bones took Cora on the surf board, she loved it.

I don't know what that face is about, most of the time Jess was loving it.

Maren taking a drink. For some reason this is one of the few pics we got of her.

We have been horrible at remembering to bust out the camera on this trip. Although, up until Saturday we haven't been doing anything super exciting. The Cardon's took us out on their boat Saturday (THANKS GUYS). The girls had a blast. Even Maren did well. I could not believe how good the water was. I have never been on Utah Lake for over an hour with out at least a little bit of waves. But it was glass for the whole time, at least 3 hours. So that is all the news for now. I will probably post again soon. We are having to cut the trip a little short; I have to get back to school, and work, ugh. Although I did get a teaching position this semester which rocks. I am nervous and excited. If there is any more news I will post it next time (probably from Texas).
JOSH

House Pics

So as promised here are some pictures of inside the house. I didn't get to post one of Emmett's room/my office. But you get the idea. I have almost everything hung up and put away, and by the end of next week I hope we will be completely moved in. It is so nice to have so much room.
The first picture is of the living room, then the kitchen, Carol's and my room, the girls room, and the toy room.
Well, we made it to Utah. It was actually easier for me to drive through the night this time. I think it has to do with having the winding canyons on the last leg keeping me more alert. That was a huge struggle going back to Texas after Christmas break, because the roads are just long and straight. There will be some pictures soon, but till now the camera has been in the truck, oops. But it is out now. And now I have to go scream at my children for being to loud. J/K...

Scarring

There will be no pictures with this posting and you'll be grateful by the time that you get done reading this. Just this last Tuesday, the girls and I needed to get out of the house and they had been begging me to take them swimming. So I gave in and took them to an indoor pool in Denton.
Well, I needed a locker to hold our shoes, towels, money, keys etc. So we four walk into the locker room portion and there stands a down syndrome girl (in her forties or later) completely naked. And the girls caretaker walks in behind us and kind of blocks the doorway. The caretaker is telling the girl to get her swimming suit on. And guess what my girls are doing? Yep, they're staring... At this point, I am quickly yet subtlety finding a locker that would position us looking away from this scene. Well, to make things more fun, the locker keys have to be purchased before hand. So, thankfully that gave me a good reason to get out of there. I figured that by the time that we got back with a key, we would hopefully be alone in the locker room. As we were walking out to get a key, Jessica not so quietly says " I do NOT want to see that again." How can I keep a straight face and try to teach her to keep comments like that to herself? Well we timed it just right!!! The same girl was putting her legs through the holes of her swimming suit. So the girls also got to see how she took her time getting her suit on. Then she finally left. Yay!!!
We had a good time swimming. However, 5:30 arrived and I needed to get home so that I could get dinner started. So we got out of the pool and Jess and Cora expressed a need to go to the bathroom. After that, we went into the locker room to get our stuff and who should be there? yep that's right, the down syndrome girl and two others all naked. Oh sweet!! We timed it perfect....again. This time I was franticly trying to get the girls shoes on and adjusting the girls heads in the meantime. Jessica asked me why I was moving her head. "To give those ladies privacy." Clearly privacy is not something that they're concerned with. Luckily I got the girls done in record time and dashed out of there as soon as I could. How fortunate we were to be able to see that twice in one day.
We haven't heard anything from the girls about this experience, so hopefully they aren't too scarred. Anyway, I hope that you got a good laugh. I laugh when I think of Jessica's comment : "I do NOT want to see that again." I second that. Aren't you glad I didn't post pictures? The visual imagery is enough.
-Carol