Trying to get up to date

We just downloaded about 150 pics off of the camera so over the next days or possibly weeks we will be uploading the latest and not so latest happenings. These are from Cora and Emmett's birthdays. Emmett's was celebrated a day late due to the aforementioned journey into the land of the drunks.

Adventures in a Filthy City

I have taken today and yesterday off from work. I have an ear infection or rather a head cold that has moved from my sinus into my ear canals, and since I am home and it is finals week and for once I don't have any exams to take I am not overly swamped with other tasks, I thought I would give a little update of the goings on in the household and tell an "interesting" story.

First the story. Carol and I took a little overnight trip to New Orleans last month. I had done some research that was accepted into APA and GSA for paper/poster presentations. I didn't go to APA (San Francisco) because I couldn't afford it, but I was first author in GSA so I decided I had better go. It was in New Orleans, so Carol and I dropped the kids off at Zeb and Leah's and headed out. It is only 8 hours away in good traffic. We did not have good traffic. I was scheduled to present my paper at 4:30 on Saturday the 20th of Nov. We left that morning at 6. So you would think we would get there with plenty of time. Unfortunately we hit traffic in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans. So I got to the conference center at 4:00 on the dot. I had just enough time to register, go into the conference room, set up, and sit down for 2 minutes before I had to present. The presentation went fairly well, other than some random guy being all up in arms about my measure not measuring spirituality and measuring neo american calvinism, to which I say, that may be the case but that was not what are study was examining. Jerk, pay attention. Anyway, while that was going on, Carol checked us into the Hotel. After the presentation, I went and got Carol and we walked around with a few of my colleagues from school and my advisor trying to find a place for dinner. Carol and I were set on getting some good seafood seeing as we were on the gulf coast. They ended up going to some weird bar that only had catfish. Not exactly what we wanted to so we walked back towards the conference center and had some cajun food. I liked it, Carol wasn't hugely impressed. (I will say I thought it would be much spicier.) After that we went back to the hotel. We were sleeping soundly until about 1:40 a.m. when some drunkard mistaking our room for his, tried to come into our room. I hadn't thought much of it, but Carol woke up and so I got out of bed to see what was going on. I had initially thought he was just sticking his card key in the door and trying to turn the handle, oh no, he had opened the door and the only thing keeping him out was the internal latch that allows the door to open 2 inches. When I came close to the door I saw his chubby nasty fingers trying to unlatch the door.

I said "excuse me" and

he responded "OPEN UP! OPEN UP!"

"UMMM NO"

"Your killing me" he mumbled

I took a peak through the door at this point to see a man in his late 40's to 50's, white hair and goatee, skin of someone who smokes a pack a day, nasty gray sweatshirt on, and jeans that he had clearly pissed in not more than 5 minutes ago. That's great. After that interaction he left, and I closed the door. Needless to say Carol and I had a bit of a time getting to sleep after that. So, 30 minutes later when we heard his voice again, we both popped out of bed. He was apparently in the room across the hall and he had a companion who was demanding he open up the safe.

So in the morning we loaded our things had some heated words with the manager who promised to call after "investigating" and still hasn't and left that hole on the face of the earth behind us. I had brought my pistol with me and the guy was clearly drunk and overweight so I figured there weren't very many ways it could have gone well for him, never the less, I have no intention of returning.

As for the rest of what has been happening, nothing super exciting. Life has moved on, the kids have been sick, and better and sick again, and now better. Thanksgiving was at our house and was delicious and amazing. Other than that everything is moving forward. Hope you all enjoy your holiday season and merry christmas.

as promised......

More pics!!!

preview

I got the family pic today!!! But I don't have time to post many. So, until I have a little more time, you will have to make due with these two. -Carol

Pics for auntie Julie...and everyone else

I told my little sister that I would post some pictures. They aren't new, but they are some of the newest we have taken. A couple of weeks ago our neighbor/friend took some family pictures so when we get them, I will post them. But until then......here you are!

My sweet, sweet boy! I love that boy! Love the hair. Love the eyes. Love that little smirk. I love all of him.
More pictures when we were at the Dallas zoo. Jessica looks really scared. Hu???

Halloween. Josh was on door duty while I took the kids around. Emmett was Tigger, Maren and Jess were ballerina's and Cora was Cinderella. And Josh dressed up as a.......scruffy...grad student. I am a nerd!

October fun

Here is Cora and Jess going "jeepin'" My sweet partents brought this from my sister Annette's house for my kiddos. They LOVE driving it around the cul-de-sac. Thanks again Annette!

More Jeepin' pics..................................

Here is Emmett kneeling down for family prayer. My mom wanteed me to get a picture of him.
Here are some pics of the family at the park



I don't know what Cora was doing here
The rest of the pics are when we went to the Dallas Zoo a couple weeks ago for a birthday party for a little friend in the neighborhood.




I thought that this was a cool place to take some cool photos but didn't get more time to take more. Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the hightlights of our October. I haven't transfered Halloween to the computer yet, so this will have to do for now. Oh, and good news! I got a vehicle over the weekend!!!!!!! We now have two cars!!!!!!! I no longer have to use a friends car to go to the store or wait until 9:30 pm to go get groceries. I am one happy and grateful girl.

song

Here is a video that we got of the girls signing a primary song "I Know That My Savior Loves Me". It's a few months old, but I love to watch it. Listen for Maren's vibrato. She cracks me up!

-Carol

I've got moves you've never seen before!

In case any of you wanted further evidence that Jess is in fact also related to Carol (behaviorally she is much more like me) here is this video. If any of you have seen me dance, you know that I don't dance like that (I don't have that much rhythm). Oh, and that is Cora supplying the strobe light. Enjoy.

~Josh

Redemption.....hopefully

This post is dedicated to my little sister who was bitterly dissapointed in the # of pictures I posted last time. So, little sister of mine (you know who you are) this is for you. Enjoy!

This picture is so cute. I think that we were heading home from Ft.Worth one Sunday in March or April. I looked back and saw that. Maren got a raw deal. Poor thing.
This was sometime this last summer in our front yard with a neighbor girl.
Yes, I know that these pics are not recent but oh well. Here is Miss Lizzie on the first day of 2nd grade.
Jess Bess on her first day of 1st grade.
The three girls on the first day of school!!

School started a few days before Maren's 4th birthday so we got to celebrate her birthday with all of her new friends in Pre-K! Her teacher even gave her a birthday crown.
Emmett loves shoes.....especially mine and Josh's. No, I am not worried about him! He's fine.
Emmett making a cute face at me/the camera. He loves the camera. Anytime he sees me with it he stops whatever he is doing and faces me while he says "teese"
I hope that ya'll are pleased with the pics. I also wanted to include a funny little story about Maren that happened a few days ago.

We were all in the truck driving home when Jessica smells a stinky smell and starts accusing everyone in the car if they are the culprit. When Maren is accused she defends her self saying: "NU, UH, my body doesn't make toots that smell!" We all burst out laughing, which made her start sobbing. In between breaths she declared to everyone that we hurt her feelings. Oops!

Catching up.....sort of

Ok, so there have been a few people (Josh, Coco, and Julie) that have been getting after me to post. And to make good on my promise to them, I am now posting.

Because I blog so infrequently, blogging is a learning process every time I post.......so the pics are in reverse order I wanted them and I don't know how to fix it. Oh, well.

Here we have Jess in the lineup first. She wanted me to take a pic of her with her very first lost tooth!

Yep!!!! Jessica got glasses. Her teacher noticed that she was squinting to see the board and that her work was alway incomplete/wrong. So, she is the proud owner of "The Little Mermaid" glasses!! With seashells on the sides!!!! It is quite exciting!!
A couple weeks ago Cheyenne, Meredith their two beautiful kids came for a visit. It was about 10 min before they left when I realized that we hadn't taken any pics. So I hurried and got a few. Here is Taylor. I am her favorite aunt on the Fish side.......and I will fight any of her other Fish Aunts who say otherwise!
Here is Ethan.....I don't think that I am his favorite. But I love him anyway.
I am running out of time, so this is the "cousins". They are so stinkin' cute.
Sorry this post is so short. Josh needs his computer(with all the pics) to go to work. So I find myself blogging at 6 am before he leaves. I will try to write a little more later......but if not, it should hold you over for a month or so.

-Carol

Update

Okay, I keep thinking that if I hold out long enough Carol will post, but clearly that is not the case. So, just a little update on what has been going on here. I am approaching what should be my last year of school. I am going to be teaching an intro to psych class, as well as TA-ing for an Intro to psych II class. Also, I am working on my last two research projects before I can do my Dissertation. One of them is all done, with the minor exception of writing it up (which I am loathing, since I have written the same thing in two other papers with slightly different analyses, which got scrunched down to one and is now waiting for final review before it gets sent out for publication). On top of that I am studying for my comprehensive exams which are scheduled for the 30 and 31 of August. (Extra prayers would be much appreciated). Beyond that, I had an interview today for a job at Bank of America. The guy that I count tithing with on Sunday's works there and has helped me out a lot getting me the interview, and hopefully a new job. The actual job is underwriting mortgages, but since my minor has been stats, I am hoping that some time in the future I can transfer to a research area, and use some of this education that I have been accumulating for what seems like forever. If I get that job, I will be working in Plano from 7-4, head home for dinner, then off to school to work on my proposal/research/teaching/TA-ing. I gotta say, I am a little worried I might be spreading myself a little thin. Anyway, whether or not I am we will see if I get the job. Beyond that, the girls are starting school next week. I don't know how excited they are, but Carol and I are looking forward to it. Hopefully, I can get a little more studying in while they are at school. Maren will start Pre-K, which she has been excited for since ohhh, December of last year. Thursday is Jess' birthday. Cora and Emmett are doing great, and we just keep on going. Hope everyone is else is doing well.

`Josh

Here are just some random shots we have taken lately. And a few of my own ramblings. You have probably all seen the photo of the escalators out in front of a gym that get passed around in emails. I used to think that was just a great job of photoshopping, however, I have had time to hit the gym this summer and am beginning to doubt that. I quite frequently find weights just left lying of placed in the wrong spot. It kind of bugs me, mostly because I want to be able to put things back where they belong and when someone has failed I end up fixing it. But beyond that the irony of it astounds me. You came to the gym to workout. Why on earth would you do that and at the same time be lazy. The very concept of a gym is the opposite of economy of motion. Anyway that is about all. The pics are of the girls with their dollies that we sent to Leah for Claire's birthday party. The last picture is at a friends house. They have little sticky doll things made out of foam. Kind of like paper dolls with a safari theme since they are lions, giraffes, etc... (or at least what I have seen of them). Emmett came out with this piece which looked kind of like facial hair so we tried it out. I honestly don't know what it is supposed to go to, but he looks pretty good with a go-t. Hope you all have a great week.

`Josh

A few recent pics

So we went bowling a little while ago. I threw down a 143 with two strikes and a 9 in the tenth frame. Not bad for not having bowled in 2 years. Cora, Jess, and Maren all broke 80, and Carol scored in the 60's. Jess and Maren played together because Jess didn't want to bowl when we got there. Our friends Casey and D came too, we went fishing and had dinner together after. It was our low key fourth celebration. I was going to add more photos but the bloody thing won't load.

Cora waiting to see what she got.

Had to get a shot of Carol in the bowling shoes. She looked HOTT!

My sweet, sweet boy. I think he is due for a hair cut, Carol disagrees. What do you all think?

We also went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate Jess quitting sucking her thumb. We didn't get a ton of pictures but here are a few. We had a lot of tokens! and I mean A LOT!

Maren going for a little scoot.

Emmett cruising with Stuart Little. Horrible movie. CUTE BOY!

Have a great week.
`Josh