Happy Thanksgiving Update

Hello everyone, we hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. We are doing well. We have a lot to be thankful for but Brian's job situation was a big one that was resolved favorably this month. The company he has worked for, for 9 years - Network General was acquired by its #1 competitor, Netscout Systems. We thank the Lord because Brian's entire office will be able to keep their jobs with the new company! Jamie's company has re-organized and it looks like her job will be ok as well.

The girls are doing well. Maddie is loving first grade, reading like crazy, and doing well in her gymnastics, cheerleading, and dance. Noelle has started a little dance class at her daycare and she likes it as well.

We are enjoying the girls and each other so much and thank the Lord for all his blessings, protection, and joy!

Maddie's book about how she feels

I spotted a few sheets of printer paper in a storage shelf in Maddie's room with some writing on them. They had some words written in color marker and in black ink pen so, being the curious dad that I am, I picked them up. There were 3 sheets. The first one said, "I feel prowd", the second, "I feel excited", and the third was the cover sheet and it said, (have to go double check but this was the idea) "Maddie's book of how I feel", by Maddie Howard.

Oh my gosh that was not just cute but heart-touching! Sometimes, I really want to crawl into my kids heads to see how I am doing. I always wonder what they are thinking about. Do they think about when I really blew my temper that time? Do they think about any other failures I've had as a dad? Am I spending enough time with them? Am I teaching them enough? I have a lot of questions. This stuff is too important and you don't get a do-over. I feel the responsibility.

I am so glad I have God at my side. I am so glad God is interested in my family and in my kids. I am glad he is willing to teach and guide me. I genuinely trust the Lord with my family and prayerfully expect his help and blessing in my marriage and raising my kids.

So anyway, those sheets of paper gave me a lot of joy and peace because life for a kid is not easy and we correct our kids quite a bit though we try to do it in a teaching way. But we praise them and love them a lot too. I want her to feel proud and excited and the sheets are a signpost to me of how we're doing. I love my girls and I won't forget Maddie's book..

Tinker Bell is Tall

The kids are so cute. Maddie has had some conversations with us recently and she is proud of herself because she has figured out that Tinker Bell is not small but actually tall. She has seen her fly off of the roof of the castle at the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld and in general "Tink" is one of our favorite characters. Well Maddie says Tinker Bell is really normal size but since she is flying up in the air it only looks like she is small. So cute!

Noelle is so cute, when she says how much she loves you she says BIG MUCH, so cute!

Cute Cousins!

When it Blogs, it Pours-Happy 6th Birthday Maddie!!

Wow, two blog updates in a week! Ok, it is Maddie's 6 year old birthday today- Happy Birthday Maddie! I'll show a couple of pics at Maddie's "Sweet and Sassy" birthday party- it was awesome! She chose a Rockin Pop Star themed party. Both girls were too cute!
Today was also Maddie's first day of school for 1st Grade! Jamie and I both took her for the first day and it was a lot of fun. Her teacher is Mrs. Ivy and she is awesome.

Praying for Feet, Family Time, and an Appendicitis

We have been trying to have little family devotional times. Its quite interesting with a 2.5 year old and a 6 year old! We are so busy and zonked that we haven't been doing it a lot but we'll stick with it.

Well tonight, I was reminded of something funny that Noelle does. I guess her first memory of prayer must have been praying for Jamie's feet. Jamie had some pain in one of her heels and so we prayed as a family about that probably 4-5 months ago. Well Noelle remembered it because now, whenever we pray, she gets a serious look on her face, lightly puts her hands together in an awkward and crooked prayer posture and through half-closed eyes prays for "mommies feet better, daddy's feet better, Maddie's feet better, Poppa's feet better, Grammy's feet better," and on it goes... it is so cute and precious.

You know as seldom as we've had these prayer times it is actually quite remarkable the answers we have had in prayer. We keep a little journal (pink, cuz well the girlz kind of rule around here) and we write down what verse we read, what we're thankful for, and what our prayer requests are. I am ashamed to admit that before tonight, the last time we pulled off having one of these times was August 5th! But anyway, tonight we reviewed the last time's prayer requests. At the time we had been having problem after problem with our daycare and with Noelle in that daycare. It was quite stressful and we did not know what to do. So, we prayed for a decision on the daycare situation. Well, 2 days later Jamie met an old friend who told her about a Christian-based daycare that is only 5 minutes (vs. 15 minutes) away from our house. We checked it out and Noelle started that next Monday. And we are saving a lot on top of it all! Noelle is like a different child after going here for a few weeks and we love it! So, what a neat answer to prayer!

On another note, late last week Maddie challenged Jamie. She was demonstrating a cheerleading high kick to Jamie and told her she couldn't do one. Jamie said, "oh yes I can" and proceeded to do the finest free-standing front kick you've ever seen. You could barely even hear Jamie's hips pop as her foot swept the near reaches of space. You could hardly notice her grimace for the gleam of victory in her eyes.

Jamie took her victory in stride and kept up with the busy day. That night we had a dinner out with some family and Jamie was able to sit down for awhile. When she stood up her right abdomen locked up with extreme pain that took her breath away. It was so sudden and unexpected she was worried.

The next day she called our sister-in-law and they decided it was either a brazilian tape worm, an appendicitis, or somekind of freak tumor, or yes they agreed- there was a possibility it could have been a pulled abdomen muscle from the kick earlier in the day. Much research was done on the Internet, doctors were called, people were consulted and a doctor's appointment was set.

The doctor "could not rule out an appendicitis" because Jamie's white blood cell count was up. They had Jamie fast and not eat anything for 24 hours and then come back the next day.

I was shocked by the coincidence of it all. It was the most amazing medical phenomenon that she did a high kick and the next day had an appendicitis!

We went to a different doctor the next day and the doctor pretty much laughed at her the entire time as he pictured her doing a high kick and then having to fast and not eat food for a day and as he thought about doing a high kick and then thinking it was an appendicitis!

Funny!

Molly Bunny

Hey everyone, its been awhile since we had a chance to blog. (have you noticed we always start our updates with that) Its been a busy, crazy summer but a fun one. Maddie has been in swimming lessons and is getting very good. She can do the Freestyle(crawl) and Backstroke. She is also continuing with Gymnastics and Cheerleading. She will be 6 in only two weeks and will be entering the first grade on her birthday. Oh yah, we have also been getting some extra reading tutoring this Summer from her awesome Kindergarten Teacher Mrs. Munson. She wasn't behind, we just wanted her to be ahead of the game.
Noelle is 2 1/2 years old now, and has integrated perfectly. She is smart, sweet, and a little fiesty- but she's 2 so she's entitled! She is speaking a lot better now and we feel she has caught up to her age group (after having heard Chinese for the first 9 months of her life) and has potential to even be ahead in her speaking soon. We've had a lot of fun with her, she is just amazing!

The kids get along great and their friendship is just the delight of our hearts. We will strive to foster that throughout their lives.

Last week at my work was "take your kids to work day", Network General is a very good company to work for and this is not an uncommon type of activity for them. I brought both kids, by myself....long pause for applause... and yes it was tiring but oh my gosh it was sweet and fun. I'll put some pics on this blog entry so you can see it.




Maddie got her ears pierced this summer and she loves it, she got some cute pink flower earrings from Claire's.

Molly is the name Maddie gave to our little brown bunny in the backyard. In Texas everyone's yard has some bunnies. I included a pic of her. I can't figure out why my watermelon and pumpkins won't grow in my yard. Hmmm, I guess its a mystery.

Maddie's Dance Recital

June 2nd was Maddie's dance recital. She takes a tap, ballet, and jazz class. She had 3 songs to perform and did such a great job. She is so beautiful and so comitted to each dance and every move. I am so proud! Here is a pic we took afterwards.

President's Club 2007 - Grand Cayman

Well, this past week June 3rd - 7th Jamie and I were blessed to take part in the annual sales award trip for my company- Network General. It was held in Grand Cayman which is a Western Carribean island. Here is a link that talks about Grand Cayman.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton hotel. The beautiful picture they show at that site was not the area we stayed in with the ocean view etc. If you go there get the oceanside view or don't stay at the Ritz. We had a basic poolview and looking beyond that- a construction and road view. That said, we spent a lot of time on the ocean side of the resort which was obviously great.




We got to take a big catamaran boat with a large group of work people on an all-day adventure on Monday. First, they took us out to a reef and I got to try snorkeling for the first time. Although I drank a fair amount of salt water and the sea spray stung my eyes it did not reduce the fun and amazement of it. I swam close to the fish and took a lot of pictures. I show a few of them in this blog entry. Next, they took us out to a shallow sand bar where sting rays actually swim with people and are very friendly. You can feed them and pet them! I got in the water and experienced this but did not feed them. I did pet them- they were kind of rubbery and slick. Some people were even hugging them and feeding them pieces of squid- pretty wild. After this, we sailed out to Rum Point which is a popular party and recreation place on the beach near the tip of Grand Cayman island. It took about an hour to sail out to it. They have some bars there and my company served us a great caribbean barbeque lunch. There was a lot to do. The company rented several types of watercraft for us to use, we had beach lounges to rest on, and the ocean to splash around in. The entire trip was very hot with direct sun and you could burn by being in the sun for about 10 minutes without any sunscreen but the ocean was cool and refreshing. (hmm, how do I know it would only take 10 minutes to burn???).




Jamie and our friends Cliff and Tia were hanging out in the ocean and I used one of the sea kayaks and paddled out to the limits of where we were allowed to go and back. I loved it and was instantly addicted. I decided if I could paddle around on a sea kayak every day that would be great with me. (I know what you're thinking, how could I give up daily cubicle life?) After all of this fun at Rum Point we sailed back.

We had a couple of nice dinners while in Grand Cayman: The Grand Old House in Georgetown, the main city, and at Papagallo. They were both good but Papagallo was better. We snorkeled once more on Wednesday at Governor's Reef off of Seven Mile Beach near our hotel. It was neat- you could just walk off the beach, swim out a bit and there was an awesome reef. During that snorkeling time we got to see a school of squid swimming in precise formation (2nd picture below) - it was very cool.


Ater doing all of this snorkeling off of Governor's Reef I decided to use the Ritz's sea kayaks to do some kayaking with my boss. We were done and he was heading back when suddenly a big wave hit me and I could not recover. Kayaks are by nature very prone to tipping over and suddenly I found myself hugging the side of my kayak instead of sitting in it. I was in the endless cycle of ocean waves out in the recreational boating lanes way beyond the swimming area. I tried to pull myself up 3 times into that narrow, unstable kayak in the middle of the waves- it wasn't going to happen. I would get my body across it but couldn't make the adjustment to sitting in it. I kept getting flipped into the ocean again. I got more exhausted, out of breath, and actually sick to my stomach each time I tried. My boss had headed in so he didn't realize I had been knocked off and he was back at the Ritz when he saw I was missing. I kept trying to get onboard and after my attempts failed I was so exhausted I almost vomited in the ocean. I decided I had to try to push against the waves and the current and haul the kayak and myself back to the swimming area, and eventually back to the beach. I did get a little scared for a moment as the only thought I had in my mind was, "I wonder if I have the strength while holding this kayak to pull myself and the boat all the way back to shore." Yikes. I did my best while kicking my feet and using one arm to hold the kayak and the other to paddle. Suddenly I heard a motor behind me. A lifeguard on a Waverunner from the Ritz had come to help me out. God bless him. Then, a little dingy boat came up to help as well. They helped me to climb back on the kayak (yah, the one I wanted to do every day instead of my cubicle) and they asked me if they could tow me back to shore. I was breathing too hard to speak for about 30 seconds but when I could finally breathe again my (stupid) guy pride said, "no, I'll just paddle back myself." As I took a deep breath and forced my shredded and oxygen deprived body to paddle back I saw many people standing up on the beach watching the scene. It was embarrassing. But I was going to paddle that stupid thing back if it killed me. (it never occurred to me it would be more embarrassing if I threw up or passed out on the beach in front of a bunch of fancy Ritz Carlton guests- but like I said I was oxygen deprived). I finally made it back in and some beach workers came to the shore to help me drag the boat in. They were all asking me if I was alright etc (a couple of the little farts were smiling at me like it was amusing) What do you think I said? Yep. "Oh yah, I'm fine thanks so much for your help, I probably would have been alright out there but thanks so much for coming to check on me because you never know." Mmmhmm, yah right. I would have been JUST fine.

Anyway, other than that drama we had a great time.... and no I don't want to sea kayak every day anymore so don't be a wiseguy..

I got to spend some good devotional time as well with the Lord (where I'm sure I repented of my stupid pride) and Jamie and I both got to relax.

I'd like to take the kids there someday to swim with the stingrays, go to Rum Point, and snorkel- but perhaps not to sea kayak.

See you guys!

Update on us!

Here is an update on our favorite topic- us! Just kidding. It has been crazy busy around here since we last gave an update. Noelle turned 2 March 7th, Madeline is 5 1/2 and has graduated kindergarten- see pics below. We're having a lot of fun and living right! No changes on the job front or really much of anything else, just busy! Maddie is in dancing, swimming, gymnastics, and cheerleading- she is quite a performer and is REALLY good at it. Noelle copies everything Maddie says and does and loves her big sister very much. Maddie is such a little Mommy to her and is a complete blessing to everyone. Here is a compilation video I made of Maddie's graduation:


Brian has been running a little Internet ministry on the side and is trying to reach out to provide some counseling to people in need through that as well as sharing the Good News of Jesus. There have been some wild responses and some heart-touching ones and it feels good to make a difference. He is advertising the website through Google keywords and the ads run randomly over 100,000 times per day (but you only pay per click and its a tiny charge per click). So, even those that don't click on the message get a little light shined on them and perhaps a seed planted. We get responses from people who are just browsing Myspace or some other random website and right in the middle of the page our ads pop-up. Fascinating to be able to reach people right in the middle of what they are doing anywhere in the United States in a variety of different conditions and need. We get a lot of thank-you emails from the content on the site but believe it or not we also get a little hate mail- can't say it doesn't keep things interesting though because it does.

Playing with the kids is the best. We love to read to them, tickle them, take them to the park, and just goof off. We got an outdoor trampoline so we anticipate a lot of fun with that. Maddie is reading pretty well so she practices on us which is a lot of fun and she is proud of it.

Ok, just for fun (and because I like to embarrass myself) I am going to include a little Youtube video Maddie and I did recently- enjoy. If its not funny don't tell me ;)

Love to all, I'll include several recent/relevant pics as well as I'll embed the goofy video Maddie and I made here: