Hey, guess what....we survived the first three days of school! The two weeks before, we had to go up to the school everyday ALL DAY. And I still wasn't ready. Oh well. I figure for the first few days, as long as every child arrives and leaves safe, it is considered a good day. My computer at work is messing up so that is throwing everything behind.

I did have a hard time that first day since my baby is going to Kindergarten and my other baby is no way old enough to be in 4th grade. I can't image how hard it would have been if they had been at a different school. Both kids seem to like it so far. Ally has fit right in and the teachers are commenting that it's like she has been there since Kindergarten. Andrew was a bit quiet after the first day. Wouldn't tell me much of what they did but he made up for it yesterday. I now know EVERYTHING that his class said and did all day. It was great!

The new part of my job is going okay. I have After School Care totally staffed with very reliable people who I think will do a great job. I am just trying to keep them happy and not too overwhelmed. So....I have been staying at work until 6:00 to make sure they and the kids are comfortable with the routine. I did get to leave today at 5:00. Yeah! I figure by next week all will be set and we can get home at a decent hour. Not that my kids will want to. They like playing with their friends up there.

Sad news on the home front. Max has run away. He has been gone for almost a week now. I don't think he's coming back. Blake had gotten up to get ready for work and found the gerbil cage knocked over and the door open. No gerbils. We couldn't find them anywhere! And I looked everywhere I could think of. Threw the cat in the bathroom while we looked and I finally figured out they may have squeezed under the entertainment center. Sure enough, we found them. Andrew's black one was fine but Max got ahold of the other one (the fat slow one). He didn't look very good. His eye was bloody and closed, his back was bloody and he wasn't using one of his front paws. I was so upset with the cat that I threw him outside before I wrung his little neck. So now I feel bad that he hasn't come back. My kitty ran away because I was mad at him. I hope he's okay. Maybe he'll still come home. On a positive note, the gerbil seems to be almost back to his old self. After a few days of laying in the corner of the cage shivering and sleeping, he is back to running all over the cage....just not with the use of one front paw.

Needless to say, it has been a stressful couple weeks at out house. Hopefully now that school is back in session, we will settle nicely into a routine.

Our computer seems to be okay now but we are still a bit leary of it. Every once in a while it decides not to turn on but we think it has to do with the keyboard. It just likes a different one sometimes. So we have three keyboards that we can just change out. Dumb computer. Ooops, I didn't mean that. Please don't shut down on me and erase my pictures!

Glad to be back in blog land. Hopefully I won't be gone so long next time.

What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about??

There was a great loss recently in the entertainment world. Larry LaPrise, the Detroit native who wrote the song "Hokey Pokey," died last week at 83. It was especially difficult for the family to keep him in the casket. They'd put his left leg in and... well, you know the rest.

I have been a little out of touch for the last few days. Our computer crashed and erased everything on it...including all my favorites (like every blog I read and now have no idea where they are), like all my photos for the last three months that I hadn't put on CD yet, like work stuff, like Blake's work stuff, like EVERYTHING! It has not been a fun last few days at the Brannon household. Neither one of us is a computer guru so it's been alot of "blind leading the blind" to figure out how to get the computer back up and running. So I'm back.....kinda. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to reload all of our programs. Any volunteers to help me?

Here are some exciting photos from today's match-up between the much feared Grasshoppers and our own Ninjas! Today was our third game and Andrew is MUCH better. The first game was spent running "willy-nilly" around the field and away from the ball. Today he actually scored!

Mama Takin' Us To The Zoo.....

Yesterday was family zoo day--great minds think alike (Jason & Leah). Weather was great...we only got a little hot as we were leaving. One of Andrew's friends had given him passes for his birthday so we spent almost 5 hours there (picnic lunch included) and it only cost us $2 for a coke that Blake bought (because I had been too smart and froze our water bottles to keep them cold for lunch and they hadn't fully defrosted yet.) They have a special dinosaur exhibit going on. They have robotic dinosaurs throughout the park that move and roar at you. Andrew liked them but "they were loud" which explains all the pictures of him covering his ears!

I decided that we were going to take a different way through the zoo this time so we went to the Texas Wild area first. For those of you unfamiliar with the Fort Worth Zoo, the Texas area is down a LONG trail with really nothing on it. We usually save that for last and by that time we are hot and tired and don't really want to make the trip. So yesterday, we actually had energy to see the whole thing. And it was like seeing a whole new zoo. I had always stopped at the petting zoo and then left the Texas area thinking that the only thing farther on were shops. WRONG. We ended up wandering through the entire state of Texas with interactive exhibits, animals (including all the big cats that Ally did her report on and we didn't think the zoo had), an underwater viewing tank, a "bug cave", and lots of air conditioned areas. Pretty cool. Sharla, next time you guys go, don't stop at the petting zoo, you miss the best part!

Guess where I am right now? Alone in my house....no kids. Yea! Blake took the week off from work (his real job) so today he and the kids went to the new water park by our house. Arlington has great parks and about 6 of them are water parks. The new one is about 5 minutes away and has two big slides, a swimming pool, diving board, splash pool and a water shooting area. It's a good daddy day thing. I figure I'll take them more this summer. We have to come up with lots of stuff to do, otherwise I'll never survive the summer. I'm having to work every Tuesday and Thursday mornings right now. Dr. Greene was suppose to work the office in June but right before school was out, his son unexpectedly died. I don't mind working for him. It just doesn't seem right to ask him to come into work right now. Hopefully I can get a week or so off in July when Jan comes back. I was suppose to have off until mid-July but we adapt. The kids will be coming with me and I can put them to work. There is lots of filing and shredding for them to do. And everyday this week there have been teachers and kids up there so they may even have someone to play with.

We got to go this week to the Rangers game when they played the Mariners. It was actually alot of fun. We had really good seats with lots of legroom. The weather was just prefect...not too hot! The only drawback was that a little boy was a bit too excited and started asking at about 10 a.m. if it was time to get his shoes on to go to the ballpark. Didn't catch any foul balls though but as you can see, Andrew was ready.

Nature is way overrated

In case you are wondering, this "circle of life/law of the jungle" thing really stinks. Let me explain..... We were all outside the other night enjoying the cooler evening before the mosquitoes came out, when suddenly the trees were filled with very loud screeching birds. Couldn't figure out why. A bird rumble? A feathered domestic disturbance? The bird rejects from American Idol? No. My sweet little kitty cat had caught one of the baby birds on what was apparently "learn to fly day". By the time we figured out what he was doing, he already had the poor thing in his mouth and was heading INTO MY HOUSE! Eeewwww. And no, it was not dead yet. So there was Blake trying to get the cat to pick up the bird so he could throw them both out, the kids are yelling to help the poor thing, and I was....okay... I was yelling to help the poor bird too. We finally got the whole mess back outside and Blake made us let the cat keep the bird. "That's just what cats do." Pooh. I know that but it doesn't mean I want to see it. Poor bird finally died and the cat spent the rest of the night tossing it in the air and stalking it. Dumb cat. Though it did remind me of growing up with cats doing the same thing to snakes in the backyard.

Oh, and now we have bees trying to build a house in the corner of the neighbors wall closest to our backyard. Kinda cuts down on outside time this week. Our neighbor has tried sprays of all sorts and right now he has some sort of vacuum thing hooked up to his house and is sucking the bees away. It may not work but it sure is entertaining. And we like nature why??

One more day of school for me. Two for Ally and then we are out for the summer!!! Yea!!

Andrew's 5th Birthday Party

Today I had to take off my official second sick day from work. Ally went on a field trip yesterday and came home exhausted. Of course it was "errand" day yesterday so we didn't get home until after 5 with her complaining the whole time how tired she was. After making her eat (pick at) her dinner she started complaining how cold she was (FYI--yesterday's high temp was almost 100). Yup, my daughter had a fever. Bad mommy, ignoring her complaints all afternoon. I just thought she was tired. We were going to see how she felt in the morning and be bad and send her to school if she was better (had prefect attendance for the year). So this morning we got up, started getting ready....no fever....when she suddenly lost ALL color in her face and had to lay down or throw up. By 11:00 she felt fine and was dancing around the house. Pretty sad. Made it until two weeks before school is out and get sick for the first time. I do know what happened though. I got an e-mail from Ally's Brownie leader and apparently both leaders are sick and so are 6 of the girls--well 7 now. See camping is BAD for your health. Give me a fancy hotel any day!! Gotta go fumigate.

Andrew managed to make it to 5 years old this week. And Blake and I made it to 15 years. (Am I the only one who thinks that sounds like a REALLY long time to be married? How can I be married for 15 years and yet be only 29???) The Rangers were in town this week so the kids and I celebrated by ourselves. Andrew got to pick where to go for dinner and then it was home for cake and presents. (Yes, my romantic anniversary dinner was at McDonalds with two hyper children and no husband.) It took exactly 11 minutes after we got home before the red Power Ranger (thank you Jason and Leah) was fighting the roaring dinosaur (thank you mom and dad). Blake managed to get off work early since they were slow so he got to spend a few minutes with the kids before bedtime.

Alyssa is off tonight camping with her Brownie troop. Of course it has rained every night for the past three days and it's very cloudy right now. They may get wet but I think they'll have fun. The girls were so excited to get to go. It's the very first overnight trip for our troop. I'm just glad it's them and not me. Notice I didn't volunteer to chaperone this trip. This summer the troop is taking a trip to Seaworld (you get to spend the night in the park and then tour Seaworld the next day.) I was going to try to go to that one but it was turning out to be a big ordeal trying to figure out what to do with Andrew so I passed. We are going to try to go this summer as a family. The Brownies are going at the end of July so other than those two days, I'm free to travel wherever I'm needed (as long as the air conditioner works). FYI -- May 25 is my last work day and I don't have to go back until mid-July.

Hey, guess what .... I think I broke my little toe. Not completely sure, I may have to ask the expert who lives in Euless about it. But last night as I was stumbling back to bed after letting the cat in out of the rain (about 2:30 am and drugged on a sleeping pill) I kicked the vacuum cleaner hard enough to wake Blake up. Teach me not to put things away. So the pain in my toe kept waking me up for the rest of the night and today I still can't walk on it. It's not really bruised but it just throbs all the time. So if it's not broken it just needs to stop hurting!! Okay, so how am I suppose to wear heels to church tomorrow? I can't wear sandals (hurts) and I don't think my tennis shoes match my dress.

Well, it's official. I said yes to the job offer this week. Ally went up to the school on Wednesday to spend the afternoon with the 3rd grade and meet all the kids and she absolutely loved it! So next year I won't have to run like a madwoman back and forth between the two schools. I am really getting excited about it. Okay, it's more work but as long as I can hire the right people, I think it will be great. It was just too much of a good offer to say no to. Now I just have to remind Ally that she has to wear a uniform to school. My little fashion diva is not going to like that. But it sure will save time in the morning (yesterday she changed 4 times before breakfast...needless to say we were a little late).

Well, the Rangers are back in town this week so I'm a single parent for a few days. One of the guys that Blake carpools with got a job at the ballpark so now maybe they can carpool to both jobs. Yeah!!! Save on gas!!!

One more quick thing. I realized this week that I seriously need to move out of Texas. I was in the bedroom the other night about 9 and heard water hitting the window. My first (and only) thought was "why is Blake watering the grass this late at night?". Guess what. He wasn't. It was actually raining. Pretty sad, huh.

I'm back! I just checked my e-mail and realized that I haven't even been on the computer since Wednesday. See what happens when I get a few days off of work. Yes, they gave me Thursday off. I dropped both kids off at school, and after an hour of "bad mommy guilt" and being lonely, I had a really great day just being by myself. I got to go shopping ALONE and even got my nails done. I decided that manicures are a fun indulgence for some women but I don't have the patience to sit there for an hour while I'm pampered and trying to get polish to dry. Of course Sharla and her girls came down and had lunch with me, so that was fun.

The kids made me my birthday cake this year. Didn't they do a great job. It looks even better in person. Wink wink. I did have to help a bit but they really did most of the work themselves. We had to wait until Saturday afternoon to do it though. LTC was this weekend. For those of you outside of Texas, that is "Leadership Training for Christ" for kids in grades 3-12. It is a huge bunch of events like Bible Bowl, scripture reading, daily devos, service projects, scrapbooking, choir, drama, puppet shows, art, power point presentations.....and the list goes on and on. We went to the competition in Dallas. Ally was in our church's choir (all girls this year, different but pretty neat). She also did a bulletin board at church and drew a picture for the art. We find out tonight at church if they got a gold, silver or bronze. It's alot of work and I'm glad it's over but I think it is really good for the kids.

I think I've talked to everyone about the offer from work. Still haven't really decided but I'll let you know when I do. I would just love to have both kids up there with me next year. I kinda talked to Ally about it this weekend but she REALLY doesn't want to change schools. We'll see.

So I hope everyone had a good Easter. We had beautiful weather for egg hunting (a little hot and windy right now but what do you expect in Texas). So now I guess we will be having candy and deviled eggs for dinner every night this week.

Yeah! It finally worked. This is Ally's project. In case you can't tell, that is the tiger hiding in the grass.

Okay, I tried to post this weekend but the computer kept messing up. So after the third try, I just gave up. Hopefully we'll have better luck today. I was just letting everyone know that Ally's project is finally finished! She even gave her speech today. Did a very good job too. I do have to admit that I am TIRED of hearing about big cats. Go ahead. Ask me anything. I could probably tell you everything there is to know about tigers, lynx, lions, and black leopards. Though I guess that was the idea of the project...for her to become an expert on some subject. I think her models turned out pretty good. I had bought the dough to sculpt the cats but I didn't buy Sculpty brand since it is so expensive (but really good). The one I bought was very easy to work with but took FOREVER to dry. She ended up painting it before all the pieces were completely dry. Of course, as it was drying, all the legs, ears, tails, and heads fell off so we had to do some major repairs before she could paint them. All-in-all, it turned out pretty good.

UUUGGHHH! It's doing it again! I can't upload my picture of her project. I'll try again later.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!! 3.5 inches and counting! It has POURED all day and we are loving it. Didn't even mind having to run into church in a dress and heels. Kitty wasn't to thrilled. He kept going to the door and just watching. Hmmmm....so did the kids and I. I sure miss Seattle on days like this.

Zoo Madness

Okay. My turn to post zoo pictures. I know Sharla told you all how crowded it was but I really didn't feel that claustrophobic until about the last hour since the place is so big. (Not including the lines for the bathrooms....that's a whole different story.) The kids did have a really good time. Of course the main reason I had for going was to get pictures of the big cats. And the male lion was asleep with his back to us and the tigers were all hiding against the wall. Oh well.

We spent the entire day yesterday working on Ally's independent project. We modeled 4 big cats, rocks, leaves, trees, etc., until I wanted to scream. Now if they will just dry so she can paint them. I really want this project finished before she has to go back to school on Monday. Next week is just going to be too busy to plan on doing too much on it. I don't understand why everything has to fall on the same day. Do they just like to torture busy moms?

Well, we still haven't found a new church yet and I really hate looking. In fact it looks like we are going to have to keep going to ours until after LTC since they keep moving Ally's choir practice between Sunday mornings and Sunday nights without telling anyone. I guess it will be okay. I still really like everyone there (even if alot of the young families have moved away). It's just that the service is so boring. I hate to say that but it's the truth. And I'm tired of being told that if I'm bored in the service then I'm not putting anything into it. No. It's just that I like to sing songs written AFTER 1850.

Gripe gripe gripe. Okay, one more gripe and I'll go. I HATE CARS!

It's Spring Break!!! A whole week of sitting on my couch, reading and sleeping. Okay, not really, but it sounds good. The kids are making lists of what they want to do this week. I think they have the whole week just about filled. Alyssa has a big "independent project" due at school right after the break so that is what she will be doing. This is the yearly project where last year she did the fashion timeline. She has decided to do a comparison of big cats this year. She is researching four and then making a habitat model for each. We'll see how it turns out. She a little nervous about sculpting the cats but I think she'll do fine. Just for the record, I'm REALLY tired of hearing all about lions, tigers, lynx and panthers.

I'm a little worried about Andrew over the break. He may not make it. He has decided that he doesn't have to listen to mom the first or second time she says something. After all, she may not really mean it when she says to put your toys in your room. I'm not used to this battle of wills over everything. He must get this from his daddy. Sweet little boy but he is definitely opinionated on everything he does and if something is not his idea, good luck getting him to do it right away. Any parenting tips would be greatly appreciated before I wring his cute little neck.

Oh for those of you wondering about our "R" snack. We chose Ritz crackers shaped like dinosaurs. Not the best but it was the night before and I wasn't going to spend alot of time on it. (unlike with the "L" snack) I did like dad's idea of the Rice Crispy Treats but it was too late. That would have been a big hit.

I am posting some very strange pictures this time just for my sisters. I know they are not very good but I couldn't resist. Does the show look familiar? I found a cable channel that shows THE NEW ZOO REVIEW on Saturdays! And yes, I remember all the words to the theme song. "It's quite an unusual thing, the animals talk and sing, with Doug and Emmy Jo. Everyday's a different showwwwwwwwww." Everybody now.....!!!

Okay family, I need your help again. I'm in charge of snack again for Andrew's class and it is "R" week. None of the children like raisins so that's out. Any ideas?

I'm alive! After fighting this dumb stomach bug all weekend, I think I might just make it. It does make a great diet though seeing as I haven't eaten much more than chicken broth since Friday night.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day. We got to deliver some pretty cute gifts to the kids today at school. You'd be surprised how much these kids get from parents and grandparents. HUGE balloon bouquets, flowers, stuffed animals of every shape and size. The teachers all said that the kids were more excited about today then they were during the Christmas parties.

Speaking of school...ready for an Andrew story? If not, stop reading. Friday was the annual "Pre-K Circus". Andrew was a clown....shocking, huh? Anyway, the kids did a parade thru the auditorium and ended up on stage with the circus music still playing. The clowns stayed on stage the whole show to help with the different "acts". So here are 6 little clowns sitting on stage with circus music playing. All of sudden, I hear the room starting to laugh. I, of course, was watching my son but apparently so was everyone else since he was doing a "clown dance" while the others just sat. That's my boy. Oh, and that was just the beginning. He danced, made silly faces, waved, jumped, twirled, during THE WHOLE CIRCUS! I had more people poke me and make comments about him...even from rows back. After it was over, people were stopping me in the hall to comment. After school in the parking lot, 2 people pulled their cars over to comment. I see many years of stage in our future. I just wish I had the tape of it. I had run out of video tape and didn't realize it in time so I didn't get to film it. I'm going to ask one of the other mom's if I can copy hers. It would make a great wedding video clip someday. Until then, you'll just have to make due with the still pictures.

Gotta go rest again. This is taking me way too long to type...I need food!

I was going to update you all on my life from the past few weeks but I can't see the computer screen throught my tears. Guess I'll go curl up on the floor and mourn my Seahawks.