He's an EX too

I got a forwarded email from one of my friends today from the UT business school.

She commented on how she couldn't believe she knew somebody in the email.

I couldn't believe someone actually reads those emails because I delete all the ones I get. 

But, I'm glad she doesn't delete them because look who was in it.

Jason is now officially a Texas EX.  JR and I are so proud he's finally seen the light.

Unfortunately for us though, he still claims all his allegiance to that other school.

Lesson Learned

Kyle, Reed, and friends did this to our poor next door neighbors house this weekend.

When you have 3 boys that live next door to 3 girls this certainly won't be the last wrapping.

But I do think mine learned to never shred the paper in to tiny pieces again after we made them go help clean-up the next morning for an hour! 

Match Point

Reed played in his first tennis tournament this weekend.

Considering he's had about 4 tennis lessons I think he did pretty good.

He had a big fan club.

And, as always, JR found a job to do  (he's working the "scoreboard").

Reed won his first match and then lost the second (by only 1 point).

He may not have the tennis "uniform" right, but he can certainly play!

We were really proud of how great he did.

Shout Out Ads

When you give a donation to either the middle or elementary school you get to have a "shout-out" ad in the school directory.

In middle school they don't even offer the option of having pictures because they know every kid would "totally die" of embarrassment, so our middle school shout-out says something about the choir being the 2017 UIL champs. (JR approved, of course.)

But Kyle and Reed are still "all in" for having their picture in their directory.  The picture due date is fast approaching so we ran outside and snapped one this afternoon.  

I think it came out great considering the subjects are 2 boys and a dog who all have way better things to do than sit still for a picture.

"Amazing"

Kyle finally got his wish and started diving classes yesterday.

They are at the University of Houston natatorium and his teacher is the coach of the U of H diving team.

PawPaw asked him how his diving class was and Kyle replied "amazing". 

They spend the first 30 minutes doing a "dry land" workout.  (Using the trampoline and a diving board in to a foam pit) and the last 30 minutes they spend in the water.

Here are the highlights.  The last "dive" of the video is when they let Kyle go up to the 5 meter platform (that's 16 feet for those of us that are metric system challenged ).  

As you'll see, he wasn't ready to dive off that one just yet.  Knowing Kyle he'll be doing it in no time though. 

Slow Go

We are still here and I didn't quit blogging. I just haven't had anything to say.

It's taking awhile to get back in the swing of things here in Houston.

School is back, but activities aren't.  Most should start back this week.

We got wrapped by the 3rd grade girl slumber party that was next door, but Kyle and Reed had it all cleaned up before I even got a picture of it.

The high school football games have started back, so JR and his friends did that Friday night.

And Baskin Robbins is open which is always a good thing.

Back to School Again

We went back to school (again) today!

The traffic on both of the options we can take to get to Kyle and Reed's school has been some of the worst in the city. (Voss or Chimney Rock for Houstonians)

 We practiced riding our bikes on Saturday and it only took 20 minutes, it isn't far (only about a mile and a half) but you have to cross under I-10 to get there.  

It's been taking about 30 to get to areas around the school, so we figured 20 minutes on the bike was better than 30 or more in the car. 

Ready to go.

Turns out, they opened up the main freeways that were making the traffic so bad for us last night at 10:00 PM.  Not knowing they were open, everyone walked or rode bikes to school in fear of how bad it was going to be...so the traffic was lighter than a normal day! 

I peddled back home just in time to get Cool Breeze to school.

Then I felt guilty for enjoying that it was a "normal" day. 

The kids were all very happy to be back in school and had "great" days.

Since we don't have to make-up the 2 weeks we missed, Reed is still flustered that he "won't be as smart as he needs to be to go to 5th grade next year."  

The other 2 have voiced none of those concerns. 

In the Dog House

While most of us in this house have been going stir crazy the last 2 weeks, Chloe has been quite happy to have us all home.

She has been enjoying every second.

But she wants everyone to know it hasn't been all relaxing. She's been doing a little dog-sitting...and that is some hard work! 

The Photo Bomber and the Cake Thief have a Moment

It's Grandpa Gary's birthday today

.

Here are all the Ingersoll men together to celebrate. 

After the family photo-op, JR asked to have his picture made with just Grandpa because he's "the golden child".

 If you're a self proclaimed golden child, you're going to get photo-bombed. 

Don't worry, the Golden Child got his individual photo.

JR might think he's everyone's favorite, but Abby knows exactly who her favorite is.

Good News

I got Kyle in to see the orthopedic today and we got some good news.

On our way to see the doctor...I'm still feeling guilty.  

Thankfully Sonic's "limited menu" includes ice cream.

The doctor said that it's a small fracture near the growth plate.  It won't affect the growth plate, but since it's near it it will heal very quickly because that area gets lots of blood flow. 

He said fractures in that area usually heal in about 3 weeks, and since it's already been almost a week and a half since he hurt it, if he just takes it easy this week he won't have to get a cast or a boot!  

It's not easy keeping him still, but just a week or so more to go! 

Some Normal

The weekend Hurricane Harvey hit Grandpa and Granny Buffie were going to take Kyle and Reed to Galveston for the weekend and take them to Schlitterbahn Galveston for their birthday present.

Obviously all that got canceled.

This weekend Granny Buffie invited her nephew's daughters, Kylie and Remey, to come stay with them as their parents tried to recover from the 3 feet of water that came in their house. 

Kyle and Reed and Kylie and Remey are big buddies, so most of their time was spent at our house. We definitely had the prettiest little refugees you could ever have.

We were looking for something to do with the kids and we thought about Schlitterbahn.  Galveston fared really well during Harvey,  the freeway to Galveston was open, and Schlitterbahn was open. 

Everyone is going stir crazy around here, so we loaded up JR's friends and took off for Galveston yesterday.

Grandpa treated us all to Schliterbahn, and the kids had a fantastic time. We pretty much had the park to ourselves.  They rode everything multiple times.

JR and his buddies

Grandpa with Kyle, Kylie, Remey, and Reed.

It was so nice to get out and be "normal" at Schlitterbahn. I'm so craving "normal", and so are the kids!

A Week

Kyle hurt his foot doing flips (in our house) on August 25th (last Friday).  He's been telling us it hurt and it turned purple and blue and yellow, and we kept telling him he was "fine". 

We would have been telling him he was "fine" even if we weren't in the middle of catastrophic flooding, but I'm going to use that as one of my excuses anyway.

He's also has had the worst "cold" since school started.  But then it started raining, so the first time the doctor's office was open was yesterday.  His "cold" just got worse and I was worried he might have a sinus infection so I was able to get him in yesterday afternoon.

After getting all the meds for "terrible allergies and more swimmer's ear", I said, "oh since we're already here why don't you just look at his foot."

As soon as the doctor looked at it she said she knew it was fractured, and sent us off to get it X-rayed.

The imaging center told us the doctor had put a "rush" on the x-rays so we would know soon.  

Because of all the traffic in Houston with road closures I left about an hour before our doctor's appointment.  We didn't have traffic going, so I parked at the mall and we walked through it to get to the doctor's office (there's a sky bridge connecting them) to kill some time. 

 About 80% of the stores are open at the mall,one of which was the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  On our way back to the car,  I felt so guilty that I'd more than likely let him walk around on a broken foot for a week, that I bought him the $10 cookies and cream caramel apple on a stick he wanted.  

We had been on the road for 20 minutes (it took that long to go 1.8 miles) when the doctor's office called to tell me it was fractured.  They told me to go to an orthopedic doctor near me that was open until 8:00.  

Of course that doctor's office is closed until after Labor Day because of the storm.  When I called the pediatrician back I couldn't get them on the phone because it was after 5:00.

Around 6:30 the on-call pediatrician finally called me back and said that we'd just have to wait until Tuesday to take him in to the orthopedic.  But he had some good news for us, Kyle was in hysterics over having to wear a cast (no swimming and the tears were over the no diving) but the doctor said since he'd been walking on it for a week they probably wouldn't put him in a cast, and he would be in a tight shoe. 

So now we are just trying to keep him from jumping around on it and hurting it more...which is next to impossible!