Dressed Up to Sing

JR and I left the house bright and early Saturday morning for him to sing at UIL solo and ensemble.

He so rarely gets dressed up, so I was happy to get a picture of him.  

After UIL he was off to My Fair Lady practice.  He's definitely keeping himself busy. 

We Had Fun

Kyle didn't make it on to the podium for 1 meter, but we still had a great time and a great experience.

Breakfast at the hotel

2nd breakfast at Panda Express in the Student Center

 Kyle lost a tooth while diving!

And I got my Russian baby fix (Georgi's little sister).

Knowing she's a Russian, I'll give you one guess what her name is.

Yep, Anastasia! 

Did We Make it a "Dive Bar"?

Kyle had a great first day at his A&M meet.

The A&M natatorium is first class all the way.  It's really impressive.

Look how tiny Kyle looks up there.

That's Kyle in the middle of a back dive off the 3 meter

He's used to doing 5 dives with AAU, but this meet was USA diving (he was in the 12-13 boys division) so he was required to do 8 dives.

There were 3 kids from his dive club competing the days we were there.  Aren't they cute?

And since Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw live close they came to watch.

There was lots of diving, with prelims, semis (3 dives) and finals (3 dives).

And Kyle was thrilled to get 2nd.

Their coach asked us where we wanted to have the team dinner and Kyle suggested the Dixie Chicken.  Leave it to an Ingersoll kid to suggest a bar!

Kyle's big smile tells it all....

Our kids were the only kids in there...of course.

Jason Should be Here

Kyle and I are at A&M for a diving meet.

Sending me to A&M is like sending Jason to UT.  I have no idea where anything is and I keep calling Jason and saying "I'm standing in front of (insert building) how do I get to (insert place)."

Kyle is super unimpressed with all the cadets.  I actually had no idea that the corps kids wore their uniforms to class.  Kyle told me that A&M looks "unfun".  I tried to tell him that his daddy had a lot of fun here.  Even I admit it's not really fair, the only other college tour I've taken him on is UT...where I showed him all the sorority and fraternity houses, and all he's seen here is a bunch of kids in military uniforms! 

If Kyle isn't impressed with A&M, he is impressed with our hotel.  

We have been enjoying it quite a bit. (We're at The George.)

We did send this to Jason who informed us that, yes, he spent a lot of hours here.

I landmark everything in relation to Kyle field since it's the easiest thing to find.

We found this sign for Reed. 

All checked in and ready to dive.

Final Celebrations

Reed decided they needed another "birthday party".  Apparently celebrating your birthday on a Disney Cruise isn't enough....or this was just a ploy to get me to let him have a sleepover.

2 friends and a tiny birthday cake and we are calling the 11th birthday completely celebrated. 

Run Houston

Well, we did it.

We ran the Houston half marathon incident free.  

We found our friend, Julie, who is our Insanity instructor and was running the full marathon.

I decided to not wear all my clothes and take an old comforter to wrap up in at the starting line.  

(Best idea ever!)

They were donating all the discarded blankets and coats and I can't even tell you how many thousands and thousands of  discarded "warm things" were lining the sidewalks.

There were 28,000 people running so we didn't cross the starting line until about 7:50.  The guy who won the half marathon crossed the finish line 10 minutes after we started! 

I didn't have any pockets so I had my phone in my running belt and didn't take any pictures. So this is it for photos. 

We finished, got our medals and t-shirts and went to the racquet club for a celebratory brunch.

We had our families and a bunch of friends meet us to celebrate so it was a fun day all around! 

4 Years Later

Around this time 4 years ago I ran the Houston Marathon.

  And since then I've hardly run a step.

My friends that I work out with and I were getting tired of doing classes, and we decided we'd sign up for the Houston half marathon.

We started training in August running 1 mile.  Not even kidding.  

We went and picked up our packets on Friday and we are all ready to run 13.1 miles tomorrow (it's supposed to be one of the coldest Houston Marathons in history).

We had lots of fun at the Expo.

Clearly.

We found our names on the wall with all the half marathoners and marathoners.  

Being an "I", it was super easy to find my name.

At lunch we couldn't decide which dessert to celebrate with, so we had them all.  

We deserve it, right?

I'll be leaving my house about 5:00 AM tomorrow...wearing everything I own. 

Basketball Season

Basketball season is in full swing.

We took these two to the Rockets game last Friday night (Kyle was diving.)

And then Reed's basketball team won their last two games.  Reed scored 2 baskets at one and 1 at the other...plus lots of steals, of course. 

Welcome to the Family

One of Reed's Christmas presents was that he got to go pick out a new hamster.

Reed decided he wanted a "Winter White" (which is what Kyle has).

Meet Nugget.

You might have notices that she isn't white....I had no idea Winter Whites could be so dark.

Chloe was less than impressed with Nugget.

What a terrible "welcome to the family" for Nugget....look at Chloe's tongue! 

Cruise Wrap Up

Proof that we did get off the boat (in Grand Cayman...We didn't even get off in Cozumel).

Proof that we saw Mickey Mouse.

Proof that we dressed up and ate fancy food.

Proof that the adults had as much fun as the kids.

Big Winner (And Not)

I played a few games of trivia on the cruise. It was mostly Disney themed (and I don't really know much about Disney). 

But then we played TV theme song trivia and I knew I couldn't be beat. I knew almost all 25 of them (I didn't know 24 or Dexter but my team did) And we walked away winners of these "awesome"  Disney cruise baseball hats.

The last day of the cruise the bingo pot was up to $10,000.  Kyle and Reed begged to play, so we went (along with the rest of the ship).   People were buying hundreds of dollars worth of bingo cards.  I walked up and said "My kids want to play, what's the cheapest way I can do this?"  

So for 30 bucks they got to play 4 games of bingo and not win $10,000.

Stars of the Show

Kyle was picked out of the audience to go up on stage during one of the mainstage shows.

And it's pretty easy to see why he got picked when you see what he was wearing.

He was funny and did a great job. 

Another night Reed asked me to go to the "How Well Do You Know Your Family" gameshow.

He wanted to get picked so badly, and of course, I know how to get picked out of an audience...which we were.

We did pretty good, and came in 2nd place. (I didn't know who his favorite Disney character was)

One of his answers 

So Many Crafts

Reed was all about the activities this trip.

Even Kyle who normally doesn't care for "Farts and Crafts" (as he calls them) did a few.

They both came back to the room with Mickeys they had made.

And I had a bed full of origami one afternoon.

Reed and I went to towel folding class, where we didn't do terrible.

 

 monkey

our bears

Except I never could get my swan to stay up by itself.

Reed's did, of course.

Speaking of my crafts, I thought my Disney door decorations were cute.

I even made our friends'.

But who needs to go make stuff when you can just ask for it?

Kyle liked the decorative fish made out of a lemon at lunch so they just gave it to him. 

(And just check out that lunch of sushi and mac-and-cheese. Wow.)