Happy Birthday Ty

14 years ago today our first son was born! Where did the time go? I have no idea!

Some things I remember clearly without reading the details from what I recorded in his baby book:

1)1st birthday party with 6 or 7 other 1 year olds and their moms.
2)the time we were sitting in Sacrament meeting for a missionary farwell when Ty was a little over a year old and I broke down in tears. Of course Greg thought I was crazy when I told him I was crying because 18 years from then Ty would be going on a mission. Now it's only 5 years away!
3)the day he busted his head open on the fireplace in our first home and needed a plastic surgeon to stitch him up. He was 22 months old.
4)his first day of kindergarten
5)the first time he pee'd standing up (camping trip in McCall, Idaho)
5)his baptism day
6)his first trip to the principal's office (for expressing his choice for President in the 2004 election with his friends in the restroom)
7)when he became a deacon
8)his first football game
9)his first crush on a girl

I'm glad I can remember the good times and not so many of the things he has done that haven't made us so happy at times!

Twice in their lifetime!

Yes, I'm referring to the snow that has been falling in Friendswood, Tx since about 6:00pm today...maybe it started earlier, but I wouldn't know it was because I didn't wake up from my nap until then!

But nothing will top the Christmas Eve snow of 2004!

And it was still on the ground Christmas morning!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

The colder temperatures this week have helped to make it feel more like Christmas! It was 37 degrees one morning! We decorated the office at school Thursday and put up the tree and decorations at home that night as well.

Today I went to some Christmas boutiques with my mom and a friend!

And I even changed the background on the blog!

Now I'm off to have a date with my hubby while my mom is keeping all the boys overnight!

It's been way to long since my last post...

What can I say! It's easier to talk about blogging than to find the time to do it lately. I feel like I have to have pictures with every post and when it takes me a month to download my pictures to the computer so I can use them in my post I always get behind.


So once again I'm playing catch up.



We finished all 3 fences and got a new roof! What a relief to have that behind us. We haven't gotten to building the shed yet due to some other delays (explanation below). We plan on paying someone to do the small amount of sheetrock work that needs to be done inside after the holidays just because we don't feel like messing with it.

Halloween...Dylan broke his wrist at school during PE playing "two touch football". I guess that translates to a push and a shove...or a touch and a tackle. Oh well!


The Monday after Halloween Greg got his braces on then Dylan got his on Wednesday. Gregs are the clear porcelin ones on the top so you can't even tell he has them unless you are close. All I can say is it's gonna be a long 2 1/2 years for me!


I also attempted to take some pictures of the kids for this years Christmas card. There were so many cute ones I still have no idea which ones to use!

We had plans of staying home for the Thanksgiving holiday and working on the shed, rearranging furniture to make room for the Christmas tree, decorating, shopping on Black Friday, etc. However, the week before Thanksgiving my 98 year old great grandmother had a stroke and passed away in Utah. The funeral was the Monday before Thanksgiving so we all flew out to SLC and drove to Pocatello, Idaho to honor her. She had been a widow since her husband passed away in the 1950's. It was only the last 11 years that she lived in a nursing home...I say "only" but I think that's a long time. Luckily the 2 homes she lived in during those years she was watched over by family members. Her grandson, who is my 2nd cousin and my age, was her doctor for the last 2 years. She outlived 4 of her 8 children. This picture was from this summer when we last saw her.
Since we were already in Idaho we decided to drive over to Boise and stay the rest of the week with my brother and his family which is always a great time. The basement is filled with pinball machines that my brother has bought broken and repaired the "guts" and of course we had lots of Wii time together. While there we also went to Idaho City which is an old mining town in the mountains, did our "black Friday" shopping, and Greg and Ty went to the BSU vs Fresno State game later that night. We headed back to SLC early Saturday morning to beat the crowds and caught a Saturday afternoon flight back to the warm weather! It was a great holiday.


Now it is December, the cold front is coming in as I post this (I love having the windows open and covering up with blankets on the couch.) Tomorrow night we will have the extended family over for dinner and decorate for Christmas which is so fun! We will never forget the Christmas Eve in 2004 when it snowed! I'll have to dig that picture out and post it!


I love remembering the birth of Our Savior and all that he has done for me in my life. I love focusing on others and how they have blessed my life. I am greatful for this time of year for so many reasons. I am greatful for all of you!

What do we do with our time?

Lately I feel like I don't get anything done and still at the end of the day I'm exhausted and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.

But in reality, when a friend that I haven't talked to in just few days says "what have you been up to?" and I tell her, SHE's exhausted! I know I'm not the only woman, wife and mother that feels this way...and I'm not looking for sympathy. It's only at moments like this that I realize I/we have really accomplished alot of things.

Some of the things we have been doing with our time:

Building fences with neighbors

step 1-tear down and haul off the old fence

step 2-dig hole, pour cement, set post...you wouldn't know it but behind this one post there are 12 others that you can't see. That makes for one straight fence!

step 3-nail 2x4's between posts

step 4-nail rot board to posts

step 5-start nailing pickets, one at a time

This is what it looked like at the end of day 2.

The final product: 83 feet long, 7 ft tall, worked with a great neighbor, 2 long weekends and only $440 (for 1 side).

And because we had so much fun (NOT), this week we are doing it all over again on the other side of the house!

This week...we get to work with a very motivated but not very hands on helpful neighbor. We started Sunday at 2pm and it's Tuesday and we (well, Greg, my brother and the neighbor) dug the new holes for the posts and poured cement and set all but 4 of the posts while I cought up on blogging, returned the auger used to dig the holes, picked Dylan up from his bowling activity with orchestra, ran through Wendy's to grab a bite while waiting for Ty during his guitar lessons! Plas for tomorrow are to set the last of the posts before Ty's football game so Thursday we can get the 2x4's nailed up. That leaves Friday for trick or treating and Saturday and Sunday we can do the building part of building a fence!

The 2 back neighbors we share the fence with aren't interested in helping build that section of fence so we said fine...we will fork out the money for someone else to do it as long as it is a reasonable price and good quality work...after all, we would much rather start working on our next project: building our new shed!

Trunk or treating...

with our favorite little fairy princess Alexa...I know that if we would have ever had a little girl she would have been "one of the boys"! This little princess loves to play swords and rumble and tumble with the boys. They are very protective and watchful over her and love having her around most of the time...which reminds me of a few months ago when she was getting to be quite good at walking, we had her overnight and Chad asked me if I could strap her in her car seat because she was getting into everything!!! Of course I told him I tried that with him and it didn't work so there was no use trying it with Alexa!

We haven't seen much of her the last few months because my aunt has been in Indiana. She came home after the hurricane to deal with insurance and then she came back this past weekend to vote. Both times she was able to bring Alexa over to our side of town so we could get our "Alexa" fix!

Fishing...

Last Saturday the bishop and YM president took Ty fishing with them to High Island. They go out in the Gulf in kayak's which Ty loves. Good news, as you can see from the picture, Ty caught a huge (at least I think it's huge) red fish. We cleaned it and had a wonderful dinner on Sunday. Bad news, which anyone that knows Ty can recognize he looks a little different in the picture...no glasses. Yep, you guessed it, there is a fish in the Gulf wearing Ty's glasses! If you happen to see Mr. Limpet, grab Ty's glasses! Good news...we had Ty's eyes checked last week and he needed a new prescription anyways. Bad news, he doesn't have a backup pair and the new glasses won't arrive until Wednesday. Good news, tomorrow is Wednesday and they should be here in time for his 5pm football game!

I love being busy! I'm sure it means we have earned a vacation at the end of it all!

Fences, and Roofs, and Braces...Oh My!

It's been a while and from the title of this post you may be able to figure out why. But first I have to back up to more post Ike highlights.


One week after Ike hit it was a Friday, the day after Greg had left on his annual hunting trip to California. My aunt Donna and a few of her daughters were in town because they were going with my mom and grandpa on a cruise to the Bahamas out of Miami on Sunday. I had just learned that the kids and I would be off of school the entire next week because the schools were not all ready to handle students and staff. Our school district was the worst hit...even worse than Galveston schools. 39 out of the 40 schools in the district had some damage...some worse than others. Ty's gym and locker and weight rooms were destroyed so they are using the portable buildings for the rest of the football season at least and probably until the end of the year.


Anyway, we were driving around town looking for eggs and the thought came to me and I said to my aunt Donna "tell me why the boys and I aren't going on the cruise with all of you." And her reply was "I don't know. Here, talk to my travel agent." So we called her up, they had a room that held 4 and most of all, the price was right. So Friday afternoon I bought some new clothes and Sunday morning 9 of us boarded the plane to Miami. We spent the afternoon at South Beach













and Monday at 2pm we boarded the ship. It was not my favorite cruise line (Norwegian) but the ship was newer and nice. The staff was nice but slow at meal time.












The ports we visited (Freeport, Nassau, and Norwegian's private island) were all nice and sunny.



We flew home on Friday, Greg got home Sunday, and Monday it was back to reality...dealing with insurance adjusters and hunting for a roofer, fencer, and/or contractor that 1)we can trust 2)will do a good job 3)that will do it at a reasonable price 4)that can have the job completed before the boys get out of high school. We have met with 2 roofers and 2 fencers so far. Saturday a roofer will come out and meet with us and the insurance adjuster. We do know that the one fence that didn't have any damage but still needs replaced will be built this weekend only because Greg and the neighbor are going to do it themselves. We have been talking about it for a few years and since the other 2 fences will be new we decided it's as good as time as any to do the 3rd side. I wish the other neighbors were able to help build the fences we share but that's not the case. They have said they would pay Greg labor if he built them since we would be number 1 in line for a fence instead of 431...or 243...or you get my point. It may end up that the boys and I help Greg build the other fences just to get it done! Watch for pictures of our new fence in a future post.

Now onto the braces...Greg and Dylan went to the ortho this week and November 3rd and 5th is "B" day for them! They received their "last supper" (a bag of candy and gum) from the ortho as we left. They will both be in them for 2 1/2 years. Dylan will have to have the herbts device for the first year also to force his bottom jaw to grow forward. Greg is too old for that device since he is done growing so after a year he can have surgery to correct his bottom jaw. They would break it then insert permanent extenders. He's not sure if he wants to do that yet. I'm glad they are doing this together for moral support reasons only...definately not excited about the financial side of it. Stay tuned for photos!

That's it for now...

Our Ike Experience

Boy was I fooled thinking I'd be able to blog through the storm. Yes we had power via the generator but no internet! Duhhh! Some people think I was a blonde in a previous life. I will start where I left off...

Friday evening---our hurricane guests started arriving around 6pm...bringing with them beds, extra tv, batteries, water, snacks, and moral support. We started having intermitant power surges around 7pm. I would count to 15 or 18 and the power would come back on so we continued on with our game of cards and the kids played "Rock you like a hurricane" on guitar hero. The winds and rains started around 8pm. By 11:15pm when the power went out and I had counted to 25 I knew this was the beginning of the loss of power for an unknown amount of time. However, we did have Greg's Iphone for entertainment! He pulled up some old emails that his friend Mark Massey sent...you know the ones that get forwarded to you that someone forwarded to him that someone forwarded to him, and so on. Some of them had us all in stitches. By about midnight the kids and my mom and grandpa had gone to bed. Just in the knick of time because the conditions outside worsened. I remember at one point during what we thought was the worst of it Dawn asked the question something like "who's bright idea was it to hunker down through this storm?" The husbands looked at the wives as Dawn and I pointed at each other...and then we laughed and the guys said "just we thought!"

We were watching the local news on the battery operated black and white tv and about 1:30ish the eye was directly over Galveston and all was calm there and would be for the next 1 1/2-2 hours...so we had something to look forward to-NOT! Galveston is only about 28 miles from us so the eye would theoretically reach Friendswood in about 2 hours. So we waited...and waited...it was about 3am and still blowing like crazy. Sustained winds reached about 85mph with gusts up to about 105. We sat and waited for the windows to shatter so that we could patch them ...I just knew we would regret not boarding up. I had been up for almost 24 hours and couldn't take it anymore so I went in the bedroom and crashed out. I woke up a few hours later with the rains and wind still around 50mph and learned that at the last minute Ike jogged to the east...this was good and bad. Good because it forced the storm surge to the east side of Galveston Bay instead of the west side where the community is that my school is at along with all the parents and students and many of the staff members live...Bad because that meant we in Friendswood never had the benefit of the 2 hour calm of the eye...we got the west side of the eye wall continuosly until the storm finally passed around 11am...Good because the west side is the "clean" side. The amazing thing...the kite in the tree in our front yard has been stuck there for about 3 or 4 years...and it's still there!

On the menu tonight: grilled chicken breasts, sausage, mac and cheese

Saturday---We are so blessed! Not lucky...BLESSED. We lost alot of fence and a lot of shingles off the roof. No problem...until Sunday morning when it rained! The roof started leaking over the entry way. Thank goodness it only rained for 3-4 hours. It also moved our air conditioner unit. It didn't move it totally off it's pad, but it did shift it several inches.

We started our new life living with a generator...trying to save as much food from the others refridgerators and freezers and cooking it as fast as we could...which was faster than we could eat it! But we gave it a good shot!

Chad was the official "toast master"

We ventured out Saturday around noon to check on mom's, grandpa's, aunt Jan's, and Dawn and Jerry's places. It took a while since alot of the streets were blocked by downed trees and power lines. But in the end the damage to their homes was minimal as well...gutters and fences and a few shingles. And once again we realized how BLESSED we were...as was the majority of our area. Of all the trees that we saw down I would bet 90% fell away from homes and cars...that's why we couldn't get around the streets very easily. It was truely an amazing sight every time we turned around.

After lunch we checked out some other areas of town to see the devistation. Unbelievable as you probably agree after seeing some of the media coverage. By the way, we found that ice machine in the parking lot that Dawn swore she saw on Nasa Rd 1...it was really in League City.
We never lost water which was wonderful and we have a gas stove, oven and hot water heater! YEAH! That helped a ton when it came to cooking and HOT showers! Saturday's temperatures were hot and humid making things very uncomfortable. We finally had to put sheets over the leather couches so we wouldn't stick to them. Our friends decided to go back to their house that night to sleep in their own beds instead of on our couches...but they still did not have power. I think the important part was that we were all together during the storm.

Greg and I decided it would be more comfortable to sleep under the stars on the trampoline...and we were right.

On the menu tonight: ribs and sausage

Sunday---still no power at the Pemberton house. We thought Dawn and Jerry and the kids would be back over for breakfast...sure enough Dawn and Logan and Bryson pulled up about 11am honking their horn and waving fresh hot donuts out the window shouting "we've got the power!" Their power had been restored. They live right behind Walmart and Sam's Club...what do you expect! The celebration was a little premature since after about 2 hrs they lost power again...no we weren't laughing at them, we were laughing with them.

The only one that sustained bodily injury through the whole thing was Chad. He went outside and a stray dog jumped on him and he didn't have a shirt on. We doctored him up and convinced him he would live.

For some reason our land line went out and the cell service of course was hit and miss so I went to my mom's to place the dreaded call to the insurance company and get that process started (which is sure to be long and complicated).

On the menu tonight...brisket

By 9pm the power was restored again and it stayed on this time so we went and visited with them at their house before returning to our trampoline to sleep yet another night without power!

Monday---Waking up we found at some point Chad decided to join us on the trampoline.

Knowing the community in which I work and Chad has several friends and classmates was hit very hard, we wanted to do something to show them we were thinking of them and their stuggles ahead. Dylan also had friends in the area since he attended school there last year. We made sack lunches to deliver in the Clear Lake Forest neighborhood behind our school. We didn't know if anyone would want them since we didn't get to the area until around 1:30 but that didn't matter. It didn't matter if we saw anyone we knew or not. I loved this lady's shirt...if you can't read it it says "my kids think I have money coming out my (you fill in the blank)... and then it has a $100 bill between the cheeks! I couldn't stop laughing even though it is a little graphice. Back to business...I didn't know who lived in what house but I knew the families in that neighborhood that I have come to know and love from working at the school for now my third year. What a great experience we had. We sat in the back of the truck as Greg drove up and down the streets so we could offer what we had. We only ran in to three families that I knew but fed many others. We wanted to go to some other neighborhoods but ran out of food and couldn't get in to Nassau Bay unless we lived there.

While we were passing out food, Ty helped grandpa clean up the branches out of his yard. Grandpa said he worked his tushi off. I am so proud of our kids.

I know there will be many more opportunities to offer service in the future.

On the menu tonight: steak and shrimp

(Chad joined us all night on the trampoline Monday night!)

Tuesday---Greg headed back to work at 6am this morning. He works at Hobby for Continental Airlines. They didn't have power in the hangers but they were able to clean up twisted meta and debris. Greg was in charge of creating a white board for employees that had damage to their homes to list their names and needs and others could sign up to help them or leave names and info of someone they know that might be able to provide a service for them. What a great idea, honey!

I was woken up at 8am by Ty pouncing on the trampoline yelling "we have power!" And from that moment on the washing machine started and it didn't stop until about 9pm. And the only scare was when I was putting the last load in and the power went out...before I counted to 3 it was back on...sigh.

After dinner tonight Ty and Greg climbed on the roof to put a blue tarp over where we are missing the most shingles. We are expecting rain this weekend and he is leaving Thursday night for his hunting trip and I didn't want to take the chance since we know the insurance company won't be getting out here anytime soon.

As I put the last load of clothes in the dryer and reflect on the whole Ike experience, I count my many blessings, and name them one by one:

*we are all safe and so are our friends and family

*the kids fell asleep before the worst of the storm

* the sun will come out tomorrow as it did after the storm

*at least Greg wasn't hunting during this hurricane like he was during Rita

*life was definately more bareable thanks to the investment of the generator and gas appliances

*cool fronts that came through on Saturday that provided wonderful weather for opening windows to air out the house and also perfect weather for sleeping under the stars on the trampoline

*we were prepared and didn't have to wait in lines for gas and food and ice

*the money we saved by having all the stores and resturants closed we can put towards our insurance deductible

*we know what to expect next time we decide to "hunker down"

Thank you to all of our friends and family that checked on us continuosly via texting offering us a place to stay and anything they could do to help. You are all loved and appreciated.

As for what we will do "next time", remember a few posts ago I referred to the "Rita factor"...next time, I'll make the decision to evacuate or "hunker down" based on the "Ike factor"!