5 Years Old!

Today culminated a weekend-long celebration of Vincent's 5th birthday. It is quite amazing to think that our big boy arrived into this world 5 years ago. We had a lot of good old fashioned family time this weekend - time to look at old pictures together, to reflect on the family and friends that have created memories with us and continue to be such an important part of our lives, and time to do a whole lot of goofing off, with the sole purpose of just having fun. Vincent has grown into quite a character. He is a big time joker coupled with being a bit of a deep thinker, and we are always entertained by what thoughts he comes up with. Our favorite quote from today was, "These buggers taste yucky. Mom, how many calories are in buggers?", with a close second being, "Dad, your shirt is only one color (white). I think it needs some more colors." [as he proceeds to wipe his red velvet cake mustache all over my shirt!] Vincent and Julian are growing closer each day. In between the brotherly battles are some very loving moments where they play together and often gang up on us with some silly scheme they concocted. It has been heartwarming to see these two little munchkins grow up. It just happens too fast!!! Thanks to everyone for making these past five years of our lives so special.

Stargate log 0001: We have come out from a deep abyss

I thought I had taken forever to update the last time I updated, but this is worse. Oh well. A lot has happened this summer and really I think we are all just glad it is over. First: House renovations are done and done. We redid the patio, put in a garage kitchen, and gutted the house kitchen. All was pretty much complete by July 27- just in time to celebrate Shu's 40th in Vegas. There is a lot of emotion, blood, sweat, etc but that's I'll post about it for now. We are just so happy to have it all and can't wait to share it with anyone who wants to come visit ;) Second: The boys were complete troopers during the move, the construction, the heat, etc. In it all, Jules is learning how to float and V now swims with big arms ;) Phineas and Ferb and Diego are both big hits in the house. They both now own soccer cleats and have bikes they've barely ridden because of the heat/mosquitoes/construction etc....but this will all change this Fall ;) Vincent is about to embark on a big year of preK - he's going five days a week until noon. Jules is about to start preschool two days a week. They are growing up WAY too fast but I am glad that I will still have the afternoons with them. For now, all of my free time will be absorbed with LIFE Houston. I've decided to stay on for one more year as president of the board. The agency is floundering but it is looking to be a good year. Shu has been working crazy, crazy hours this summer. They went public and then 3 months later they bought an even bigger company SOOOO, we are now finally getting to see each other more. Let's just put it this way - this weekend we were unpacking the garage and finally have it cleaned up ;) Anyway, Haley loves her new yard and is starting to get frisky after feeling the temps drop a few degrees. We have a family of caterpillars on our milk weed plants in the backyard, and we just planted a little cactus garden. Siiiigh. Ah, all just in time for school. Golden moments this summer: eating snow cones in the garage, swimming in the pool, seeing our kitchen take shape, and celebrating Shu's 40th with family and friends. And so, we now sign off with the hopes of renewing our updates to a higher frequency. More photos, more videos, more fun ;)

New house!!

It has been almost a month since we moved into the new house!! Of course, we have not posted in quite a while and a LOT has happened. Let me just document a little of what happened with the move: Day 1 of move in - lots and lots of cleaning. We were warned about how they'd put down bait for the occasional rodent problem that they had....little did we know. By Day 3 we had seen a few mice and rats taking their final breath out back in our detached garage. And that was just the beginning. We closed on the 27th and moved in with the truck on the 4th of April. It took 13 hours to move our house, which was apparently bursting at the seams. The day we moved in, the upstairs AC stopped working. We had someone come out to look at it and, lo and behold, it was some rodent that had been chewing through the wire. SIGH. Then, the day of the move in, a bee stung one of the movers...this led us to a bonafide beehive that was in the eaves of our port cochere....welcome home. Later, we found out it was an 8-comb hive. Niiiiiiiiiiice. What else....this is all wildlife themed, of course...oh, then a squirrel died out in the street kind of in front of the house...and Shu got to come home to find two buzzards going at it. Of course, I am failing to mention the awesome cardinals and blue jays and monarch butterflies that we see on a daily basis at the new house. The pool needed new filters and lots of chemicals. The master shower only spewed out hot hot water and my spigot dribbled water out. Now, a month later, the wildlife has calmed down - no more snakes in the pool and only a baby frog every once in a while. The rodent/squirrel action (I later found out the AC wire was the work of the squirrels that live in the pecan trees out front...maybe the one who died, who knows) has died down and I like to think it is long gone. The bees are gone. The wasps that were living under slide in the playset seem to be gone. Our master shower works like it should and the AC is fixed. And, today we broke ground on our new patio surface - changing out the pavestone for some nice cooldeck ;) So, things are looking up. The biggest scare, by far, was Shu's Dad undergoing open heart surgery yesterday. Man, the man is strong!! He seems to be recovering well. Doctors these days really can be miracle workers!!! As for the boys, they love the pool and the backyard and their new playroom. I haven't heard much talk about the old house AT ALL. V is actually sleeping better and Julian seems to be lining out nicely as well. Vincent has been super sweet lately and Julian is talking a lot more. We just made a batch of homemade pretzels this morning and all three of us got our hands dirty ; ) I look forward to what is in store for us now that Julian is getting older. We just had a great visit from the Senkeviches and it was great hosting them at the house. We even went to the elementary school and hung out. Good stuff. Oh, and V had a great birthday weekend packed with a family pool party and a party at Great Play. And now ends my stream of consciousness. Now that the home buying and moving is over I will try to keep this more up to date...of course the kitchen remodel and LIFE Houston might deter it a bit, but I can only improve, right ;)

Lots of Changes

It's been a while since we posted, so here is dad's attempt at an update. We've had a super busy month. The big news is that we are planning on moving to Sugar Land in March (sale in progress on a new house, gotta sell our current house), and we'll be bugging the heck out of my aunt and uncle because we'll be about 10 houses down from them! :) We've been busy prepping our house for sale, which has entailed a whole lot of long days and late nights packing, cleaning, repairing, etc. The house is finally de-cluttered, and some of our friends have commented on how they don't recognize the pictures of our house because they look, well, clean. Thanks a lot, guys (you know who I'm talkin' about!). :)

Today, I decided to start a quote board for the boys because they are saying some really hilarious stuff these days. Today's quote of the day from Vincent was, "I like to eat buggers. I'm a bugger eating machine!" Julian is a spunky little fella - very happy when things are going according to his plans, likes to bug us and do things like head butt us and bounce on my belly. He has quite a sense of humor, and he gets this Jack Nicholson type look in has eyes when he is about to attack ...

Good night!