My busy week

I'm baaack! It's been a busy week.
Last Saturday Jessica and Mikayla had their first Upward Basketball games. Actually, their first games of any kind, ever! Mikayla cried the night before, she was so nervous. And she did look pretty lost on the court...but CUTE. I wish you could see her. But, mother-of-the-year that I am, I forgot my camera. I went home and got it between games, so here's Jessica.


Listening to the coach before the game


Praying before the game


Watching to see if it falls...

And here's Rebecca and her friend Kate watching the game.


And here's Mikayla at Burger King afterward.

A friend of mine took pictures of Mikayla for me, so hopefully someday I'll get them.

Then on Monday, the girls and I left for Fort Worth. I dropped them off with my friends Joanna and Steve, and made it to my sister-in-law's dad's funeral with 5 minutes to spare. Phew. Even though I had only met him once, I'm glad I was able to be there for Robin.
I had been nervous about driving in the Metroplex without Mike--haven't done that in about 14 years!! But it was amazing how it all came back to me. And how the memories came back!
We had a great time staying with the Lasiters. What a neat family. Go here to see pictures of our fun!
Before going home the next day, I drove over to Como Elementary, where I taught kindergarten for 5 years. The same secretary was still there!! It was so fun to see her, and show her my girls, and get caught up on everyone. I had one student, Jarvis, who was so special to me--I serioiusly wondered how I could go about getting custody of him and making him mine. I've prayed for him and wondered about him all this time. Well, Mrs. L said she saw a brother of his at Wal Mart, and she thinks he said Jarvis was in the military! That would be a wonderful place for him to be. I'm going to keep praying. Then she said one of my fellow kindergarten teachers (4 of us were a close team the whole 5 years) was also still there! I got to see her for a few minutes. It was all so...emotional for me.
The drive home was 5 hours in a car with 4 cranky women. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Wednesday we finally started getting back into our normal routine. I've had all kinds of blog entries floating around in my head, but I told myself I couldn't get on the computer until after I got next week's lesson plans done, and thank you notes written, and the house in order. Now here I am, and all my "deep thoughts" have left me. Maybe now that life has settled down (ha) they'll come back to me and I can share them with you here. Until then, here are some random pictures of


Pepper sitting in a chair, one of his favorite places to be,


Samantha and Nellie "playing the piano,"


Mike playing the piano,



and me writing my grocery list. Now I can visit all of you and hopefully catch up on your lives!