First and second days of school 2011

 Beautiful 6th and 8th graders...watch out Bush Bulldogs!

Home Sick

Today I am feeling homesick - for my St. Charles home. It may sound silly to call it home because we only lived there 3 years, but once your friends become like family, it feels like home. I still can't figure out how to load these pics in order so this is what I don't miss:

just looking at this picture makes me shiver.

what this pic doesn't tell you is that with the wind chill, it's -20 degrees!

my snuggie

And WHAT I DO MISS:

hanging out in downtown Chicago

wearing sweats (not too sure what Steve is doing...)

my bff's. this is just a few of the great friends I left taken from one of our bunco nights. I miss these girls (and more not pictured).

my home - especially at christmas time.

the girls friends. they were such a huge part of our life and i didn't realize how much i would miss them all.

mads picks her friends wisely and had a few great friends who i love!

my a-day girls. seriously the sweetest, happiest bunch of girls ever. i had the best time leading them in so many activies for 2 years.

our YW. again, such a great group of girls and fun, happy leaders who made YW and girls camp fabulous for maddie.

mads & halina

ry, claire, livvy, jessie, & lunas

i also miss:

-movies with steve during the day in the theater room

- bi-weekly 3 hours lunches with susan

-trail walking with emily and our dogs

-antique shopping in quaint geneva and st. charles

-great neighbors who i could count on

-crafting with friends

-our 'station' workouts with steve, girls and makayla

I am grateful for the fun friends we have already met and got close to in san antonio. i'm sure that in 3 years, I'll grow to really love this place too...it just seems so long away.

Annual beach trip

Steve claims the Oregon coast is a 'fake beach', and wonders how others can enjoy it in their parkas and wetsuits...but enjoy it we do! We have gone every summer since the girls were born - either to Cannon Beach or if we also need to do a little shopping to Lincoln City. This beach is in Lincoln City near Taft, where we once had a little house a few block from the inlet. I loved to see that nothing has changed, especially all the sea lions lounging in the sun. The girls had such a great time (Jace didn't want to be the only boy and stayed home - I can't blame him!) stalking all the crab fishermen (if that's what they're called or crabmen?) and playing with the sweet seaweed.

Maddie holding the crab, I think in '04?

How cute is this? See, we loved these crabs then too!

Algae braclets?

Ava was so cute and brave. She was holding the crabs, identifing the gender and guessing whether or not it was small enough for the people catching it to keep it!

Going ons

In an effort to wish the June heat away, we've been staying busy doing:

Heights Hammerheads swim team.  Man, our girls can swim.  It's been a 4 years since they were on swim team in Highland Village (although I just remembered they did swim for a few weeks a summer at St. Charles North High) and you wouldn't know they missed a beat.  I also thought it would be challange to get them up and to practice at 8am during the first few weeks of summer, but they were troopers and happy about going.  Maddie swore she wouldn't do a meet, (bribery works) but they've done a few and always placed in the top.  

 Rylee had her first track meet after qualifing at her school.  We hope there's lots more of these.

 I'm loving this new subway art trend and thought I would make one of my own signs.  Lots of paint sampling going on in the background! 

 Listening to the jack-hammer 8 hours a day dig through the solid limestone that will eventually be our pool!  You can see in the photo that the top 6 inches is soil and the rest is complete stone!  We can't wait.

Partaking of Rylee's happy face breakfast!

 Trying to figure out how to decorate this new place and have determined that I hate yellow walls.

 Watching these beautiful sunsets that the camera does no justice for from our front porch.

Blue Lily

Blue Lily did not disappoint. I saw that they were coming to Austin when we were still in Chicago and jumped at the chance to have a photo session with them. I may have had shared a little too much information with them and told them I felt like I was meeting a celebrity couple and if they wanted to come to San Antonio, they could stay with us anytime and that even Steve was laughing uncontrollably at one of their blog posts (Steve does NOT read blogs, even ours) and so maybe we could be best friends. Maybe. They were just as cool, talented and easy going as they seem to be. And when I congratulated them on the fantastic lifestyle they lead (traveling the globe with their kids +nannies while making a billion dollars) Tyler responded by saying "life for us is just easy, you know?" No, actually I don't. It's rewarding and worthwhile, but not easy. Gotta love the attitude. Wendy thought Rylee was 15 and Mads 17. Ugggg.

Steve was at training in Dallas and so we did photos of mostly just the girls.

What's taking me so long?

Luckily, most of the house does not look like this, but a good portion does! Someone come see me so I can get my butt in gear!

Bonus Room Reveal!

I don't want to have to post this all over again, so I've linked the girls bonus room photos to my Inspire blogspot. It was the most fun I've had in a while!

Gratitude

This will probably be long and boring (and personal) but I intend to blog more and get more long and more boring and more personal because this IS my journal. :)

This last 2 years have been a crazy time of life for us; definitely the hardest we've had in the last 16 years. During Steve's separation from OG it was especially trying and we had to do our best not to be bitter at the total injustice we were facing. It seemed so unfair that after 22 years of excellent performance and a steady move up the ladder, a female minority boss with something to prove and a chip on her shoulder (someone needs to write a book on the antics and wrongful treatment of mostly executive female bosses to their male employees - I've heard so many stories) could completely change the lives of an entire family just because she didn't like Steve. We thought about the possibility of a lawsuit and were told by professionals that we could definitely win - and win big - but after lots of consideration we decided it would only add to our bitterness and despite the payout, would effect our quality of life negatively. So, the search for a new opportunity began. We kept going back and forth between opening our own restaurant, buying a franchise (or whether we could even do that financially) or back to a corporate job. Month after month passed and it was clear that we couldn't be choosey, we pretty much had to go with whatever happened first. It seemed to drag on FOREVER (it didn't help that it was dreary and freezing cold outside for 6 months straight) but I look back now and wish we had a bit more time so that we could develop the SilverSaver and realize the huge potential that it is slowly becoming (I'm working on that now while Steve is in training). Long story short, finally in November the opportunity to move to San Antonio and open up a restaurant franchise with a partner (we are the minority partners - I always feel the need to tell others that - least they assume we could afford 11 restaurants on our own!) came up. Our house was already on the market and had been for a good 6 months. Within weeks of this opportunity (and the same day Teish and Kara were visiting for Thanksgiving - long, funny story), a family came to look at our house and made an offer the next day which included most of the basement furniture and much upstairs also. We knew we would be down sizing and wouldn't have room for all our furniture, so this was a great blessing. Even though we lost TONS of money on the house, we could have lost more as more homes came on the market in spring and competition heated up. So.....to sum things up, it's been an unsettling, crazy, challenging but blessed time for us and I have continually prayed to be able to see all the many blessings we have through all the crap. These are the things that keep coming to me:

Our country: I cherish the many opportunities we have in this country. As Susan said, there are a million ways to make a million dollars in this country. We were able (Steve dreamt it up) to invent a product that can help restaurants save money, claim that invention as our own so no one else could copy it- via a patent, source out someone in China to make it, market it in trade publications and eventually sell it to make a great profit. Our country allowed all this to happen and in many, many others it is not possible.

My work ethic: I am so very grateful that our mom taught us hard work. I LOATHE laziness. A good day for me is a productive one. Not a relaxing one. Not a fun one. I realize at times this is a fault of mine and that having fun and relaxing is a good thing; but to me, I'd rather be productive. I especially love creating something out of nothing (building, painting, decorating) and this usually involves hard work. Our mom usually made work fun; she would set a timer and all 7 of us would work together one room at a time. Once the timer ran out, we were done in that room. It became a game to see how fast we could collectively go. Many times we were rewarded with candy! Our favorite thing to do was surprise mom with a clean house when we knew she was headed home from wherever. Maybe this is why I feel so strongly about capitalism. Dennis Prager said "Capitalism makes people work harder. Socialism makes people want harder". I love the simplicity behind that. One should not be penalized for working hard and be rewarded for not working hard.

My family: This morning as I was letting the dogs outside to go potty I heard Steve snoring (he had been banished to the guest room because he's snoring a little louder than normal because he has a cold) from the other room. I have never been so excited to hear him snore and experienced a feeling of excitement, love and relief at the same time. He has been away at training in Dallas (a huge adjustment after being home for almost 2 years) and we haven't seen him for 2 weeks. I love that he makes us laugh so often and although totally demanding, is the center of everything when home! I am so grateful that he has always been a great provider for our family and takes that role seriously. Madison and Rylee are at such fun ages now and I completely and totally love hanging out with them. I get so excited to see them when they come home from school; like a friend arrived at my house! It's been a very tough transition for them (especially Mads) but selfishly, I love having lots of time for them and they are a bit nicer when not surrounded by friends all the time.

A home: I'll admit that it was so depressing to go house shopping in San Antonio; we had to literally cut the price of our home in less-than-half and the size of the home followed. I know that is totally spoiled and snotty, but it's the truth. After 15 years of progressing in home quality, size and beauty, we were going back in time and it stunk. I spent lots of time doing a self assessment and getting to the root of this in-gratitude. It boiled down to 3 things for me 1)insecurity 2)too much pride and mostly 3)I love pretty things. My surroundings are very important to me and I appreciate beautiful craftsmanship, etc. I live and breath interior design. It's not me trying to show off my nice, expensive furniture, fabrics, accessories, etc. If no human ever walked into my house I would want it to be beautiful and look exactly the way it does just for me. This is totally evident to me in our new oak kitchen; I hate being in there because it is ugly to me! Anyway, this new house is growing on me; I'm realizing that I prefer a smaller home. I don't feel so wasteful and it's easier to find and be next to each other! It's a heck of a lot easier to clean and forces me to only keep things that I love out. I am loving this great opportunity to change some things and learn some new DIY home skills. When it starts getting overwhelming deciding what color to paint the cabinets or which countertop surface to go with, I remind myself that I am blessed to have the opportunity to change these things. I also feel so grateful that I have the luxury of focusing on these home improvements instead of throwing myself into a job.

Carribean Cruise with fam

We started planning for this cruise in spring of 2010, and despite the fact that we were going to move 3 days after we got home, we went anyway and I'm so glad we did! We really thought Steve would be working when the time to go came but alas, he wasn't and being the trooper that he is, stayed home and packed. This was the first cruise for Mike, Sage and boys and also for Karas great friend Rebecca.

Mads on a long board

she's so focused!

Ryry on the long board.

Gods work in Puerto Rico. Amazing.

One of us in this picture is scared of these dirty birds and the other one is very brave.

Even Becks got in on some pigeon action.

We loved all the color in San Juan - with the blues skys as a backdrop it was visual candy for us.

Ry had so much fun with the boys and took great care of them.

We got to spend the day at the beach with the boys while Mike and Sage went kayaking. I loved every minute of it - it was so fun to see the differences in how the boys played compared to how my girls played - everything they say is true!

These iguanas were everywhere.

Our favorite stop was definately the island Grand Turk of Turks and Caicos. The water was unbelievably clear and warm. I took a quick trip alone to see a little more of the island while everyone stayed at the beach to find that most of the island was farm land, I even saw wild horses! One of the shops (aka a grass shack with 10 or 11 mismatched items) had a few bags for sale with 'Provo' embroidered on them. It was in fact not for Provo, Utah but for the main island of Providenciales. And yes, I did have to google that spelling.