First day of HIGH SCHOOL and 7th grade 2012!

This is how I feel about 2 weeks before school is about to begin:

If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.  ~Edgar W. Howe

And this is how I feel the day before it begins:

You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Scares me to death. Thankfully, we have stalwart young women who are both responsible, moral, natural born leaders and will hopefully continue to choose good friends and will be able to understand what they're being taught because they passed me up academically about 2 years ago. 

Actually, this is Madison's second day.  We were running late the first day and only got this gem below:

Rylee, so pretty in pink!

Thumbs up for this cute backpack, which took us 21,673 hours to find.

When in Texas, do as the Texans do...

Yee Haw!  We done went to the rodeo this here weekend and had a dandy ole time!

How I spent the first 6 months of living here...

BEFORE:

 I'm documenting our kitchen remodel on my Inspire the Inside blog.

AFTER:

Soccer Shenanigans

Rylee did such a fantastic playing Ms. Hannigan (the nice one) in her school play "Soccer Shenanigans".  Her character was an over-protective, adoring mother of a nerdy boy who didn't possess soccer skills but wanted to be on the team.  She definitely got the most laughs and had such a great stage presence. Encore, encore!

Destin, Florida

Every time we get to be with family and the girls with their cousins, I'm reminded how cherished these moments are.  Although usually chaotic, we have a such a good time and are so happy to be with eachother.  The Tanuvasa's 'lived' in Destin for a whole month this past summer and Kara was out of school so we drove from San Antonio to hang out.

This huge school of dolphins (is that what they're called?) swam by our boat for about an hour.  We 'drove' beside them and couldn't get enough!  They were some of manaw's favorite creatures, and come to think of it, Steve's too!  Go Miami Dolphins!

To say that we were all inexperienced boat drivers is an understatment.  Heck, the first boat Steve and I bought didn't even float.  Just after renting the boat, we thought we'd be pretty cool and decided to anchor in this area with LOTS of other fellow and not so friendly boaters when our boat started drifting because for some reason the anchor wouldn't keep us steady (hmm, I think I can make a YW/church lesson out of this...).  We got within 6 inches of crashing into nicest boat on the river and needless to say, spent the remainder 3 hours not trolling the river cause we were to afraid to anchor.   Because we all possesed about the same level of boat driving skill, we let each of the kids take turns driving the boat. They had a blast!

Rylee, our 2nd A Honor Roll student

 Go Ryry, Go Ryry!  You is smart, you is kind, you is important. :)

Madison, our A Honor Roll student!

 We are so proud of our MD!!  Next goal for her: the President of the United States. NBD

That's right, kiss it cause you earned that baby!

I'm not sure what she wanted, but I like it

Wowza!

This is how we 'roll'

I was so excited The girls were so excited when I offered to take them toilet papering 

Board and Batten - done!

I feel like I should be in a tutu, twirling around and saying 'ta-da!'  This was one of those projects that was fun to do the whole way through.  Immediate gratification.  Except for the caulking, which was absolutely the WORST part.  Hopefully later down the road when we sell the house, the new homeowner won't come in and say "Obvious DIY job" and rip the whole thing out. But I do love it, I love that I spent less than $125 bucks and got a whole new look, and that I was able to use my own hands to do it (and Steve's for caring the paneling in).  I posted more pics and info on my other blog: http://inspiretheinside.blogspot.com/.

BEFORE

AFTER