poor me...

these guys just left for their day of fun at hurricane harbor. guess who gets to stay home with cramps? sniffle, sniffle :(

beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3d6SFcDys


i'm sure you've all heard this by now, but if you haven't...you've got to take 8 minutes out of your day and listen to this. it is so beautiful. it gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes.

our pick

well after extensive research, chris and i have decided to go here for our 15th anniversary (and only 5 months after the fact!) it's maroma beach near playa del carmen. we leave august 9th and we're getting so excited! this will be the longest we've been away from mckinlee, but she will be having fun in waco. (and we know she will be fine.) we kind of felt bad that we weren't going on a family vacation, but after the sighting of jellyfish in florida last year, mckinlee has no desire to go to a beach. and since it's been 10 years since chris and i have been somewhere big together, we decided we deserved it! can't wait to post pictures of the beach~

i am a bad blogger.

there. i've said it. as much as i love to read other people's blogs, i don't have the ability to update mine even every few days. i will try to be better. even if we're not doing anything too exciting.
we've been grilling a lot. mckinlee has decided she likes steak, so we've been grilling lots of steak and chicken. chris and i like to sit on the back porch and talk while the meat's cooking. good times.
mckinlee made these little pom-pom kitties the other day. cute, huh?

cosmo picks the oddest places to relax. lately it's been on this wooden stool.

the rain on my banana plant looked so pretty i had to snap a quick picture.

another project mckinlee has been experimenting with. she bought this kit to make your own rock candy and learn how crystals form. it was fun but as with most do it yourself kits, it did not look like the beautiful sugar crystals on a wooden stick! i told her we should have bought a stick of rock candy for $1, but she likes experimenting!

see? not a lot of exciting stuff. but a fun summer, nonetheless. will post more pictures later. promise.

district convention 2009

well if you haven't been to the convention yet...it is amazing! really the best i have ever been to (i know i say that each year, but this year really was!)
so many great talks. really encouraging us to not pursue anything in this dying world, praying for each other by name, staying watchful of things happening around us, and keeping up with personal and family study.
and the releases! of course i won't ruin it for anyone, but you will be thrilled. for a while i was thinking there would be something released every single session!
there is only one word for the drama...powerful. (ok-maybe a few more...) it was the most realistic, current, emotional drama i've ever seen. chris said it was the best drama he's ever seen and was trying not to cry!
i tried to not to get up during any of the talks, i was afraid i'd miss something good (well that and i was afraid i'd fall down the stairs!) anyhow, a couple of times i just had to get up and sure enough, i missed some good parts!

here are pictures of us each day of the convention.

friday:

saturday:

(don't you just love the pig in the background? :)

sunday:

(this was the first time ever that we have been to the convention center right when the doors opened at 8:00. let me tell you...quite an experience! people started running, one sister with a cane was furiously hobbling along beside me. it took me only 2 minutes to get to the section we wanted. along the way, i heard one attendant say to another, "that didn't go so well." when i got to our section, it was almost completely filled. rows and rows of seats saved. i was amazed! the first available row that had an end seat was row "s". i heard later that some attendants opened their doors early and that some people were just saving every end seat for several rows. you wonder why they have those instructions in the km every year about seat saving, etc. now i know! the funny thing is, the people who rush to get those seats are the same ones that are never in them during the session or are texting throughout the program! a group that sat in the 2 rows below us on sunday were quite entertaining (sad, really) they texted, talked and pretended to shoot each other all through the session. (these were not little kids either--young adults and adults) right before the ending song and prayer, they gave the little girl, who was about 3, a big bowl of watermelon which she slurped on through the whole prayer! sometimes you have to wonder...

we went on this website and found mckinlee three new hairstyles to do each day. i didn't get a picture of the last day (and it was my favorite. a messy bun)

i was the fortunate one who got to walk 3 blocks with aching feet and the heat index near 115 (i'm sure!) to the water gardens with the girls. it was beautiful and i got some great pictures, but it was unbearably hot.

here is chris going over his part before the session started. he had a talk on the symposium on sunday and he did so good! he told me afterward, he was so nervous he didn't even remember what the brother he interviewed said. he was praying that he didn't pass out on stage! you couldn't tell though.

so there's my synopsis of our convention. i'm always sad to see it come to an end, but glad to put into practice all the great things we learned!

bits & pieces

tons of pictures today. just a little glimpse of what we've been up to lately...


mckinlee got this great shot of a butterfly that landed on her zinnias.
when she's not taking pictures, she's been creating one of a kind art with hand sanitizer and food coloring. (she calls it her "germ-x art"! funny, yes?)

i just love little glimpses of summer around the house. bright beach towels just scream summer, right?

a couple of weeks ago, a friend from our hall and i got together a picnic at a beautiful park here in frisco. it was one of the hottest days and when i got home, i was comatose for the rest of the night. but we had a fun time and quite a few from our congregation got to come.

the kids cooled themselves with spray bottles of water...

and fought over who got to hold baby z!

the music was so loud from another group at the park that the girls got to do the cupid shuffle!

isn't this the cutest family? they recently moved into our congregation and have the cutest identical twin girls!

we've tried to be sure mckinlee reads at least 30 minutes everyday during the summer (it hasn't always happened!) but this evening she and chris (who has decided he likes reading--go figure!) sat outside on the porch and read. how cute!

this is part of a scrapbook page from my stampin' up lady's open house. it is kind of hard to see, but it's a glass of lemonade made out of transparency material. isn't that clever? i've got to try it out!

i made "romy's chocolate cake" and thought it looked so pretty, i had to take a picture! it was so good.

we finally got our passports! yippee! now we can go somewhere.

while mckinlee had a friend over last week, cosmo crawled into my lap and watched tv with me until the camera scared him off!

then he got to enjoy what the girls were making for him... his own cat corner. every blanket and pillow we have is in there for him. they worked so hard, i just couldn't make them clean it up. he has been in there probably 22 hours a day for days now!

the fruit right now is so good! sprouts had their pineapple on sale for $1.50!! you can hardly buy a can of pineapple for that. and it tasted so good. mckinlee likes to "shave" it--as she calls it.

check back tomorrow. i'll try to post pictures of a "first" for mckinlee.

i'm still here

i'm sorry--i've been a very bad blogger. i have a lot of pictures to post--i just haven't uploaded them yet. i will try to get to that later tonight. for now, we're off to our weekly wednesday swim day! i'll be back later :)