The Weekend Recap

This guy celebrated a birthday last Saturday! Happy Birthday Jack! The day was spent watching Claire's basketball team win their first game of the season, lunch at Willie's, and a trip to Costco to purchase a nice, big flat screen tv for our gameroom upstairs.

In addition to basketball, Claire is playing in the inaugural season of girl's powderpuff (flag) football, so on Sunday, we watched her team, the Dolphins, beat the Cowgirls! Claire rocks at football! She really enjoys it too. It has been really fun to see her throw, run, and "tackle" on the gridiron.

(insert pic of claire here later.....apparently meg took the memory stick to school without asking....that girl sometimes....most of the time actually....death.of.me.)

And of course, this past Friday was................... TWILIGHT! Did it live up to the hype? I am going to say yes, although I really think it could have been done much better. It was for the most part faithful to the book, though so much was (understandably) left out. Some of the effects were a bit cheesy and the acting was just okay for me. But yeah, there is some chemistry between on screen Edward and Bella. Rob Pattinson.....oh my. Definitely a good pick for Edward. The girls in the theater (that was about 98% of the crowd) SCREAMED when he first came on screen. He's a hottie for sure.

OK, looking forward.....we leave tomorrow for Bandera for Thanksgiving. Jack's mom has arrived there from Arizona. We are celebrating with both sides of the family together which is nice. In the meantime, I have been baking pumpkin bread for the girls to give to their teachers today. This is a long-standing tradition and the breads are wrapped in pretty bows with Thanksgiving tags (if I had my memory stick, i would take pics) to take to school. Also, I don't know what possessed me, but I bought paint for the gameroom yesterday and started the primer coat to get rid of the drab hunter green that is on the walls now. I have one coat of primer on with another to go, then I will paint the walls a fresh, creamy yellow. So, that is what I will be doing today. I hope to sneak in another post before we leave town. ...........tracey

Can. Hardly. Wait.

Tickets have been purchased. Meghan, Claire and I are going to see the Twilight Movie tomorrow evening with girlfriends. I have not been so excited for a movie in..... I can't remember when.

This is not your Mother's Cheerleading

We headed down to Galveston yesterday so Anna's cheerleading group could participate in Jamfest, which is a cheer competition for clubs across America. Let me tell you, Jamfest is a well organized, money making machine. These guys are laughing all the way to the bank!

The competition was held at Moody Gardens which did not sustain much damage during Hurricane Ike. The rest of Galveston looks pretty beat up however. There is damage to structures, debris littered here and there, and utility trucks were about 1/3 of the vehicles on the road. They still have a long road to recovery, that's for certain. But they are really trying hard to get people to come down and visit and keep their economy going. We were happy to do our little part by attending this competition.

Okay, so on to Jamfest! Anna's team did not compete, but just performed during the exhibition part of the program. Here she is in her cheer uniform:

And here she is with part of her team and Coach Allie, getting some stage make-up applied:

Anna and three of her teammates below. I really liked that their uniforms were for the most part modest. There were other teams their age that were wearing midriff baring tops and enough dark eye make-up to grace the cover of Vogue magazine. I very much respected that Anna's gym chose modest uniforms and light make-up to perform in.

We had to wait until the end of the competition for Anna's group to perform. Here is how Jack spent his time:

And here are Claire and Meghan munching on nachos while waiting. Those two goofballs had a great time together. They were very silly and enjoyed hanging out while waiting for Anna to perform.

Here is Claire with "Jammy", the Jamfest mascot:

Here is Anna's group performing. Anna is on the far right and that is their coach on the floor in front of the team.

Anna on the far left being lifted for a stunt:

This is the awards ceremony and that ugly thing in the middle is the REAL LIFE JAMMY! Frenzy ensues!!!

Here is Anna with the medal given to her for performing and with some flowers Jack thoughtfully brought for her. She did really well and we were so proud of her. It was a rough week because she had been so sick and missed the entire last week of practice before Jamfest. She was nervous and really unsure about even attending with her team. But in the end, she decided to go for it and she did awesome!! So, GREAT JOB Annie B!!! We loved watching you do your thang!!

And these last photos I shot of the girls when we stopped for lunch before heading home. We had lunch at a deli right on the seawall and the water was absolutely beautiful. So hard to believe that less than 2 months ago, Ike ravaged this area. But when you stare out at the Gulf in its beauty, you know that Galveston will rebuild and things will get back to normal eventually.

Guest Blogger Today

Guest blogging for me today is a good friend of mine and computer blogging buddy, Lucy Lu McAfee:

Dang, this is what happens when you don't have any blogging material, but feel the need to blog because it's been so long. You start pretending your cat does stints guest blogging. Like she can blog. The best she can do is surf lolcats. She gets such a kick out of that site!

October. It was a good month......a VERY good month. Jack has a new job. A very kick-ass new job at that. He has been there a little over a week and he is over the moon excited about it. And I am over the moon excited for him. We celebrated with a few friends a couple of weekends ago. There was cake and Patron. I had cake. Jack had Patron. Jack didn't feel too good the next day. But it was worth it after enduring months of pent up stress and anxiety.

Here he is with his cake. Note: Patron was involved in the making of this photo:

October was also Quilt Festival in Houston and a nice visit by my parents. My mom and I went for the 5th year in a row, I think. Lots of gorgeous quilts, fabrics and projects that we oohed and aahed at. I did pretty good this year and bought just a little bit....some Amy Butler fabric and Fig Tree's Fig and Plum. I also bought this book from a company called Primitive Gatherings. Now I need to actually get back to quilting and work on some things.

October was also Halloween, of course. It was great weather in Houston this year. Low humidity and nice temps. I handled the pumpkin cleaning and carving this year (with help from my mom) since Jack was busy at work. Here are my creations:

And here are our crazy three. Meghan threw on a cape last minute just so she could go out with her sisters. Claire was a nerd (such a cute nerd!) and Anna was Tinkerbelle complete with light- up fairy skirt. Unfortunately, Anna had come home from school sick with a fever on Halloween, so although I plied her with Tylenol and her fever broke, she was not really up for much trick or treating. She made it to about 10 houses at the most and then wanted to go back home. Superhero sister Meghan stepped in (the red cape DID come in handy!) and took her treat bag. She finished the neighborhood with Claire and brought back a haul for Anna. I am sure the adults were, "Sure you have a sick sister at home you 15 year old candy-grubbing teenager! "


So, yeah, October pretty much rocked for the McAfees. Even gas prices cooperated and we paid under $2 for the first time in forever. Are we not all loving those prices? Love you, October 2008!! Thanks for being good to us!