Better Late...

I was waiting to upload some photos of the party to be able to share, but it's taking me too long, so I'm just going to make a quick post about it for now.

This past weekend was the Royal Celebration for our little princess Hannah. Heather's entire family came into town and stayed at our house on Friday - Sunday. So that Friday her mom and brothers showed up in the late afternoon, so we kinda hung out while we waited for her dad's plane to land which kept getting delayed because of bad weather. He finally got her after 6:00pm so we ended up meeting him at Red Robin for some burgers and good conversation. A magician was even entertaining us through most of it.

I took the day off on Friday, because that was Hannah's actual birthday, so the beginning of the day was spent treating Hannah to some fun times, she loves to play anywhere, so we decided to take her to McDonald's for breakfast. So I was able to eat a sausage McGriddle, which is literally heaven between to pancakes. After that we hit up Toys R Us and an hour later we walked away with two gifts for Hannah, neither one was the actual toy she spent the almost the entire hour wanting.

Saturday was the big day, the beginning was spent relaxing, watching TV, and playing a little two on two basketball with the McCallons until Caleb quit the second game, but stayed on the court at least for all three. Despite Jacobs constant nagging to go swimming me and Matt held strong to not got swimming for breakfast, and to wait for the opportune time later in the day. We got back and ate some delectable sandwiches and watched Nacho Libre until around 1:50 when people started to arrive for the party. I was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from my brother Mark informing me he was in Waco and on his way to the party with his three girls. Then a little after 2:00 pm my Mom, my brothers Matt, Mark, and Ethan all arrived at my complex, with a little humble directional help from a directionally challenged guy (me.)

The party went really well, it took Hannah a bit to warm up, and leave me lap, and not have me hold her everywhere I went. For the longest time she would not leave my grips without throwing a fit and crying. It was kinda funny I held the cake down to her level with a lit candle and people started telling her to blow the candle out, and so she quickly leaned in and blew that candle right out, only it was before we even started singing. So we did that a bit backwards, but it was all good. Then we started opening her presents, and it only took Maile and the twins (Michaela & Marissa) helping her open the presents to finally catch on that she was getting cool, stuff then she started opening them all by herself.

After the presents everyone went outside to play some more, and Mark, Matt, Ethan, & I all took off to the basketball court to get some old time two on two Guymon games going. It was Mark & Me against Matt & Ethan. Me and Mark won two and lost one. So we went home winning the series. In the last game Mark brought the thunder and threw it down ONE HANDED on poor old Matt. Matt also got his three point shot utterly rejected by myself in one of the games.

Fun Times, Fun Times!!

Finally Jacob's nagging paid off because after everyone left we meaning me, Matt McCallon, Jacob, Caleb, & Hannah jumped in the pool and had some true summertime fun. After that we went back to the apartment in time for some good ol' Bar-B-Que Grand Dad Mac was grilling up. We ate some Hamburgers, Chicken, Potato Salad, & Baked Beams, and it was all quite scrumptious, with enough left overs to feed me lunch the rest of this week thus far to boot.

Sunday we ended up just hanging out watching The Italian Job and talking quite a bit about eating lunch, but it never happen, then their was a scuffle, and a few frustrated people loaded everything up in a truck and took off back to the far far corners of East Texas to the beautiful land of Buna!!!!

So I'd like to thank everyone who made it out for the shin-dig, it was a lot of fun, and Hannah really appreciated ALL her gifts, and ALL the company, she even cried when the McCallons left, she was REALLY sad to see them all go, despite my various scams and plans to get them to stay ONE more day. I was just happy the ENTIRE family was able to make it to the event, it was good to have EVERYONE together, along with some really good friends.

(missed at the party was my sisters Kelly & Shauna who both live too far away to make the trip, but I consider you both at least present in heart & Spirit, Kelly even called to wish Hannah a Happy birthday, (only she called my MOM to do so,) funny how things like that work out. Speaking of that Mark if you are reading this, can you please tell Matt Happy birthday for me when it comes around again?)

Looking Back

I was looking through the pictures on my flickr account and came across this beauty, and I was just noticing how fast time flies. This is to say that this photo isn't even that old of a picture. I think it was taken around 6-8 months ago and I can still notice how much Hannah has grown and changed physically. Because her personality has stayed the same since she was around 6 months old.

That’s why I really make a strong attempt to live in the present as much as possible and try to soak in as much as I can and appreciate every moment because in a sense it is the last of that particular moment. It's funny because we take pictures in attempts to hold onto memories, and instances in time, but the most beautiful moments seemed to be captured in the mind, and sadly if you are me, the mind seems to let things fade and blur over time.

In fact just this past Sunday at church we were sitting out on the couch and Hannah was running around playing and she would run over to me and smile and giggle and then take off. The innocence and beauty in her eyes radiates from her, and her happiness becomes contagious with each little giggle and cheesy little smile. I am truly going to miss her little giggles, and I'm going to miss that little girl that yells for her daddy as her mom carries her off to bed at 2:00am. The girl that likes to push and pull me around the playground, the little girl who likes to drag me on long walks around the complex climbing up and down three flights of stairs just to turn around and walk right back down (without her daddies help.) That little girl that randomly runs to give her dad a hug throughout the day; the one who yells, "Shaaaaaaane!" from inside her room so I can go in and become her little slave. The little girl who has learned how to open "child proofed doors" to get to the little Reases Peanut Butter Cup candies, stealing 5-6 a day.

So many memories that I hope will never fade, and here’s at least one photo helping me hold strong.

Accountability

"I tell you the Lord places no sin in our lives. He has made no man wicked. … Sin was permitted in the world, and Satan permitted to tempt us, but we have our free agency. We may sin or live righteously, but we cannot escape responsibility. To blame our sin upon the Lord, saying it is inherent and cannot be controlled, is cheap and cowardly. To blame our sins upon our parents and our upbringing is the way of the escapist. One’s parents may have failed; our own backgrounds may have been frustrating, but as sons and daughters of a living God we have within ourselves the power to rise above our circumstances, to change our lives."

Spencer W. Kimball

The First Swim

As soon as her feet hit the ground when Heather lifted her out of the van coming home from work yesterday she immediately started asking and pleading to play. I had to spend a little quality time on the porcelain, so I told her she had to wait a few minutes. She surprisingly patiently waited for me to finish before pleading her case again.

The Playground:
We left the apartment and before we reached the playground she quickly remembered and began crying out, "car, car" so I turned around with her and opened the door and she ran inside jumped on her toy Cadillac Escalade and began pushing herself out the door. When we got to the playground it was in the upper 90's so we started walking with Hannah towards the pool where a few kids were splishing and splashing away in the pool. I took off my shoes and decided to walk around in the water to see how it felt, and it was GOOD!

Her First Steps:
Hannah reluctantly got off her car, and made her way to the pool, where she leaned over and touched the water with her hand first, then Heather tried picking her up and letting her stand in the water, and she began to cry, so we sat her down on the edge, and she slowly began to kick her feet in the water, then slowly she decided to stand up and slowly inch her way over to me.

We jumped on this chance and ran back to the house and got her in a swimsuit, and I myself decided to dust off the old Nike swimsuit and go for a dip. When we came back we repeated the same routine, and before you knew it she was splishing and splashing away as she laughed and laughed.

And Then Came the Confidence…
Well I grew tired of sitting in 6 inches of water and made my way to the deeper section of the pool to fully immerse myself in the soothing water, it was surprisingly warmer in the deeper section of the pool. So I decided I was going to stay there, and slowly Hannah worked her way over to me, and there is first a step down, and it took her some time to grow up enough courage to make that next step, but as soon as she did it once, she loved it, then she I was able to slowly but surely hold her and swim around the rest of the pool, until she grew so comfortable with that, that she decided she didn't need me to hold her anymore, and she could do it herself, and tried pushing and kicking herself away from me. I held on tight and tried explaining that she wasn't THAT big yet. She has yet to believe me thus far.

Heather ran and grabbed a floatey tube thing that we bought her last year, so we put her in that, and at first she loved it, and began kicking and laughing and playing, I was pushing her around the pool and spinning her around in circles, and then all of a sudden the tube began to be too restricting for her, so she began to cry out, "help, help, help." as she began to lean forward and try and work her way out of this floating device. She saw that other kids were able to maneuver around without problem, and her father was also doing the same, and no one was using these silly floating devices, so why should she.

We then made our way back to the 6 inches of water we started with, and the old saying, "give some one an inch and they will want to be a ruler" (or something like that.) became all too true with Hannah.

Transformer's Update

Straight from Michael Bay's website is the awesome hi-res images of all the characters in the new Transformers movie which hits theaters July 4th.

Optimus Prime
Bumblebee.
Starscream.

Frustration

Frustration began to weigh me down over the weekend, after Houston's loss in game seven. My phone began to vibrate with variouse text messages from Mark informing me of what I OBVIOUSLY already knew:

1.) Tracy McGrady once again will not make it out of the 1st Round of the Play-offs
2.) Tracy McGrady sucks...

I took a few days to recover, and moved all of my attention forward in delighting in the fact that Golden State blew out Dallas in game 6. Furthermore my happiness was only added upon with a blow out last night in Phoenix against the Spurs to tie up that series as they head into San Antonio for game 3.

IN OTHER NEWS

Hannah is doing quite fabulouse, we tried to get her into the swimming pool over the weekend, with no prevail, although she is obsessed with leaning over and sticking her hand in the water, and attempting to throw whatever debree she can get her hands on, into the pool. I think a huge part of her not wanting to get in the pool has to do with the fact that she HATES when you take her shoes off. Speaking of shoes, she is on this kick where she wont let us put any shoes but her tennis shoes on her feet when we leave. She specifically demands that you put them on, by screaming, "shoooooooes! & socks!" at you until you get the correct pair. We prefer sticking sandals on her feet, because we don't have to search for a tiny pair of socks for her to wear.

MOVIES:

"Deja Vu"
Starring Denzel Washington, ended up being not as GREAT as I thought it was going to be. That in no way is saying I didn't enjoy the movie, it just wasn't as good as I was expecting. The ending was kinda blahzey to me, and it didn't go into the whole theory of time travel as much as I thought, and well, it didn't cover a whole lot that I was thinking it would.

"Children of Men"
Although I wasn't satisfied with the ending in any way at all, I thought the movie was very intresting all the way through to the end. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who loves almost every movie dealing with the future, and time travel. I always find it intresting how people interpret where life is taking us, and how people will react to specific occurances throughout time.

In this movie supposeldy in 2009 women will begin to mis-carriage, until finally every human girl will become infertil, the movie never really tells you WHY this happens, only that it happens. The world is in chaos, and every city is pretty much destroyed, and chaotic accept for England (which is highly unbelievable solely on that point alone,) which was the only city to somehow maintain some stability, only, because of this, every person in the world is trying to sneak into England which has caused a HUGE problem with immigrants and keeping them out of LONDON, so anywhere you travel outside of the city, you run into a chance of being attacked by radical immigrants trying to fight back. Also even in the city their are radical terrorist groups (who are really the good guys) bombing different public places trying to fight back against the government.

Anyways the story really takes off when they are trying to get an illegal immigrant that miraculously became pregnant and has the baby along the journey to find a safe haeven with scientist, or some group that is trying to cure this problem. They are a mysteriouse group, that most people don't even believe truly exist. Along the way the group trying to excort this girl run into many problems along the way.

thats a long review for a movie I hated the ending too.


My movie watching always slows down dramatically come Play-offs, and March Madness.

Triumph

Good Bye Dallas! Time to go fishing baby...

5 Simple Rules For Happiness

1.) Free your heart from hatred.
2.) Free your mind from worries.
3.) Live simply.
4.) Give more.
5.) Expect less.