this week

1. kaylee's been drawing tons of princesses and castles. she's been missing her friends and cousins.

2. she had her thanksgiving feast at school and when i asked her how her feast was, she said "it wasn't much of a feast."

3. been pretty busy this week. got my haircut, parent's meeting for daisy troops [girl scouts], lady bug garden club meeting and an eye appointment.

4. at dinner kaylee said kids ask her what snow is like. as much as i don't like being cold or months and months and months and months of snow, it made me sad to know that kids don't get to experience it.

5. pray for me- kaylee and mike both have the next 9 days off!

6. i'm going to get this for my parents for christmas.

7. and these for ham since he wants a pair.

8. oh and ham has lost his south park uno champion title. i've won two straight nights in a row. the first night, i ended up with 11 points! 11 points is awesome!

9. sucks i have no one to go see breaking dawn with me.

10. or to go on a 40th birthday adventure. [my trip might be canceled. even though mike says to do whatever i want, i feel guilty and don't want him to worry but he will worry]

ham

state capital

1. kaylee tried to be in every picture i took while in austin. goofy girl.

2. i'm very happy ham decided to move with us even if it means he's a year behind in college.

3. its been awesome just to have him home during this new time in our lives.

4. and that he's giving kaylee some memories of what its like having an older brother.

5. its also given him time to think about what he wants to study. aerospace engineering, engineering technology and geoscience are floating around.

6. its been offered that he go and live with his bachelor- uncle up in chicago and work for him for a month or so.

7. no better person to show ham that studying and working hard pays off because bachelor-uncle knows how to play hard too.

8. application deadline is december 1st. ham's got two essays to write. poor kid.

9. he's also going to apply to texas a+m. mike and ham got invited to see a football game there saturday. kaylee + i will hang around till the games over. then all of us will tour the campus.

10. i think ham will like a+m better because it will have that campus feel like purdue.

visiting UT

random photo of ham in austin

1. we had a great time touring UT. mike didn't realize it was such a big city. 15th in the US.

2. it was neat to see the state capital right in the middle of campus.

3. ham thought it was weird that we didn't see tons of college students like when we toured purdue. [maybe they went home for the weekend?]

4. i also didn't get to meet jane porter. if my family wasn't with me, i would of stalked her.

5. ham told me to quit taking photos of him so i kept taking random ones without looking.

6. we went and saw barton springs pool. we also got to see a man do a handstand in a speedo. [sorry, no photos ladies]

7. found out deadline for applications is dec. 1st. ham is going to apply to UT and A+M.

8. the rest of the weekend we didn't do much. [we returned saturday. the drive was like going down to indy]

9. we did eat outside at our now favorite restaurant on sunday. the weather was perfect!

10. i even went hot tubing that evening. the first for me since we've been here.

busy day today

1. mike surprised kaylee with a red rose last night. then he surprised me with these.

2. the smell of fresh flowers throughout the house is awesome.

3. i tried taking pictures of the car last night but by 5:30-6pm, it was too dark.

4. i have my lady bug's garden club workshop today. [i thought it was yesterday so of course i did nothing but clean a few bathrooms leaving all errand running for today]

5. then we're leaving for a few days to visit University of Texas to see what needs to be done to enroll ham for next august.

6. one of my favorite authors, jane porter, will also be at U of T with one of her son's on Friday. i hope to see her from a distance...you know, no social skills here.

7. we tried a new pizza place but it still didn't even come close to colombo's or antionio's or even hotbox pizza from back home.

8. i started to empty some boxes in my "office/crafting" room. still have tons of junk i need to get rid of and/or find a place for it.

9. the worst part about moving is finding new doctors and hair salons. [my gray hairs are showing themselves!]

10. still loving that kaylee and her friends from indiana are still writing and drawing pictures to each other.

ham's so smart!

taken on my hipstamatic

1. sunday i told mike we should at least go and look to see what the land rover dealership had for used cars. they didn't have much in our price range except a bmw 330ci. the exact same car as ham's smooshed one but a little younger.

2. when we got home i looked into it and it said it was a manual. i don't want to drive a manual.

3. yesterday and today were a little boring for me since i don't have a car. in reality its probably a good thing.

4. i did go and surprise kaylee at lunch on monday. we live SO close to her school but not too close to where it feels weird.

5. we played south park uno last night. ham won 3 straight games in a row. then i won the last two.

6. i think i'm close to being done shopping for kaylee's christmas presents. [she's not getting as much this year because of her new bunk beds which i still need to post a photo of]

7. nana and poppop are moving. not to houston though. into nana's mama's old house. [mike's folks]

8. our girl scout leader sucks and she got asked to step down. she never followed through and we haven't met any of the other girls. i asked for a refund.

9. we went to the land rover dealership to test drive the bmw. then we brought it home.

10. its a semi manual? meaning we shift it into gear but there's no clutch. [i can drive that!] ham took it for a spin then told us that if put it in drive, it will drive like an automatic and shift itself. he's so smart!

scary weekend

ham's beautiful car

[straight out of camera shot]

1. on his way home from work on friday, mike got into a car accident. a lady pulled out in front of him. he was on the freeway going 60-65 miles.

2. it was a rough 3 hours before i got to see him. he didn't know any of our new phone numbers so he called his mom.

3. he said the car flipped over twice and he was upside down till the car hit the cement divider wall.

4. he walked away with only a few bruises and scrapes. some one was definitely looking after him that day!

5. the other sad part is that we just payed off the car on monday so we could get mike a car. [we only want 1 car payment]

6. so this weekend we went car looking.

7. mike wants a jeep and ham has to wait till the insurance check comes.

8. mike said the lady that pulled out in front of him never apologized kinda making it seem like it wasn't her fault.

9. but there were at least 3 people who were nice enough to stop and ask mike if he was okay and that they would witness the whole thing if we needed them too.

10. its nice to know that there are people out there who still care.

our first halloween in texas

my little french girl

[minus her beret. and shoes]

1. i didn't get very many photos of kaylee on halloween. it was because of operator error like usual.

2. we had invited a friend to come over to trick or treat but they said they were just going to stay in their neighborhood. and our neighbors had ballet.

3. so we were a little bummed that we had to go by ourselves.

4. till it got dark. our friend came over and our neighbor skipped ballet!

5. kaylee got enough candy to fill my trick or treat bowl for me to pass out next year!

6. afterwards, our neighbors invited us over for some birthday cake.

7. i looked around and not a single white person was there. it was odd and yet cool at the same time. [vietnamese, hong kong and me]

8. mike was out of town again. so ham passed out candy. he gave everyone handfuls. my bowls were empty.

9. i didn't do a single thing yesterday because i was in a junk food, chicago style popcorn mix, chocolate gummy bear induced coma.

10. i felt so sick that i forced myself to walk this morning. [its been a whole week]