This is the newest addition to my extended family. This is Colin Ryan Smith. He was 7 lb. 14 oz., and he was born to my oldest and dearest friend. We have known eachother since we were 9 years old and in the 4th grade. She was going to be my Matron of Honor, but complications with her pregnancy prevented her from flying. Praise the Lord and his infinite grace, because they are both healthy and happy and he has given the gift of Motherhood to one of the most beautiful people I know...

The world of I.T......

....sitting in a conference room waiting.... everyone is a minute late... I'm a little bit of a stickler for being on time to meetings... social functions.. not so much.

No water, no worries...

So, my Mom's house wasn't flooded, but John's side of the family wasn't so lucky. John's Uncles and Aunts live all around the Pasadena, Seabrook, Clear Lake area, and his Aunt Annette's house was destroyed by flooding. They have had to rip out sheet rock, appliances, furniture and all of the brand new hand-scraped wood flooring that they just installed. One of his Uncles had a tree branch fall on one of their cars.

In the grand scheme of things, it could obviously have been much worse. My Mom's power wasn't restored until 9/20, but it could still be off. The huge tree in our front yard could have collapsed, but it didn't. Entire structures could have been lost, and they weren't, but it still does not lessen the impact that Ike had on our family. Both sides of the family have been through numerous hurricanes, and I think this one was the most surprising and devastating of them all. My own personal theory is that the meteorologists were way off, and the storm was much more unpredictable and stronger than they expected. Just theory.

Anyway, we came through it uninjured and more tired than normal, but alive. That's all we could have really asked for.

I would have so much to ask...

"Mommy, do you know God's cell phone number?" - Kayden Tanner Harms

another picture...

Here is a little better picture. If you look closely, you can see the white diagonal line through the coast. That is the track of the eye. Then if you look in the center and to the left, you will see '77546', and there is a box that is over my house I grew up in. A little scary, but it's neat to be able to see what is going on with Google Earth. We'll see what happens...

Hurricane Ike

Well, I don't know if anyone reads my blog, but I wish I knew. I need to ask for all the prayers that my family, friends and hometown can get. As we all have heard by now, Ike is coming. The irony is that one of my best guy-friends in high school is named Ike... Anyway, here is the house that I was born in and the path of Ike....

The run-down...

I haven't posted in forever....

We have had an interesting month. I was going to post a long and drawn-out 1st hand account of our wedding and honeymoon, but I figured I would spare the masses.

A quick run-down of our first month as a married couple....

We had an AMAZING honeymoon.

We went to Gran Caribe Real in Cancun, and we found a new favorite drink and did a ton of shopping. We visited Chichen Itza and went on a Lobster Cruise. It was truly a much-needed and well-deserved break from the "real" world. I did well without my little ones up until Wednesday. I was heart-sick after that, and I was missing them terribly. We have decided that our next trip without them (if that ever happens) will be four days at the most. I can't handle any longer!

We came home, and we had to send my ring off immediately to the jeweler. It was a custom set from a small jeweler in Stephenville. Two of my baguettes were missing, and we determined that it happened some time between the reception and the limo ride. We discovered it on the plane to Mexico.

We had a pretty bad weekend a couple weekends ago... some of our neighbors (that were not at the wedding) came over like usual on Friday night. The husband really started saying some horrible things to me, and it was truly out of the blue. John said that he could tell all night that something wasn't right with the guy. I got in his face and told him to leave (yes, it was that bad), and I haven't been that mad in literally a few years. If there is one thing that I don't apologize for it is sticking up for myself. What he said was to the effect that John should beat me every day of my life and I was a dumbass if I didn't think so, too.... I had been looking at my bachelorette party pictures that the neighbors had thrown for me, and John made some comment and I flat-handed popped him in the cheek. I was 200% playing around, and John knew that. I got his eye by total accident, and he knew that, too, and wasn't even thinking about it, when this guy just started in on what should "happen" to me, because of that. I can't explain how bad things got after that.... anyone want details later, I can explain face to face. To add, these are the people that have the little girl that caused Kayden to have to go to the hospital. Nothing has been said to us to this day about that, by the way.... It's a sad situation. I had confided in the wife some very personal stuff about John and me... she proceeded to air it all... You know, toxic people just suck, and sometimes you don't even know that they have the capability to be that way. It's just a bad deal. I don't think they were ever really our friends. Maybe they were, and then something changed for them, who knows. What WE know is that now we are moving. Everything happens for a reason, and maybe this was God's way of getting us away from negativity...

SO... we have packed about half of our house up and we have put boxes in the garage of stuff that we don't use on an every day basis. Yes, the situation is bad enough, where I personally do not want to even be in the vicinity of someone capable of some of the things that happened.... that might sound silly, but I have never not wanted to "fix" a situation or understand someone's point of view.... I don't care about this one. I don't care to "fix" any relationship or anything that happened. I never feel that way. OH ANYWAY - we are looking for a larger house, since we will probably have a third little one, once we only have one in daycare. There is no way that we could afford three in daycare. It is actually really exciting, but sad. I will miss our house. What I have learned, though, is that it has nothing to do with the four walls you are in. It will still be hard to leave.

We are looking in the same area, so that we don't change too much of our commute or routine. It is a buyer's market, but definitely not a sellers', so we will need all the prayer and luck we can get! I have been painting base boards and walls for the past two weeks, so our house looks pretty spiffy... The girls have just been going with the flow.

We went to Ry and Kelli's last weekend to watch the Aggies win, whoop! The girls had a great time, and Kylee was walking around saying "TANK", which is their maltese's name. He's a cutie. Jevon and Randi were there, and we drank a few Coronas and played some Wii after the game. I think I want one :-) I played Ry a couple of games of tennis, and even though he kicked my butt it was pretty fun.

Sunday was my 30th birthday, which was a little melancholy. John said that he was going to plan a party, but in light of the events a few weekends before, nothing happened. I cleaned all day and drank four Corona's a went to bed. So much for going out of my twenties with a bang...

Other than that.. a little somber, I know, we have been enjoying married life :-) I can't say that I "feel" any differently, other than more of a united front type of feeling. I think I have truly felt that since Kayden was born, but now I can at least relax and know it's permanent. I still have to go through all of the pictures and pick the ones that will go into our photo book that we will get from the photographer, and then we have to pick the proofs that we want printed. There are some great ones of the reception.

I also learned something about myself that I wish I had learned earlier in life... I am VERY ANNOYING when I am drunk... I watched a video of the rehearsal dinner that my friend Kristin took, and I was just cringing the entire time... man, I just needed to shut up. For the rest of my life I will be conscious of that... I'm glad I saw it, though. It seemed like everyone had a great time, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of months. My friends Erica and Melinda are having babies! I am also going to a shower for the second baby of my best friend's daughter. I'm making a diaper cake for the second time, so we'll see how it turns out. I think I might make floozie koozies for it, too, but we'll see how much time I have between making sure the house is picture-perfect, and chasing the kiddos :-P