Winter Storm in Texas

I really didn't believe it would be much accumulation, but we got around 6 inches!  This was our covered porch in the morning of Monday.

 

The boys wanted to hurry up and get out there, but it was 8 degrees in the morning so they didn't last very long and just came in after wiping out on ice a few times each, soaking wet and freezing cold.  Daddy told them he'd take them out to the back of our neighborhood to try out sledding after lunch when it was supposed to be in the twenties.  Hannah, of course, didn't really go out.  She stood on the porch and looked at it.  All our snow gear, boots and suits, are in the back of our tricky attic so we just made do with what we had, doubling up on as many layers as we could.  There were the typical tears about wearing multiple layers from Mini-Male-Hannah.

This guy was happy to get all puffy!

After their fun in the snow the older five kids watched Star Wars with Dad.  

Right before this storm hit, we got this indoor basketball goal from my sister.  It was just in time because we are looking at several snow days here, completely snowed in, and it's another outlet for energy.

Now our game room is truly Boy Paradise, complete with Legos, fooseball, and basketball.

19 Years!

Our anniversary trip to Germany to see the Passion Play (a once a decade event) was cancelled due to COVID-19 and so we suddenly had a thought that maybe we could go back to where it all began.  Back to where we met and stay at the bed and breakfast that we stayed in the night we got married. 

So we checked and they were reopening two days after our anniversary.  So we planned to go for two nights to Messina Hof in Bryan/College Station, Texas.  We weren't able to stay in the Romeo and Juliet Room which is where we stayed on our honeymoon night.  Brian chose the Camelot room.  We had a complimentary wine and cheese each day and had reservations for the first night at their restaurant and the second night at Christopher's, an old favorite when we lived there for anniversaries and special occasions. 

After arriving we got settled, dressed up a bit, and went straight over to the winery to have our wine and cheese until our reservations for dinner next door.  Our waitress was fun and we ordered an a three coarse meal ending with our old favorite, the hot fudge ice cream with Port poured on top.  After dinner, the sun was setting and so we decided to stroll through the vineyard.  We didn't ask per say if this was allowed, but there were no signs and no one stopped us.  So off we went.  We turned around and came down a different row back towards our room and I thought I stepped on a branch that got caught on my foot.  I instinctively tried to shake it off, but my brain notified me that we hadn't seen any branches big enough for this to be a branch.  I looked down and back at what I had just shaken off my foot to find not a branch, but a big old snake!  It coiled up and slithered away before we could get a good look at the pattern.  Let's be honest, I took off toward the path and alerted Brian that a snake bit me.  He tried to see it, but it slithered away quickly.

Messina Hof Restaurant

Carefree sandal wearing me, before I learned the value of the cowboy boot.

You can't see the bottom teeth marks well in this picture.  These were pretty new shoes.  I am wondering how long it will take before I stop thinking of them as my "snake bite" shoes.

All I saw was a coiled up snake in the shape and size  of a plate that was the same general colors as the grass and dirt, a brownish, greenish, grayish snake.  We heard no rattle and it didn't hurt badly so although we quickly went to our room to wash it and make sure there wasn't any reaction, it seemed like it wasn't a poisonous snake.  We googled all the poisonous snakes in the area and it did not seem like those were what we saw.  Out of the 36 snakes common in this part of Texas, there were only six poisonous ones.  Of those all but two are rattlesnakes and one is a coral snake which is distinctively bright.  The only one left is a cotton mouth and we were pretty sure it was not wet enough for those there.  Still, I was fairly freaked out and we watched the wound and my heart rate for an hour just to be safe.

I survived, though it did put a damper on our first evening.  The next day we took a walk down memory lane, starting with Mass at the Church where we received our First Communion and Confirmation in 2004 when I was just barely pregnant with Hannah.  We drove by our first house and the hospital where Hannah was born.  Then we ate lunch on Northgate and walked around the A&M campus.  We went to the first place we met, the first place we kissed, our old dorms, the Century Tree, and many other smaller memorable places.  It has been so long, and so very much has changed. 

FHK

Where we first kissed almost 23 years ago!

Century Tree

The Secret Place

They moved Fish Pond across the street.

Our first house

After we got cleaned up we had our wine and cheese tasting before going to dinner.  That night we ate at Christopher's, and Brian had a special vase of beautiful roses waiting for me at the table.  It was delicious and just how I remembered it.  The last time we ate there was Valentine's Day 2005, when Hannah was just a few months old.  I remember it well, because we ended up moving to the porch seating since Hannah's usual cheerful self wasn't very cheerful that particular evening.  I am sure we hadn't taken her to many restaurants since we were a zero income family for those last six months of vet school.

That was about it.  Other than being bitten by the fourth snake I've ever even come across in the wild in my entire life, it was a terrific weekend getaway.  I certainly learned my lesson.  Never go for a walk at sunset in Texas without cowboy boots on!  Sandals

I will say though that the snake did prove to be a bad omen of sorts as bad news started to befall us on the drive home from our trip, kicking off with a text from our landlady that she was going to raise our rent 10% in August.  Real life hit us smack in the face by the time we were home.

Week 1 Quarantine: The Coronavirus Strikes

and I suddenly have time to catch up on my blog.  My house is the cleanest and most organized that it's been in a long while.  I've been homeschooling and tackling big projects.  EVERYTHING  is cancelled.  We are literally down to the private in home piano lessons and online guitar lessons at this point.  No church.  No school for the big kids.  No field trips, dances, or sports.  No dentist and doctor appointments.  Nada.  All cancelled.  This is the weirdest thing ever.

I went to pick up my prescription refill and was stopped by a very commanding voiced lady who screened me with questions like, "Have you been out of the country in the past two weeks?"  "Do you have a fever and a cough?"  etc.  After I answered all the questions to her liking I was allowed to approach and get my prescription.

Hannah and I went to the grocery store after the initial mayhem died down and the shelves were just so bare.  I felt like I should just swipe my arm across the shelves and take the rest.  I felt sorry for the last few remaining jars of crunchy peanut butter, and, oh, the lima beans and split peas!  All the other beans were taken.  How sad for those lima beans and split peas!  And just forget about toilet paper at this point.  I am sure this should be remembered as the Great Toilet Paper Apocalypse.

First on my to do list was to get our homeschool closet and overflow of books back under control.  This has been bothering me for a long time.  I also had a growing pile of books that just would not fit on our wall to wall bookshelves.  I was brainstorming one night as I was falling asleep and it suddenly occurred to me that I have a few bookshelves and dressers being used "outside of the box" for other purposes.  I moved a dresser that I had been using for crafts in my room to the boys' room, therefore freeing up a bookshelf to take down to the school room.  Then I had a bookshelf used for my sewing stuff that I moved down.  For now I condensed my sewing and craft supplies into bins until Brian can build or find me a sewing table/storage.  I'm imagining one of the old TV entertainment centers re-purposed with a drop down table for my machine, but we'll see.  For now, at least my school room looks better.

When I finished putting my sewing stuff up, I saw a project waiting to be completed that I figured I should just do now.  So I grabbed the fabric letters that Isaac had cut out for me and the fabrics I had sitting out, and in less than an hour I had Luna's new pillow ready for lounging.

The next day, I thought the game room needed a little make over and some better vacuuming since my vacuumers are sometimes less than thorough with the corners.  I was only able to get rid of a few more toys since I have really pared down already so much, and the kids really haven't added too much to the collection since then.

Riddles and Couch Pieces

 One time I got the idea to write riddles on the boys' paper plates with the answers on the bottom just to make lunchtime a little more fun and to change the course of an argumentative day.  They loved it so much that they now ask me every once in a while to do it again.  These kids go through riddle and joke books though like candy, and they usually know the answers.  I even use Google to try to find new ones and they rarely get stumped.  Here's another way we shake up an otherwise monotonous or trying homeschool day, by heading outside with our lunch.  This particular day, Judah chose Luna's favorite spot in the sun.

Luna is quick to cuddle with anyone who sits on the couch.  

Speaking of the couch, something happened in the shipment of our couch and the fabric (not real leather, but the fake stuff) started just falling apart.  It started slowly and we were just putting pillows in front of it or hanging blankets over the bad spots.  But at some point it just got out of hand.  The couch was shedding so much that I was finding pieces everywhere, and sweeping them up daily.  We even found some in our suitcases when we were traveling.  My dear husband's plan was to just tough it out until we made our final military move, but when we found a piece of the couch in his cereal bowl he finally relented and said we could look for a new or gently used couch.  No one has couches as big as this though, so we went with a new one.

I mean, this is embarrassing, folks.

But, alas, we have a new couch!  It is shorter only because it doesn't have the middle arm rests.  We love it!  The kids think it is awesome that it has USB plugs everywhere and electric foot rests.  This was the first movie watched on the couch.

Our Family Mission Statement

Love: Reading to brother

While I was in the mode of making a vision statement for our homeschool, I thought maybe I could finally decide on one for our family, much less specific, of course.  I had always had a hard time with this in the past because I am always tempted to have "all the things" in it.  Isn't it all important?  Well, in the Bible it is very clear that one over-arching, all-encompassing virtue is above them all.  One virtue flows into all others.  The Greatest Commandment.  Love.

I have a common thing I say to the children as well which needed to be taken into account.  I say it so frequently that it deserves attention when coming up with this mission statement.  It is important and falls under the the virtue of all virtues.  "People before things."

Being that I have such a great love of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and she has said so many profound things about love and charity so succinctly.  I turned to her for inspiration here.

After thinking about all those things, this is what I came up with.  My words are in bold and then they are followed by a bunch of citations that inspired me in the writing of this statement.

In our family, we love and serve God by loving and serving the person in front of us. We love that person by treating them the way we want to be treated, by accepting them just the way they are, and by putting their needs ahead of our own.

"The school of Christ is the school of love. In the last day, when the general examination
takes place ... Love will be the whole syllabus." - St. Robert Bellarmine

“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, 

to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor . . . Let no one ever come to you without
leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
-St. Mother Teresa

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love

Our "New" (Rental) Home for a While

I finally took some pictures of the house now that we have all our stuff situated after our last storage shipment arrived a month ago.  I didn't get picture of the bedrooms though because they always look sloppy.  The master bedroom is just not even set up yet, because it is so big and we've been putting our Christmas stuff in there because it was coming just so quickly and it seemed silly to haul it up to the attic just to pull it back down in less than a month from then.

Dining Room and Bar Area

Another View and Time of Day for the Dining Room

We don't let the kids play in the dining room/area.  It has our nice furniture from Europe in it, it's right off the front door, and it has carpet.  But we do eat in there every night since we are too big for our corner kitchen table.  The worst part of this house is that the dining room is not next to the kitchen.  Who designed this?  Not someone who actually planned to use their dining room.

Living Room

I love the living room as it turns out.  It is plenty big for the kids to wrestle and play, but we have been able to keep toys out of it for the most part.

Entryway and Piano Space

Kitchen

 I love the openness of the kitchen, since I spend so much time in it.  Although there is something to be said for being able to shut the kitchen door and block out the noise, I prefer the open kitchen with the big island.  I love when the kids can sit and work on something while chatting with me as I cook.

Kitchen Looking into the Big Pantry/Laundry Room

Our School Room/Library (Downstairs, off the Living Room)

 The school room is small, but we really use it, and we make it work.  I love that there's a bathroom right off of it, the piano is close by for our Latin song practice, and the living room and kitchen are just a hop away.

Game Room, Upstairs

Dart Board, Foosball Table, Lego Tables

 All our toys are in either the game room or the school room with the exception of our dress up chest and our weapons chest (I like to call it the armory).  So the boys' bedrooms are freed up to have only beds and bookshelves.  For the most part I even fit their dressers into the closets.

The girls' room has their beds, a bookshelf, and their desks.  They have a huge closet and so their dressers and clothes all fit very easily in their closet.

The girls' have two doors to their room, and this is one of them.  Both come off of the game room.  This couch is used for story time for the little guys at bedtime.  I put our Jesse Tree up there and set up a 1000 piece puzzle for during Advent on one of the extra Lego tables.

That's all for now!

Be a Sweetie

I made a sign for the kids' bathroom.  A friend of mine was talking about boys (and man) in her house who didn't keep the toilet in proper condition for a lady to sit upon it.  I agreed it is a problem, especially with four young boys in our house.  She told me a cute little saying that she says to her boys (and man) when they leave the seat a mess.

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.

Inspiration struck me, and this sign was created.

I used the color of the shower curtain that came with the house, a periwinkle blue, and added some yellow/gold.  I have a stack of unused frames and I picked a white one and painted polka dots to match on the frame.  I really like it.  Maybe I need one for my bathroom too.

I also finished up my laundry station, upstairs in the hallway.  I have officially done away with individual laundry hampers in bedrooms.  Now no one has to sort laundry which is making kids smile at our house.  I made a spot for lost socks which we always have gads of around here.  I used to have a drawer for single socks and realized in Germany that no one was checking for matches when adding socks to the drawer, so I pinterested (yes, it is a verb, I declare) until I found a solution.

Brian made the laundry basket holder a long time ago and it has always been in my laundry room doing a very good job of keeping laundry off the floor, but he stained them so I could keep them in a public space.  I love them!  I can grab a basket on my way downstairs in the morning to run my daily load.