What's Up?

Well, there's been alot going on but probably mostly junk nobody wants to hear about.

We got our electricity back on last Sunday after Ike huffed and puffed and blew our lines down and after all of the hurricane turmoil, emotional and such, I just decided that I had nothing to blog about that anyone would care to read so I just haven't. And now you will know, if you read this post, that what I say is true - I really don't have much to blog about that you probably care to read.... :) (Interesting tidbit: When I looked at the analytics on our blog, we had more daily hits over the week that we didn't post anything. Not sure what's up with that... I think they were mostly from people searching for Ike info.)

But our blog's purpose is to chronicle what's happening in our family and honestly it's mainly for us and the few friends and family members that want to keep up with what's going on in our lives because you know how terrible I am at picking up the phone. :) It's also a great way for me to archive some things, photos, stories, etc. that we will be able to read again someday since I'm not disciplined enough to write them down anywhere else and organize my pictures. So if you don't want to read it, don't. No one is forcing you.

Here's the rundown:

* Last Saturday, when we still didn't have electricity, tensions were running high and Tommy sensed that we needed to get out of the house. We went to Sugarland to eat and then took the kids to Hong Kong City Mall. Tommy, Jakeb, Anna and myself had a great time and loved the adventure, the sights and the smells. Tori, not so much... While there, we purchased a small bamboo steamer and some wonton wrappers. Jakeb has been wanting to make wonton's forever so he finally did on Monday and they were awesome. We bought some frozen dumplings that were all ready to steam and they were good too.

* Sometime during the hurricane event, someone used our credit card to purchase stuff in Hong Kong and we didn't know it because our phone and internet service was out when the credit card company tried to call. We don't use that card very much at all so we can't really figure out how they got the number. So this week, I'll be dealing with trying to get credit reports and junk to find out if anything else is going on that we wouldn't know about until it was too late.

* Comcast is the ultimate joke of customer service. That's a really long story with some really long phone calls on hold forever and they ticked me off and it makes me get all mad again every time I think about it. So I am planning to get all of the credit I can out of them for our service being out and then cut 'em loose and switch to AT&T. That's probably not very Christian of me, is it? Word to the wise... if you get digital cable service, don't include your phone in the bundle and it's probably a good idea to stay clear of Comcast. When our cable was out we had no phone. We had to use our cell phones for everything and that was a pain in and of itself but it also ate up minutes. I'm sure we went over this month. I'll probably try to make Comcast pay for that too!

* Since Tori is graduating a semester early, we're in the process of ordering her senior pictures and announcements. Jenny did such a great job and she'll be making the announcement for us as well. Tori is busy filling out college applications and taking SAT's and ACT's and getting transcripts and stuff. In the last rank update, she is 61st in her class of 558. That is just six places away from being in the top 10% of her class. What a brain!! We really are so proud of what she's accomplished in her school career so far. Hopefully that brain we somehow gave her will pay off with some incredible scholarships!

* Since our electricity is back on, Tommy was able to get back to work on our bathroom remodel. Maybe I'll post an update about that this week. It will be nice when it's finished. We're hoping to finish it in a couple of weeks as we've get the privilege to host four members of the Daraja Children's Choir for three nights. They are coming to LJ and performing at our church on Sunday night, October 26th. It would be nice to have two showers instead of the one that we are sharing right now.

* We were given tickets to the Music ReBuilds Concert, Third Day, Jars of Clay, Switchfoot and Robert Randolph and the Family Band on Friday night. Third Day and Jars of Clay (they dressed in all white and looked like the Jonas Brothers) were tolerable but Switchfoot and Robert Randolf were exceptional. Robert Randolph was a very unexpected and pleasant surprise. They played alot of music without words, sometimes I think that's probably the best music anyway. I don't think their cd is like that but we'll probably be buying it, it's quality, fun, music that will make me feel all happy inside. It was fun to see Tori and Jakeb enjoying Switchfoot. They are one of their favorite bands. Anna got to stay with Mawmaw and Pawpaw and roast hot dogs and marshmallows, play and get her way and eat Mawmaw's pancakes and bacon!

* We're back in the swing of things with home school. I'm still pretty overwhelmed but I think in a week or two that will settle down. If it weren't for Ike, I'd probably be doing pretty good right now. The kids are doing great and are very patient with me. Anna is doing very well focusing and getting her work done. We've introduced several great incentives (bribes) to help her out there. Jakeb is getting Tori's help on Algebra 2 and she and Tommy have to help him with Chemistry because those are two subjects that I just can't teach him or help him with. I think they both miss seeing their friends so we're working on that as well.

* Anna and I went on our first field trip to Taste of Texas last Tuesday. The owner does a Texas History field trip for 4th graders and she was very knowledgeable. She told us alot about famous Texas people and interesting stories about Texas and then they fed us lunch and we left. We joined up with another homeschool group so there were only about 30 people for this one, she usually has like a hundred or something. Being a part of the homeschool world we have definitely run across some noteworthy characters and it has had it's interesting moments. There was a girl on the field trip in a full-length prairie dress and a bonnett. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just interesting and probably not something you'd see in a public school setting.

* Jakeb and I went to see Dr. Hanson for a 2nd opinion for his scoliosis on Friday. Tori saw Dr. Hanson with hers right up until her surgery and our insurance changed and they didn't allow him to do the surgery so we had to switch. Anyway, Jakeb really liked Dr. Hanson so we'll continue seeing him. For me, seeing him and talking to him was like putting on a comfortable pair of tennis shoes. Dr. Hanson confirmed our choice to not brace Jakeb and just wait it out. His curves are currently at 35 (thorasic) and 34 (lumbar) so they are very proportional and if they stayed like this and stayed proportional he would have no issues. He did say, though, that Jakeb has alot of growing left to do so there's alot riding on how his body decides to make that happen. He said he wouldn't brace him because most dr's won't brace boys of his age due to the muscle around their spine. Girls have less muscle so the potential for the brace to work is increased because the brace works by strategically pushing on the ribs to keep the spine in place. He said that Jakeb has more muscle than most, probably from running, and that the brace just simply would not work because the muscle would just keep the spine just where it is and the brace would just hurt and be uncomfortable. So, we go back in April to see where we're at.

That's it for now, you are all caught up and the events of our last week are captured in time on the stunz blog.