Sunday, February 20, 2005
Another busy day!!
Happy Birthday to my youngest sister Andrea! Today is her birthday and we have a busy day planned! First I have to go finish up a cake that should have been done last night, but never got finished. Yesterday's party for Abby was great! She loved her cakes I made and her sister was truly surprised when I brought her a Belle cake. She wasn't expecting it so she was really surprised! I will put the cake pictures up on my fotopage as soon as I can.
8:54 AM
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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Abby's One!!!!!!
And a very Happy Birthday goes out to a very special one year old today!! My great niece Abby! I will be making her birthday cakes today as well as one that was for her sister who was sick in the hospital on her birthday and I had promised her a Disney's Princess Belle cake. Then we go off to the party at Chuck E. Cheese around 4:00. Then tonight we go over to my sister's house to make another cake for a birthday party tomorrow. Well I guess I better get my decorating supplies together to go to my sister's house and make cakes. Take care & have a fun day!
9:31 AM
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Friday, February 18, 2005
Busy weekend coming up!
Well this is supposed to be a busy weekend! I will be making & decorating lots of cakes! I will try and post them to my fotopage later! I guess I get a little bit of break tonight, all my kids are gone so it's just me and the hubby! That will be nice. Megan and Jordan are off BBsitting their cousins and the twins are gone til Sunday afternoon. They are working at Disciple Now for the church. They will have a busy weekend too! Well have a great weekend! Yahweh bless!
10:55 AM
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Swimming & Starbucks!!
Today was a great day, my mom picked up me, and two of my kids. First we went to the Josh Davis Natorium so Ashley could drop off her employee package. She is trying to get a job there as a lifeguard. She got certified at the end of the summer last year so she put in an application just down the road at the school district's Athletic center. Well while she was in there my mom & I waited in the car and after a while I went in to see how much longer she was gonna be, plus I wanted to see the pool. It was really neat in there. There are actually two Natoriums right next to each other and they may even be connected, but this one is bigger and was built in honor of our very own Olympic Gold Medal swimmer Josh Davis. They had a dispaly cabinet with several pictures when he swam at the smaller natorium during his high school years. Of course I guess he keeps his Gold medals at home. There was a diving competion going on inside also. Although I was never on a diving team I always loved watching compititions. Swim team was my thing! I love to swim! I know it is bad, but just the smell of the clorine at the natorium the other day brougth me back in time to all my meets. I just wanted to go jump in myself!
After leaving the natorium, we went to Target to get Megan some jeans & a hoodie & Ashley got a movie. Alicia & Jordan stayed home. Alicia did some laundry and Jordan wanted to play the new video game I bought at Target when my mom & I went yesterday. Before we shopped around in Target we were all staring at the Starbucks & drooling so we decided to all go have a frappachino! My mom actually got iced vanilla latte, Megan & I got Java Chip frappachino, and Ashley got a mocha peppermint frappachino. They were so good! We also split 2 large, warm, soft pretzels. One was light salt flavor and the other was garlic parmesian flavor. They were very good. I felt bad that the other girls weren't there to enjoy it so I bought Alicia & Jordan a frappachino that they have in the little bottles. All in all I would say we've had a great day so far! Wishing ya'll the same! Until next time! 4:22 AM |
After leaving the natorium, we went to Target to get Megan some jeans & a hoodie & Ashley got a movie. Alicia & Jordan stayed home. Alicia did some laundry and Jordan wanted to play the new video game I bought at Target when my mom & I went yesterday. Before we shopped around in Target we were all staring at the Starbucks & drooling so we decided to all go have a frappachino! My mom actually got iced vanilla latte, Megan & I got Java Chip frappachino, and Ashley got a mocha peppermint frappachino. They were so good! We also split 2 large, warm, soft pretzels. One was light salt flavor and the other was garlic parmesian flavor. They were very good. I felt bad that the other girls weren't there to enjoy it so I bought Alicia & Jordan a frappachino that they have in the little bottles. All in all I would say we've had a great day so far! Wishing ya'll the same! Until next time! 4:22 AM |
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I found some good books today!
Well today I didn't do anything to exciting except go to Target, Half Priced books and The Post Office with my mom. She had to get stamps and mail her income tax return, then we went to half priced books. I was trying to see if I could find a genealogy program for the computer. I need to update my family tree and back when I had done it before I had borrrowed someone's program and put it on my computer, but my computer crashed since I submitted it to Ancestry World Tree @ Ancestry.com & the rootsweb.com. I hadn't really had time to work on anything in a while, but some newfound cousins found my Genealogy Project and invited me to their family website where I can share info with them. Well since my info was lost due to my stupidity in not saving my files to a disk, I lost them so I set out to find a copy of Family Treemaker. No success at the two places I went, but I found a couple of other books. A child's cookbook, two games that were marked down to $1.00 and a birthday present for my younger sister who's birthday is Sunday. It was really great, she has one little boy and they do alot of activities together and I found this book called "The Little Boy's Activity Bible For Toddlers" and it is really great because it has like a bible story, then it has a mommy and me activity to do after each one. I really think my sister will like it! I only paid $5.00 for it. The list price is $12.99 so I got a great bargain as well. The cookbook I got was for kids with easy to make recipes and it was only $1.98 and then I found an old 1970's reader for $3.00 and a book like one my dad bought me as a kid that burned up in my sister's house fire 17 years ago. It was a Treasury of 55 old Walt Disney stories. I just love going there to see what kind of bargains I can find. Last time I found many great cookbooks. I love cookbooks!!! Also the last time I went there was with my mom (who taught me my love of books) and she told me the story behind half priced bookstores. I never had heard it until then. Apparently he worked for my dad many years ago at a very large, well known company (nothing to do with books) and my dad was told to let this guy go. Well this guy went and opened up this bookstore. I noticed there is a lot of them around the country. My mom said that once when the man still worked for my dad that my mom and dad stopped by his house to drop something off and my mom waited in the car but my dad went in. Anyway he told my mom that this man had hundreds of old books, tapes, records, etc. in stacks all over the house. Lots!! Anyway my dad said that is what the man used to start his first store after he was let go. I know this is prolly boring to you, but I thougth it was interesting that one of my favorite stores was started by a man that my dad let go many years ago. Well when I got home, with no success on finding a GEDCOM program for my genealogy project, I ended up downloading the free starter version of FTM so I can at least trade info with my new family lines. It will work for now, but I still need to get a good program for that. Well that's all for now! TTFN & Yah Bless!
5:18 PM
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Library Day!
Well today I went to the library! I found several books and the DVD of Orthanger Abbey I reserved came in so I checked it out with several others. I also checked out a few books for good school reading. We are soing unit studies and right now we are starting one on pioneers. There are some really good book series that are like diaries written for juvenile readers called Dear America, The Royal diaries and the American Sister series.. I also found a new series called The Lone Star Journals which obviously are about Texas. Anyway the one I picked up is called Get Along Little Dogies - The Chisholm Trail Diary of Hallie Lou Wells. All seem really great. I also found one called A Pioneer Sampler which is about The Daily Life Of A Pioneer Family in 1840 and it has some recipes to try as well as activities that the children would have done back then. Can't wait to try some of the ideas in the book. Also today was my little great nephew Brendan's first trip to the library. Every time I see him he wants me to read him a book. Sounds like he takes after our side of the family. Most everyone loves to read books! Alicia took some really cute pictures of him "reading" books. I don't think she has had time to put them up yet though. I felt so bad because he was so excited about seeing all the books that he was running and ran right into a bookshelf and his his poor little face. He had a big purple bruise going from his eye to his cheek where he hit. And I know it hurt cause he usually is tough and jumps up but he was crying about it. Anyway he still had a good time. He met two other little boys that were close to his age and helped one of them pick out books. It was cute. The other boy gave him a hug when it was time for him to leave. Well that is all that happened today that was worth telling. Take care and have a great & blessed evening!
6:31 PM
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Monday, February 14, 2005
It's Monday!!
Oh my Gosh!!! Napoleon Dynomite has got to be the worst movie I have ever seen!!! I can't believe that I actually wasted time watching it! I am all for nerdy movies but this one didn't even fit that category!! It was pointless and the acting was bad. Well I am not going to rant anymore about it as I have wasted enough time on it already. I also watched Jumanji which I think is great. Not much going on today other than it is like 81 degrees outside! I finally had to break down and turn the AC on. I tried open windows and fans but it just wasn't cutting it. It is so nice outside today. We are supposed to go to the zoo friday and I am praying for another day like today. But we are supposed to get rain and some kind of cold front so we will see! I just love the zoo! we used to go all the time but since hubby switched jobs we haven't gone in a couple of years! Our zoo (The San Antonio Zoo) is rated one of the best zoos in the country. So Yah willing we are going to the zoo friday! Well I am off to cook supper! Have a great day!
3:07 PM
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Sunday, February 13, 2005
Oh how I love the library!!!!!!
I know I have written about this before, but I just love the library!!! It is really great. One advatage to living in a big city is that we have several branches (19 to be exact) plus the Central library downtown. Needless to say there are a lot of books, and other media to choose from. I rarely ever go to the video store to rent movies. We usually just reserve something we like and place a hold then pick it up on our weekly library excursion. Then that way we don't have to drive around to the different branches, we just go to our favorite one nearby and get it off the hold shelf. And the movies are all fairly new. The have DVDs and VHS. As well as many music CDs and books on tape to choose from. Last couple of weeks I guess I kinda had Bronte on the brain so I reserved and watched several good movies. First I watched, Jane Eyre. This BBC version is the 3rd version that I have seen that the library has. It was okay, but not my favorite of the 3. Then another BBC video - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall which I thought was rather good. Then I watched Wuthering Heights with Juliette Binoche & Ralph Fiennes. I think they both did a fine job on the acting. From there I watched Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, then Dicken's Great Expectations. I also checked out Emma Brown. I haven't started reading it yet, but it sounds like it will be good. It is Charlotte Bronte's unfinished novel. Some say her 1855 death deprived the world of what might have been her masterpiece. Her 20 unfinished manuscript pages about a lost young girl sat in waiting for 150 years until Irish novelist Clare Boylan decided to finish it. I also reserved Northanger Abbey. So I guess I must have been craving classic literature in some form or another. Before that I watched Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Nicholas Nickleby. Well, I am gonna end here for now! If you haven't been to the library lately, like I always say, Go Check it out!! Yes, pun intended, and no I don't work for the library! As always, Yahweh bless! And cuddle up with a great book, a dog or two & expand your mind!
6:49 PM
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Saturday, February 12, 2005
Twiggs Surrenders!!
Well today Megan & I went with the Mabrito Clan to a reenactment at the Alamo. This particular one wasn't a recreation of that famous battle that the Alamo is so famous for. This was a re-enactment of a different time that the Alamo made history. I actually didn't know about it until going.
In the late 1840's, after Texas became a state, the US Army made San Antonio the headqurteres for the Department of Texas and quartermaster supply depot for all of its 17 outlying forts. In Nov. 1860, brevet Major General Twiggs would be recalled to active duty and given command of the Department of Texas.
In Jan. 1861, a special session of the Texas Legislature was called in Austin that would adopt a resolution which validated & approved the calling of the Secession Convention. The convention assembled on Jan 28th and four days later it passed an Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 168 to 7 which provided for the final seperation of Texas from the Union.
The Committee of Public Safety felt they had to move quickly before the Federals had time to destroy their forts and removed the military arms and equipment which Texas would need to protect its frontier. They appointed a committee of four men to go to Gen. Twiggs in San Antonio and demand the surrender of all Federal property under his control. The committe also appointed Ben McCulloch a colonel of the cavalry and charged him with raising a force of militia in case force was needed to persuade Twiggs into surrendering the Federal property.
The four Tecas commisioners would meet with Twiggs and after weeks of negotiations, Twiggs still refused to surrender the property. The commissioners called on McCulloch to bring his militia and firce Twiggs t surrender. On Feb 16, McCulloch surrounded the federal buildings with approximately 1000 well-armed Rangers and experienced fronteir fighters against the outnumbered meager 160 federal garrison troops. Twiggs had no alternative but to surrender, or precipitate open warfare & bloodshed.
Two days after the surrender of the federal forces, Twiggs issued General Order Number 5 which deliver possession of all military posts and property within the state to the Commissioners. A month later, Texas would join the Confederacy. Many feel had Twiggs not surrendered that the Civil War would possibly have started at the Alamo.
The reenactment was really good. One really interesting part was after Twiggs surrender they had a man on a horse who was portraying Robert E. Lee. Lee refused to join the McCulloch and his militia so he was sent away. It was really neat to see him turned away by the same groups of people he would later lead. For those who don't know, my uncle Marc is like a walking history book and when we were walking back to the lot where we had parked we passed the famous Menger Hotel. He said that Robert E Lee actually rode his horse through the hotel. They had really neat old pictures inside that showed what it had originally looked like. They had these 3 pictures of the Continental Dining Room through the years and how it looked after each remodeling job. Then we peeked into it and it was sad to see that they had a modern suspended type ceiling with tiles. It was sad. They had some beautiful antiques in the lobby as well. There was a really neat life sized bronze statue of Col. Travis drawing a line in the sand. So of course we made Travis stand next to his namesake for a picture. We also went into the Alamo and looked around while we were waiting for the re-enactment to begin. I haven't been in there since I was a kid. I used to see it every summer when I was a kid and we came to visit our grandparents on vacation. But ever since I moved here I haven't seen it once. It was neat to go inside it again. They let you see more of it then they used to. Also they had on display the original knife made by Daniel Searles which was presented to Colonel Fowler by Resin Bowie. Resin was James Bowie's brother. I don't know the specifics, but Marc does, that we are related to this Colonel Fowler on my maternal great grandmothers side of the family. Check out Megan's fotopage for pictures of the re-enactment and the Menger. Well I am gonna end this post here before I totally bore yall to sleep! Yahweh Bless! 3:38 PM |
In the late 1840's, after Texas became a state, the US Army made San Antonio the headqurteres for the Department of Texas and quartermaster supply depot for all of its 17 outlying forts. In Nov. 1860, brevet Major General Twiggs would be recalled to active duty and given command of the Department of Texas.
In Jan. 1861, a special session of the Texas Legislature was called in Austin that would adopt a resolution which validated & approved the calling of the Secession Convention. The convention assembled on Jan 28th and four days later it passed an Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 168 to 7 which provided for the final seperation of Texas from the Union.
The Committee of Public Safety felt they had to move quickly before the Federals had time to destroy their forts and removed the military arms and equipment which Texas would need to protect its frontier. They appointed a committee of four men to go to Gen. Twiggs in San Antonio and demand the surrender of all Federal property under his control. The committe also appointed Ben McCulloch a colonel of the cavalry and charged him with raising a force of militia in case force was needed to persuade Twiggs into surrendering the Federal property.
The four Tecas commisioners would meet with Twiggs and after weeks of negotiations, Twiggs still refused to surrender the property. The commissioners called on McCulloch to bring his militia and firce Twiggs t surrender. On Feb 16, McCulloch surrounded the federal buildings with approximately 1000 well-armed Rangers and experienced fronteir fighters against the outnumbered meager 160 federal garrison troops. Twiggs had no alternative but to surrender, or precipitate open warfare & bloodshed.
Two days after the surrender of the federal forces, Twiggs issued General Order Number 5 which deliver possession of all military posts and property within the state to the Commissioners. A month later, Texas would join the Confederacy. Many feel had Twiggs not surrendered that the Civil War would possibly have started at the Alamo.
The reenactment was really good. One really interesting part was after Twiggs surrender they had a man on a horse who was portraying Robert E. Lee. Lee refused to join the McCulloch and his militia so he was sent away. It was really neat to see him turned away by the same groups of people he would later lead. For those who don't know, my uncle Marc is like a walking history book and when we were walking back to the lot where we had parked we passed the famous Menger Hotel. He said that Robert E Lee actually rode his horse through the hotel. They had really neat old pictures inside that showed what it had originally looked like. They had these 3 pictures of the Continental Dining Room through the years and how it looked after each remodeling job. Then we peeked into it and it was sad to see that they had a modern suspended type ceiling with tiles. It was sad. They had some beautiful antiques in the lobby as well. There was a really neat life sized bronze statue of Col. Travis drawing a line in the sand. So of course we made Travis stand next to his namesake for a picture. We also went into the Alamo and looked around while we were waiting for the re-enactment to begin. I haven't been in there since I was a kid. I used to see it every summer when I was a kid and we came to visit our grandparents on vacation. But ever since I moved here I haven't seen it once. It was neat to go inside it again. They let you see more of it then they used to. Also they had on display the original knife made by Daniel Searles which was presented to Colonel Fowler by Resin Bowie. Resin was James Bowie's brother. I don't know the specifics, but Marc does, that we are related to this Colonel Fowler on my maternal great grandmothers side of the family. Check out Megan's fotopage for pictures of the re-enactment and the Menger. Well I am gonna end this post here before I totally bore yall to sleep! Yahweh Bless! 3:38 PM |
Friday, February 11, 2005
Well.......I'm finally back!!!
Yes it's true! I have decided to start blogging again. I sumhow got burned out and have neglected it badly. I guess it was a combination of visiting with family during the winter holidays then the start of the new year 2005 and then I got a case of the januaries. I hadn't realized it was what was wrong until I read a post by marisa recently and it hit the nail right on the head. Then they were talking about it on the early show and it all made sense. Anyway I haven't been in the mood to do anything lately. I finally got motivated (because I had to) to clean out my garage. I got rid of like 30 bags of crap that have acumulated over the past 11+ years that I have lived here. I now can find everything pretty much. I have reorganized things and had to make room to put our nonworking truck inside it. My father in-law left it to my husband and he says one day he will fix it but it has been sitting in the driveway for years not running. So anyway the homeowners association sent the city out and I had 10 days to get it moved or they were taking it. Anyway so I made room for it and me, hubby, my neighbor & the 4 girls all pushed it up the driveway and into the garage where it will sit until hubby decides to fix it up. It needs a new muffler, battery, new plugs, possibly wires & distributor cap, gas tank, and most of all a new transmission, so it will sit a bit longer. with hubby being gone 10 hours a day for 6 days he just doesn't have the time to do it. The cats all seem to love it. It is a new place to sleep, hide, run around in. Of course the kids will have to find a new tailgate to all hang out on. I have also enjoyed taking pictures for KOSOMO lately. This week roo has chosen tools for the subject so that will be fun. Well I am gonna close here for today! Take care everyone! Love Ya! Have a great weekend!
3:57 PM
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