Jaki - 13th Birthday

August 23, 2008

Jaki started off her Birthday by making a key lime pie with
U. Tommy & A. Lori. Colin and Rana got to help also.

Then it was time for the party. We kicked things off at 4 and didn't end until 9:30 or so. We had lots of fun with family and good friends. There was hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, along with some grilled catfish that the kids had caught the weekend before. A. She-Shan had also made some macaroni salad for Bryan for his birthday (which was Friday the 22nd), so we shared that with those who had some catfish. Jaki had several friends from school come to her party. They swam in the pool even when we had some light rain, which I think they enjoyed that even more.

After hauling everyone out of the pool for food, we did presents and cake.

Then of course the kids were back into the pool. What an awesome day.
Jaki loved that she had both her grandmothers and GG (Great Grandma Helm) at her party. Along with having the rest of the family and her friends that came to help her celebrate becoming an "official" Teenager.

August 17th, Our Day At The Lake

Devon got his boat running earlier in the week, so he wanted to take it out before the summer is completely over and to squeeze one more lake trip in for Josh, before he leaves for Collage. Randy, Patty, Tyler, & Kaylee meet the rest of us up at the lake. They were trying to get one more last ride out of their jet ski's, but it wasn't happening. Lorraine also joined us for the day. The weather was great. It was cloudy and looked like some rain was coming, but it never did and the wind was just right. I don't think we could have asked for a better day. I even went on a tube ride with Jaki, which was lots of fun, but I can tell you I won't be doing it again anytime soon. You realize there are muscles on your body that you didn't know that you had. After the lake Jaki, Colin, & Rana went with A. Patty & U. Randy, along with Kaylee & Tyler to a catfish place for fishing and caught 12.14lbs of catfish. They really enjoyed doing that. And from what I understand the girls caught more fish than the boys. But who know for sure.

Pics from Canyon Lake.

My Trip to New Jersey & New York

August 10th -13th, 2008

The flight sucked on the way up to Newark, NJ from San Antonio. We had a stop in Atalanta and ended up getting stuck there for about 8 hours. The rudest people ever. There was supposedly bad weather in Newark. But once we finally got there and started our class for SDU (Scrapbook Design & You) we were fine. We also got to hear about everyones travel problems and ours wasn't as bad as theirs so Jennie and I felt much better. We had classes all day Monday & Tuesday. So we didn't attempt to go see New York City until after our classes on Tuesday. One of the other Store owners that was there from San Antonio, Patti, had been to New York City once before so she was somewhat our guide. And our friend, Carla, who used to teach at our store, was now at NJ, so she gave us a map and pointed out some places for us to see. We took a bus from our hotel to NYC and made it to Times Square, The Rock, and quite a few other places.
It was loads of fun for the few hours that we were there. I would never want to live in NYC, but it was fun to see. I didn't get to see the Statue of Liberty during the day, but I did get to see her from the top of the Rock, but I wouldn't mind going back for another quick trip just to see more of the city.

Pics of ideas, Shane our instructor, & some of our other classmates.

Just a few pics of New York City

And August is Here

It's just the beginning of August, which is one of the busiest for us. We have lots & lots of Birthdays this month. So to start off our month we celebrated Bryan's Grandmother's Birthday and the arrival of the newest addition, Hayden, to the Brinegar Family at a family Fish Fry at Bryan's Aunt She-Shan and Uncle Stacey's House. Also, this weekend is Byran's Aunt She-Shan & Cousin Shannon Birthdays - So Happy Birthday Girls!! And tomorrow I am off to Newark, NJ for a work thing and will be coming home on Wed.

Here are some pictures from the Fish Fry from last weekend.




And if you notice Bryan is in some of these pictures. He is now back to working Monday thru Friday days. He's not totally thrilled, but it does give us more time to visit with family and friends. We have already had our first Sunday, Bar-b-q at our house it was the last weekend of July. We had family and friends over and it was just nice to be able to sit around and chat and enjoy the day together.