To All My Aggie Friends
Go Boilers!
Category: Family, Friends, Fun
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Archive for the Category »Fun «
Congrats, Saints!
Wow! I actually had a team I pulled for all season win the big one! Drew Brees (Quarterback) is a Texas native and Purdue grad. Enjoy your pork chops, Archbishop Ayemond.
Now how will the Cubs do this year…?
Category: Fun
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Science Has Spoken
The researchers told a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, that the most benefit they saw was from 24 fluid ounces of Guinness – just over a pint – taken at mealtimes.
Think I can convince my beloved to pack a pint in my daily lunch?
Pregnant women and nursing mothers were at one stage advised to drink Guinness – the present advice is against this.
Sorry dear, guess I’ll have to drink your pint too. 
Category: Fun
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Chop and Stock 2009
What do you get when you mix 3 hours, 5 friends, 1 baby G, 12 lbs ground beef, 4 lbs chicken, 3 tubs ricotta cheese, 3 tearful onions, 5 jars of spaghetti sauce, love and spice and everything nice?
4 good friends helping this pregnant woman stock up the freezer with 22 meals for her family and a load of fun! (We ended up making 4 chicken pot pies, 2 meatball meals, 3 sloppy joe meals, 3 meals worth of enchilada sauce, 2 meals of beef chili, 2 beef stroganoff meals, 4 trays of manicotti, 1 meat lasagna, and 1 veggie lasagna.)
Thankfully the only mishap we had was with some manicotti getting out of hand…thankfully high heat will destroy any bacteria involved. We learned that chopping 3 onions will have everyone in the kitchen in tears. And the funniest comment came from Lindsey: “Even the beer is made from scratch around here!” I had a great time enjoying the company of my girl friends. The time went by fast with 5 of us cooking and the kitchen heat was actually bearable.
Last time we did this was before Gianna was born. It was extremely helpful then and I anticipate with four children it will be even more helpful this time around. I love all the meals people bring us but eventually those stop and we are left to our own devices. The realities of our extended family unable to come and help after a baby is born requires a little more organization on my part to help the family with a smoother transition. So to answer Zvezdana’s question, “Yes, I’ve always been this organized,” or you might say self-sufficient.
My heartfelt and sincere thanks to Julie, Zvezdana, Lindsey and Lauren for helping me this morning cook up some yummy meals for our freezer, to Adam who took the kids out so we could cook peacefully, and to God who blessed me with these lovely ladies and their friendship and the family we got to cook for! (I’ll post follow up pictures on Monday since I’m off tomorrow. )
Category: Family, Friends, Fun, Recipes
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My Day at the Spa
Last year before Adam’s jaw surgery, Adam or I won a spa package at Barton Creek Spa from the Majella Society for hosting a table at their 2008 Benefit Gala. (Yes, last year!) Well, I finally took advantage of it today!
I’ve never done the whole spa thing before. And for the record and future note to family, you’re welcome to get me one anytime–especially the facial. It was so lovely. I had eye and lip treatment, facial, massage, pedicure and manicure. My fav was definitely the facial. Although I not a big fan of pedicure/manicure, a special blessing came from my appointment today.
I think I waited so long to do this because I see it as shear vanity. And I’m not willing to spend money on vanity! But this experience really allowed me to evangalize. I really enjoyed talking to the people who were serving me. Considering who would typically go to Barton Creek spa and resort, I’m probably one of the most chatty people they gotten in a while. Since it was my first spa visit, and I won the package, I got to tell them all about the Majella Society. They genuinely sounded interested and they all had at least heard of it or seen the ads! They of course were all surprised that this was my 4th pregnancy and one lady was nice enough to say that I didn’t look old enough to have 4 kids!
The massage therapist and I talked a lot about religion and religious books. She goes to Austin Christian Fellowship and opening the Word of God and group book studies have really allowed the Holy Spririt to work in her. I appreciate that about ACF and her conversion. The woman who did my pedicure and manicure wasn’t so chatty to begin with, but I opened her up. It turns out she’s Vietnamese and Catholic. Her uncle is a Bishop in Vietnam and she has another couple of cousins who are a nun and priest. Unfortunatley, she was married outside the Church and divorced. She was genuinely saddend that she can’t receive communion because of her divorce. I told her she could apply for an annulment and it was the first she had ever heard of annulments. She is too ashamed to tell her uncle about her situation because she anticpates his disappointment that she was married outside the Church. So I offered my help and gave her my contact information. She isn’t even attending Sunday Mass because she works on Sunday. I encouraged her to go to St. John Neumann down the street and even visit Fr. Bud to see if he can direct her in how to apply for the annulment.
I hope and pray she calls because I know Jesus would love to see her back at Mass and receiving Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Please keep Kimberly in your prayers too.
Category: Faith, Fun
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It Might Get Loud
Yes, that is usually the parental mantra around our house whenever out of the corner of our eyes we see Fulton slip and fall but that is not the intention of this post. It is rather about this interesting documentary I came across the other day. It looks to be a welcoming departure from the typical rock artist “behind the scenes” material you come to expect. I’m interested to hear the thought process behind Jack White’s music (seriously, who else would think of building an electric guitar with a 2×4, nails, and a coke bottle! see the trailer) although I expect other certain readers to be more partial to The Edge. 
Category: Fun
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Spring Break Pics
So, these are totally late but better late than never, right?
Adam’s youngest sister, Mary, came down to Austin from Indiana for her spring break this year. It was so fun to have her here and the kids of course love any extra person they can play tickle monster with! Since it was her spring break, we wanted to take her somewhere at least. She requested San Antonio as she is totally in love with the Riverwalk and wants to move there sometime after she graduates from Purdue. So we took her there and we went to Marbel Falls to Sweet Berry Farm for our annual berry picking.
The troops sporting their berries. And Fulton and Gianna are wearing some nice shade hats their other aunt, Diana, gave them just for our treks to the berry farm.
Adam took the day off for our trip to SA.
The kids with the Komodo Dragon statue.
Muffin really loved the monkeys. There was one that was doing all kinds of stunts that we watched while the other kids were at the Butterfly exhibit with Dad and Aunt Mary.
My FAVORITE picture!
That’s my sister Diana on the right. She’s worked at the SA Zoo for over 20 years (since she was in college). She’s awesome! Not only does she get us in for free under her membership, but on the crazy day during spring break, she gets us through the EXPRESS entrance to avoid the mile long line outside and then gives us our own private tour of the zoo! Thanks Di!
Then we finally made it to the Riverwalk…couldn’t pass up a photo op with St. Anthony!
The day was perfect for an ice cream treat courtesy of Tia Maria–and thankfully is was St. Patrick’s day and the kids got to enjoy it! (Since they are Irish, we lift all their Lenten fasts on that day!)
Category: Family, Fun
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Square Root Day
3/3/09 is Square Root Day! (Three is the square root of 9 i.e. 3 times 3 is 9.)
My God daughter, who loves to remind me of my geekiness from so long ago, sent me this news article.
So go ahead, do some extra math on Square Root Day. Share some fun math activities or games with your kids. When you open up a bag of M&Ms, sort them and make a graph of their color distribution for grins and giggles.
Category: Fun
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