The Magnificent Seven

I love the Olympics.

All Olympics. Summer and Winter.

But Summer is my favorite! 

In honor of it being week 1 of the Olympics, I thought I would take a little trip down old Olympics lane.

All the way back to 1996.

I was 9, and it was my FAVORITE Olympics.

Mostly because it is the first I  remember watching, and loving, and cheering like crazy during.

All because of these girls.

The Magnificent Seven.

I don't remember all of their names, but I know my favorites.

And they are conveniently all standing next to each other.

Starting with the shortest:

Dominique Moceanu.

She was 14 years old during the 1996 Olympics.

A baby.

That is what she was.

And she was adorable!

YouTube her floor exercise from the Olympics - you won't regret it!

Next up, the one without pants:

Kerri Strug.

I mean, she landed on 1 foot to win the team gold.

How could you not love her!

*I had to educate Michael on who she was the other night.

He thought she was the person Tonya Harding hit with a crowbar.

It turned into me showing him all the highlights from the 96 games.

And finally, my all time favorite/hero:

Shannon Miller. 

I loved everything about her.

The fact that she is from Oklahoma.

The way she dominated the beam every single time.

And even the way she wore her hair in a bun with a white scrunchy.

I wanted to be her.

And I was! 

For 1 year in Kindergarten...I rocked the beam too.

They were the dream team, the magnificent seven, and they were so much fun to watch.

Now, I will be cheering on the 2012 girls gymnasts. 

U-S-A!

Dr Seuss Baby Shower

Yes, I have been absent from my blog for awhile.

Don't worry, you didn't miss anything interesting.

Michael went to camp -  I was bored and lonely.

Now Michael is finishing up the summer, and I'm just working and finishing an online class.

Most people hate the end of summer, but not me! I love it!

I need stability and a constant schedule. 

But enough of that...

Yesterday I was one of the hostesses for a baby shower at church.

The Mommy-to-be is decorating the nursery in Dr. Seuss, so we used that as our theme too!

Michael helped me cut out these to put on the cupcakes:

He wasn't thrilled, but he did a great job anyway.

Here are a couple of the finished cupcakes

I didn't eat one, but I heard they were delicious!

*Warning: Cotton candy "melts" if left out for longer than 15 minutes

I wasn't in charge of photos at the shower so I didn't take very many,

but here is what I have.

Please disregard the misspelling - Oops!

It was a wonderful shower, and the Mommy-to-be was just glowing!

She (and her husband) felt blessed beyond belief, 

and now we are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby Blake!

The Rains Came Down and the Floods Came Up

I'm learning that Texas weather is just as crazy as Oklahoma weather.

Last year, we had zero rain, dead grass, and water rations.

This year This week we have had MORE than enough rain.

It has literally rained (and by rain, I mean downpour) every single day for the past week.

Since we hadn't seen rain the entire time we lived here, 

we had no idea how the area would react to this amount of rain.

I mean, we've seen the houses on stilts at the back of our neighborhood,

but we never could have guessed that they really needed them.

Well, here is the bayou yesterday, after almost an entire day with no rain.

Yep, the waters are rising.

No worries though, our house is a good distance away from the bayou, 

and our street doesn't even have puddles.

We are safe.

I am just amazed at the water levels and wanted to share it.

This picture is of the park at the edge of our neighborhood. 

I didn't use a zoom, so this is the actual distance of the water from the parking lot.

Here is another view. 

That is a lot of water. 

Another street close to us has a huge park with a soccer/activity field.

It is now a lake.

I couldn't get close enough for a photo because the road was closed though.

Luckily, it was warm and sunny most of the afternoon today, 

so hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us. 

Keep us, and our neighbors in your prayers.

#FostersMission

I was so close to not going on the mission trip last week, 

but I am so glad that I asked off of internship and went with the group.

It was such an incredible week, and we all fell in love with the kids, the staff, and the home.

The title of this blog is the hash tag I added to all my tweets during the mission trip.

I will add a few of my tweets along with this blog post,

just because they give a little more detail about the trip.

They will all be in pink.

This children's home is the nicest I have seen,

with the best group of people running it! 

I don't know how those house parents do it, but I am so glad they do!

We arrived at the home on Sunday, just in time for dinner with all the homes.

How many stops will we make on this 4.5 hour drive? So far we are at 2. Still have 2 hours to go. ‪

After dinner we spent time playing games, or basketball with the kids, 

and then had some time to learn about the history of the home.

It is called the Fosters Home for Children,

but it is not a foster home for children.

Foster is the name of the family who started it. 

They have children ranging in age from 0 to 18 years old.

The average stay is 8 months, but some have been there for over 6 years.

If you are ever in the area of Stephenville, TX, you should stop by and give them some encouragement.

On Monday, we woke up and hit the streets to pick up trash.

The children's home has adopted a highway, and they have the 2 miles right outside the home's gates.

We look good in orange.

It was cloudy that morning, which was perfect, because it was hard enough without heat.

We split in to 4 teams to tackle the highway, and my team was awesome!

Look at all the trash.

 Picking up trash on the side of the road; pretty sure someone could get drunk off the stench coming from my trash bag 

 It was hard, but we made it fun - stickers, ant bites, cactus and all!

On Monday afternoon we held VBS for all the kids at the home.

This being the 3rd week of VBS our kids have done in a row, it was a little rough.

Our kids were able to stretch themselves and pour out their hearts to the kids all week though.

There was lots of basketball played,

as well as Little Sally Walker, playing on the playground and many other games in free time.

Pretty sure I just got motion sick on the swing set. It's a rough life. ‪

I spent a lot of time with this girl.

 I'm going to miss her when she leaves us!

Monday night we stayed in the activity center after dinner for a movie night.

We watched Mirror, Mirror, but mostly the girls just did each others' hair.

Later that night, after our devo, everyone was starving.

To Walmart and Whataburger we go!!

We had a little trouble with GoogleMaps which lead to:

Hungry tired teens, and not being able to find the Whataburger don't mix!

 It was a long day, and a long night that ended in disappointment. 

On Tuesday we spent most of the day with the kids while the house parents went to a funeral.

Some of worked on a float for the 4th of July parade.

Here is the finished product.

 It was a Wizard of Oz theme, and the kids were munchkins!

But that is Wednesday.

Tuesday night, I think we were all a little stir crazy.

We had spent the entire day in the activity center, and we were crazy-exhausted.

Here is a tweet from one of our youth girls:

@MJLikesSports needs to shuuuuutt upppp right now. & all the other boys. ‪#tooloud

 and here is my reply.

@AllisonLamberth @MJLikesSports And stop throwing combos! Like, now!

 Yes. We had a combo war.

It got out of hand fast.

Wednesday we started the day with the Stephenville parade.

After the parade, we picked up some of the kids from their home and went to the town festival:

Dairy Fest.

There were lawn mower races

A petting zoo

free ice cream,

and I got to spend the whole day with this sweet girl.

 After the festival we went back and had some pool time at the home.

I've been through 3 outfits today thanks to sweat, pizza, and swimming, and they've all been red, white, and blue

We ended the night in town with a fireworks show with all the kids.

Thursday we left in the morning, after a donut breakfast with the kids from the home.

I spent the last morning with a sweet girl that I grew close to over the week.

She showed me her room, and her collection of stuffed animals and horses.

And she gave me a bracelet so that I could remember her.

Her name is Carol, and she is so special to me,

but I can't post a photo because of privacy issues.

On the way home we stopped in Waco for a tour of the Dr. Pepper Museum.

It was the most wonderful, exhausting, uplifting week.

I'm so happy I was able to miss work:

1) Because I honestly don't know what Michael would have done without me.

That trip needed a Mom, bad.

and 2) I can't imagine not knowing those kids.

We are already on the Home's schedule to come back next summer, 

and I am counting down the days!

God is doing great things in Stephenville, and great things in the lives of our teens!

#1 Ice Cream in Texas

Today we took the youth group to tour the Blue Bell Factory in Brenham.

It was so much fun!

Michael and I had never been, and we really only went for the free ice cream,

but is was so much more than that free little scoop.

It was so cool to see them packaging the half gallons, 

and making the ice cream sandwiches, 

and the workers were so nice to let us come in and observe.

One of them even did a little dance for us.

There were so many yummy looking treats, 

my stomach was growling the entire time.

Michael and I might have broken the "no cameras" rule to take these pictures.

Oops.

We just love our tin roof and needed a picture with it!

If you are ever in the Brenham area (or Broken Arrow, OK or Sylacauga, AL)

you should definitely take an hour for the tour!

Not only do you get free ice cream, you also get the awesome hats.

What more could you want?

Also, buy Blue Bell ice cream!

Its currently #3 in the nation, but #1 in Texas

(which I've heard is all that really matters anyway, but that's Texas for you)

Our last stop of the day was at the cutest restaurant in Brenham,

Must Be Heaven.

I got the french dip, and it was so delicious!

 If this isn't Heaven, I don't know what is!

Ronald and the Roberts

I think I'm slowly becoming an adult.

Lately, once 10pm rolls around, I'm ready for bed.

Much like today.

I'm already so tired, but my Mom wants a blog post.

So I will give her a blog post.

This past weekend, Kyle and Sarah Roberts came to stay with us!

They had a wedding to go to in Austin on Friday, 

and then they spent Saturday, and part of Sunday with us.

We had so much fun!

We ate brunch at a really yummy place in Montrose called Brasils.

Then we went downtown for the Astros game.

 While we were walking to the stadium, we found Ronald McDonald!

 We both look extremely excited...

and we pretty much were.

Partly because of Ron, partly because of the free smoothies!

Next we went to the Astros game

We only stayed for 4 innings.

Which was long enough to see the pitcher get ejected, 

and to see a batter throw the bat all the way to first base.

It was crazy!

After the game we went to House of Pies.

Duh.

Last time Kyle and Sarah came we went twice.

But this time we managed to only go once, and we kept Kyle out of the ER.

Its a win win in my book!

Lastly, we went to Speedy's.

Home of the best arcade games in Houston.

 Michael and Kyle spent the entire time playing this game.

While Sarah and I won tickets!

*Side note: Michael and I played Deal or No Deal with our last 8 tokens.

He took the first deal of 100 tickets.

I didn't want him to.

He pushed the button anyway.

We had 1,000 in our case.

I was so angry!

We could've gotten the DVD of Annie with our tickets.

Instead, we got this.

So lame.

It was a quick trip for Kyle and Sarah, but we had so much fun with them!

Thanks so much for stopping by Houston to visit us!

PS - Mom, I promise to write about Foster's Mission soon.