JOY!

Saturday night, the boys were spending the night with friends, so Bryon and I had special time with our girl. We decided to go all out and head to HEB for an evening outing. As we made our way through the check out line, the checker asked Mary Beth if she would like a Buddy Buck. A Buddy Buck used to be what the kids lived for at HEB! Basically, it is a paper that you feed through a machine that spouts out an egg with a sticker in it. Eventually, kids learn that the whole process is a total crock, and never again ask for a Buddy Buck. Well, Mary Beth decided to go to the machine, and wouldn't you know? She was an "Instant Winner"! So, not only did she get to keep a plastic egg, she got to turn in a little paper at the front and get a LARGE PLASTIC HEB PLACE MAT!!!

"Mommy! Daddy! I'm an INSTANT WINNER!! This the the LUCKIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"

Bryon and I laughed, but then I wanted to freeze time. Her response..such unadulterated joy, was so sweet. How much longer with Mary Beth squeal with delight and such an insignificant gift? Not long enough. It is a reminder to me of how Jesus wanted the children to come to him. A wonderful lesson on a beautiful Saturday night.

Gus vs. Opposum vs. Me

Gus doesn't get enough blog time. Let me first say, that he's the coolest dog ever. We love our Gussy Boo Boo! He is fun and energetic outside, and a lap dog inside. I love his coloring...his marbled eyes and earth tones. Even his toe nails are different colors! Gus is very protective of us, and always alert. This leads me to my great story. But first, a little background...

This summer, a rehab facility that I contract with asked me to either work the week before or after Christmas. I love this facility and am always happy to work there. Knowing how hectic our lives are before Christmas, I let them know that I could work the week after Christmas starting on Tuesday. We were heading to Bryon's parents on Christmas night to celebrate with them, so I needed to have that Monday off. Well, the Baylor bowl game on Thursday night messed up our entire week. Bryon asked me to go ahead and work Monday and work through Thursday instead, so we could all head to San Antonio. I hated missing Christmas with Bryon's family, but it was just how the cards fell this year.

I must say that while I was sad to say goodbye to the family after dinner on Christmas, I thought that having a quiet house for a day or two wouldn't be the end of the world. As most moms can attest, the Christmas season isn't usually synonymous with restful, so I was going to make the most of the time. As they were leaving, Bryon put his arms around me, looked into my glassy eyes, smiled, and said, "Get lots and lots of rest. Use the time that we are gone to catch up on sleep." And with that, they were gone!

Well, I got in bed around 9pm, right after putting Gus in his crate. We have crated our dog ever since he was a puppy. He is 1 1/2 years old and has never spent the night outside. This may seem unusual for an Australian Shepherd, but I have a huge sensitivity to dogs barking outside, and would never want to wake my neighbors up. In fact, we have boarded Gus each time we have left town, even for a day, for fear that he would bark at night.

So now to my great story...around 2:30 in the morning, Gus started whimpering. This is very usual, but I thought maybe I didn't let him out one more time to use the bathroom before I went to bed. I quickly let him out and jumped back into bed, knowing that Gus would hit our door handle when he was ready to come in.

Instead, no sooner had I got back in bed, when Gus started barking like he was injured. I mean, loud, frequent, under stress kind of barking that made the hair stand up on my neck. I raced outside (in a T shirt/ approx. 30 degrees outside) to see that Gus had cornered something growling underneath my rose bush hedge. Well, I'm panicking at this point thinking of all my tired neighbors and wondering what Gus had cornered. This beauty is what I saw...

(Not this exact one. Didn't have the presence of mind to take my camera out at the moment!)

Yes, a hissing, growling opposum with his big teeth showing less than a foot from Gus. I'm screaming at Gus to come to me, but he had a bead on this varmint and was not even aware of my presence. I threw a ball at Gus trying to distract him. Nothing doing. This went on for at least 10 minutes. Finally, sure that my neighbors were about to call the cops and in a desperate state, I crawled under the rose bush, praying that this thing wasn't rabid, and hoping that he was so distracted by Gus to even care about me, and grabbed my dog. My hand wasn't more than a foot from those teeth. I grabbed him so hard that he squealed, and I ran back into the house with my freaking out dog close to my chest.

I put Gus back into his crate and laid in bed. I'm sure in the history of my life, my heart had never beaten as fast as it was at that moment. It was something I got to ponder for the next 5 hours as I lay wide awake in bed.

The next morning, as I groggily got ready for work, the phone rang. Bryon called, and sweetly asked me, "So, honey, did you get a good night sleep?"

More from Christmas

More Christmas pictures! I have never been so bad about taking pictures at Christmas, so I am relying on pics from the family. Here are a few more:

It's never a family get together without a friendly game of front yard football:

Michael got this shirt for Matthew. They were being printed before the actual Heisman ceremony. Apparently after the show, the Heisman organization got wind that a company in town was printing these shirts and wrote a cease and desist letter. No more could be printed or sold. This, of course, made these shirts extra cool. People were offering Matthew quite a bit of money for the shirt at the bowl game!










Mom was hard at work making our traditional beef tenderloin Christmas dinner. Yummy!

New Year's Eve

To celebrate New Year's Eve, Bryon and I went out to one of our favorite restaurants with our dear friends! I spend lots of time with these girls at Supper Club, Bunco, Book Club, and other activities. We all enjoy good food, whether it be making it ourselves, or going out to great restaurants. After dinner, we went to one of their houses, and played games by an outdoor fire. What a great way to send 2011 to the history books!

Alamo Bowl BU vs. Washington Dec. 29, 2011

The Thursday after Christmas, a large contingent of our family headed to San Antonio to watch our Baylor Bears play in the Alamo Bowl. There was lots of buzz about this game...watching our Heisman winner in perhaps his last game as a BU Bear, and the possibility of a 10 win season, which had only happened one other time!

I was going to go to the game with all my favorite boys...my sons, husband, brother, brother in law, and Dad, while my saintly mom stayed in the hotel with Mary Beth. Staying with Nana has become her favorite thing to do when any football game is on, and since we don't have to pay for her ticket, it's a win/win!

We enjoyed hanging out at the Riverwalk on a gorgeous evening. It was so much fun to see so many BU fans everywhere. It reminded me of the last time BU went to the Alamo Bowl, when I was a sophomore at Baylor!






We started the game in end zone seats. Not our typical seats, but we got to see SO many touchdowns. More on that later. The players ran across the field and prayed right by our seats.
We were happy to get to see RG3 in action for the first time since winning the Heisman. During the first quarter, we got to see three BU touchdowns (including an amazing one by Griffin himself) right in front of our seats!
As the third quarter began, our friends, who were sitting on the 30 yard line on Row 1, had to leave with a sick child. We jumped at the opportunity to upgrade our seats! Bryon and Thomas got a ticket upgrade and were sitting on the opposite end of the field.
There are a few drawbacks to sitting on the first row, but it was great getting to see so many touchdowns right in front of our faces! Plus, the players were within a stones throw of us. It was impossible not to feed off the energy of the players. Trust me, my vocal folds could vouch for that the next day!

In a game that broke so many records....most touchdowns (17) ever scored in a game, most yards rushing (over 1,000), highest score in bowl history, and coming within 2 points of all time highest combined score, it looked like we were going to blow the game. At one point, when we were down 18 points, our whole crew was so disappointed. Somehow, miraculously, we came back and won in the end! It wasn't pretty. Without a doubt the WORST defense I have ever seen on both teams, but you couldn't argue with the excitement!





Matthew spent most of the game sitting with a friend. He even got on ESPN! I knew it was only a matter of time before that kid got on ESPN! ;)
A sea of green and gold.
Matthew was given an RG3 head by BU cheerleaders. He was pretty happy about that!
And more than likely RG3's last snap as a Bear. Thank you Robert Griffin for an exciting 3 years!
The Baylor basketball team played Mississippi State the night before. The score wasn't this high! As a side note, both of our basketball teams are still undefeated, which leads me to an incredible statistic. Since November 1, our football team, and men's and women's basketball teams are at a combined 31-0 record! As one announcer said, the sun is shining on Waco, TX right now, and I agree! In my 20 years of fandome, it has never been as exciting as this moment to be a Baylor Bear! Sic 'em Bears!

4 physically and emotionally drained fans! We didn't get to bed until well after 1:30 am. Still, what a memory for my family!


Walking through the tunnel back to our hotel, swarms of BU fans were doing the Sic 'Em Bears cheer. Matthew was right there with them. Also, I forgot to mention that Thomas met Joe Montana at the game! His son is a back up quarterback for Washington, and was in the snack line right in front of Thomas. Thomas shook his hand and introduced himself. Joe was very kind to Thomas. So cool!