Brian's birthday

Gigi's bday

Landon's 5th birthday

We celebrated Landon's birthday this year by going fishing with our friends and LOTS of their friends. I have no good excuse for not getting pics of the birthday boy except that we were trying to keep kids out of the water, out of paint, keep an eye on all three of them, feed them lunch and birthday cake, etc. There was a playground nearby, so we were divided half of the time, too. And there were so many people there, and so bright, that most of my pics turned out not-so-great. But we were excited with Landon that he caught several fish! We were also excited that Carmen & Gabriel did not hook anyone in the eye (though this was some kind of miracle the way they were swinging the poles around).




Gabe really enjoyed the cake AND the frosting that made it into his mouth.



The kids' favorite part was the pet goldfish we got to bring home. Unfortunately for the goldfish, David didn't remember or know that chlorinated water is lethal to them. So when he got out our old fish tank from when we bought a Beta for toddler Carmen and put the goldfish in it, he put in new water.
The kids did not believe the fish was dead for a while. After all, they've seen Finding Nemo several times, and remembered the seen where Nemo played dead to escape from the dentist's office.

One more way to say it

When Paloma awakes in the morning, she often calls from her crib. She's never tried to climb out of it. Someone is usually happy to scoop her up.

Sometimes one of us will go in to find her having a conversation with one of her many dolls.

But usually, as soon as she is up, she can't wait to go to wake up the kids.

And yes, I'm an English teacher, and yes, I know that's not the proper English.

But I still enjoyed a new way Paloma found to say this one morning:

"Carmen's not wake-upping!"

Gabe's kindergarten Thanksgiving

My friend Amy covered my class so that I was able to get away long enough to go to Gabriel's class's Thanksgiving feast. (BTW, Amy told me then how our daughters had been teased at school on the Trinity/ Bell game day because their moms are losers because we work at Bell! Carmen had not shared this information, but Tori had.)

I was so glad I went because almost all of the kids had a parent there. And because Gabe looked adorable and I would have missed this:






I recognized many familiar faces including our neighbors and the daughter of another English teacher in the district (with whom I graduated high school) so I was able to send her a picture of her daughter Taylor.

I also met some other moms for the first time including one who invited Gabriel to come over to play. I think it'd be great for him to get to play with another boy now and then.
So anyway I am THANKFUL, among other things:
that this year, unlike 2 years ago when Carmen was in Kindergarten but I was too busy with yearbook, I am able to go to things for Gabriel,
that I have friends to cover for me so that I can do things like this at the last minute,
that Gabe has a great teacher and good friends in his class,
and that he is doing well in school.

What's in a name?

Well the naming fun has begun. No negotiations yet, just saying things aloud from
The Baby Name Wizard and talking about the associations, connotations, and sounds of different girl names.

As I mentioned before, Carmen & Gabriel have asked if they can help name the baby. We said yes, and once we told them it was a girl, they started making suggestions as well. I heard Carmen say, "I'm going to write down all of the baby names in the world." I didn't have the heart to respond to that!

This reminds me, when I was pregnant with Carmen, my friend Sandra's son Chaz wanted me to name her Trixie, you know, for Speed Racer. And I have to admit, at least Trixie is not too common.

The other day, David pondered aloud about Esperanza. It's a family name, and I've always liked it, but I also remember what Sandra Cisneros wrote about it in "My Name": "At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth."

Carmen said, "What does it mean?"

"Hope," he replied.

"Let's just call her Hope, then," she says, decidedly.

This is an early list she wrote (taking suggestions from Gabe as well):


and here is the one that came next:


Yes, the name Shenzi is on the list. Because we love the Lion King around here.

I asked her about this one. "I see you put Shenzi here, but not Nala. Why is that?"

I wish I remembered her answer! I don't think we will consider any of the hyena names this time around: Shenzi, Benzi, or Ed.

1st annual Hospy awards

David & I had a date Saturday night to an awards dinner at the Anatole.

I had only been there once since prom my junior year and that was when I was working for Channel 5 and went on press credentials to hear Deborah Tannen at the International Association of Business Communicators (probably 1996?).

Anyway we dropped off the kids at Mom & Dad's where they were watching the Tech/ UT game. (David filled me in on this Saturday morning as they were getting dressed, so they all wore their Tech gear.) Carmen later remarked about how long we were gone: "We watched a whole movie AND drew pictures for an hour AND (I can't remember what else she said) for an hour!"



Turns out that the people/businesses who won awards all seemed to sponsor the event, and the "hospies" (hospitality industry awards) mostly went to the (surprise, surprise) highest-dollar, high-brow hotels. We sat with two women David works with (Megan and Patricia are in the marketing dept. Mom, you might remember Megan--she went to SG but didn't have you in class.)

It was also a silent auction where people bid on hotel stays and after the awards were presented, there was a live auction for 10 different packages including trips to L.A., Colorado, Barbados & Egypt. There seemed to be two themes for the night: pineapples, symbolizing hospitality, and exotic locations. They had models in Oscar suits holding pineapples--most people didn't seem to realize they were real people, not statues, but I first noticed they were different heights.

They also projected a huge pineapple on the wall, served non-alcholic pina coladas, and pineapple-shaped things like a small chocolate on our dessert plates. There was a big Buddha statue and two girls in togas up on a high sushi bar.

I had filled up on the hors d'oeuvres in the reception area (shrimp cocktail, shrimp sushi, the pineapple drinks, and some mushroom-mixture-in-a-pastry-shell), so I barely touched the lobster bisque in a bread bowl, the prime rib, potatoes, asparagus, or roll once we were ordered to proceed into the banquet room.

A band played while we were served and I collected $100 coupons for limo service from everyone at the table. (Thought those might be good drawing prizes for the seniors I'll have in a couple of weeks!)

After the dinner, it took forever for dessert to be served and we considered leaving far before that, but I was afraid we'd miss something fancy like a souffle--which I had thought I'd seen when we first spied the bisque in the bread-bowls.
Dessert turned out to be something like an upside-down chocolate cupcake drenced in chocolate syrup and caramel. My plate was actually missing the ice cream scoop as if the waiter knew I couldn't have it (but she didn't).

Anyway it was a nice night out together--we hadn't done that in a long time, and it was a lovely night.

Trinity v. Bell game

The annual game was Thursday night this year and we took the kids.




Before the game, the Trinity team took the field to do their famous "Haka", which even made it to a Gatorade commercial 2 years ago. If you want to see more, go to YouTube and search Trinity and Haka, you'll get a LOT of hits. Anyway our guys wouldn't look their way and yelled the whole time, which allowed me to get these shots.




We were sitting on the front row on the home side (Bell this year), so the trainer girls gave me a hard time about singing my alma mater (Trinity's). I tried to explain later: I root for them, I wear blue and dress my kids in it too, but I don't fake the alma mater.

I only went in to the student section to take a couple of pictures of my current students because it was crazy crowded.
And I had to take this one when I saw one of my kids working on her war paint:
And then I ran into several other students, former & current:


When I saw this girl walking along the sideline on the way to perform her pre-game routine, I yelled her name and she looked up to see who called, taking her eyes off the girls (from the other school) in front of her and running right into them!

Anyway Bell got whooped, 44-0. It started out like it was going to be a good game, but it was demoralizing watching the kids I love so humiliated. Bell's in the playoffs this year, but still got stomped by Trinity. As my resident sports expert lamented, it's too bad Trinity's the rival, because they've got to be one of the best high school teams in the country. (They won state 2 years ago and continue to dominate, though they were beat by Odessa Permian earlier this year.)

At least our band wowed the crowd (as always)!
We left after halftime and watched the rest on t.v.