Deck the halls

Fa la la la la... la la la la.

We usually decorate our house for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Last year we moved into our new house right after Thanksgiving, and the only decor we put up was the Christmas tree. (We didn't even know where half of the things were packed!) This year I am putting up all of our stuff. So here is our family room ready for the holidays, complete with two dogs and one half of a dog. They always manage to sneak into every photo.

Next up, the outside decorations. I'm waiting for a relatively warm and windless day. That could be a while here in windy Nebraska.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all... we have so much in our family to be truly thankful for! We hope that all of our friends and family have a beautiful day appreciating all the many blessings God has given them as well.

Changes are hard

Nothing much is going on today. I had an emotional week. I turned in my resignation at the gym. My last day will be December 15. Most of the staff knew I was planning to leave due to the upcoming adoption, and also to free up some time to get Anna to and from her after school activities. It was just a matter of making a decision as to "when". I thought after the state meet would be a good time... but I am so sad! And I made little girls cry! I know it will be for the best in the long run, but changes are always hard for me. It is a great job and a wonderful part of my life. I will miss all of my little girls so much. So sad... :(

Miscellaneous News

In other, less exciting news, we got second place at our meet this weekend. Sigh. I had dreams of grandeur there for a while, imagining a glorious undefeated season to cap off this portion of my illustrious coaching career. Unfortunately, the balance beam had other plans for us. Still, I'm proud of my girls as always. And as I was reminded by Isabel, all of the girls got a trophy, and trophies are really fun.

Emily got the one extra point she needed on her ACT to boost her scholarship money up to $7,000 per year when she starts at Iowa State next year. Way to go Emily!

Anna and I had mother-daughter migraines today, but we are both feeling better now.

No major updates for Kenneth. Tom is in California.

No animals are sick. No cars are in need of repair. All is peaceful at the Spears household.

DTE!!!

That means "Dossier to Ethiopia" and what that means is that we are now officially waiting for a referral for our new little daughter. This is "official" waiting, as opposed to the unofficial waiting we were doing before. :)

Oh, happy day! Praying for a relatively short wait...

We're 2 and 0!

My gymnastics team, Premier Gymnastics Level 4, had their second meet of the season today. We got first place again with a fabulous score of 113.05, ahead of the second place team by .065. All of the girls were great today, but I would like to recognize and congratulate my top scoring girls in each event: Vault, Sarah L. 9.75 (highest individual score of the meet!); Bars, Brooke S. 9.3; Beam, Alexis H. and Brooke S. 9.5; and Floor, Madeline W. 9.55.

I'm very proud of the entire team and I'm looking forward to our next meet!

Lady bug, lady bug fly away home

My house is inundated with these little lady bugs. More accurately, I believe they are called Asian beetles. They were purportedly imported into the United States some years ago to control pests in soy bean fields. The local wisdom is that the soy bean harvest drives them out of the bean fields and into the houses of poor unsuspecting homeowners. Now they are pests in Midwestern houses. We have hundreds of them in our house. Every day I clean up their little bug carcasses, and the next day there are a zillion more. This photo is of one of the little beauties posing in a bowl of gourds on my kitchen counter. Sure, they're pretty, but they also bite! May they all die soon. RIP.

It's in DC!

Our dossier was sent to the courier in Washington, DC yesterday for authentication at the State Department. We are getting closer...

Just because they're cute

I'm putting these pictures of my pets up because they were victims of the accidental deletion. They're so darn cute and lovable that they deserve a spot on my blog. My doggies are Bridget, Bobby and Bruno. They are shown here cuddling in their dog cabinet, which is a crate I had built into our kitchen cabinets.

In the second picture, Bridget is lazing around with our two cats, Lucy (the black one) and Harry.

Here we are again!

Okay, so like an idiot, I somehow managed to delete an entire category of posts from my blog... all of the ones marked "family". Sorry family. :( So I'm going to repost some of the stuff.

We are the Spears family...Tom, Paula and our three teenage children Kenneth, Emily and Anna. We live in a rural area of Nebraska, near Omaha. We just moved here about 10 months ago after living in the suburbs of west Omaha for 10 years. We love our new house on the lake and all it's wildlife, but it is quite inconvenient in many ways and has been a big adjustment.

Some of the family interests are church, pets, marathon running, taekwondo, gymnastics, diving, reading, video games, cheerleading, shopping, jet-skiing and fishing. We don't all enjoy each of these activities equally. :)

I am a part-time gymnastics coach and a full-time mom. I'm thinking I should add some additional computer training into my list of interests so that I don't delete anything else.

Sigh. What an idiot.

Ack! I deleted a bunch of posts!

I just accidentally deleted about half of my posts. Major tears! If anyone knows how to get them back, please tell me.

A bad day for Emily

My poor baby. As you may know, we are a gymnastics family. I am a coach, and both of my daughters are or have been gymnasts. (Tom and Kenneth get quite tired of gymnastics conversations.) Anna quit in February after sustaining several broken bones in her hand/arm: she's dislocated an elbow (required a cast), broken a finger and hand bone (required a cast), broken her thumb (required a cast) and the final straw was a stress fracture in her wrist just one week after getting a cast removed. So she moved on to high school cheerleading and diving and is very happy.

Emily, however, is sticking it out for one last year of competition before going to college next fall. Today was a "show day" at Premier; a deadline day for the optional gymnasts to demonstrate certain skills for the upcoming meet season. Alas, while warming up her front tumbling pass, Emily managed to roll both ankles. After a couple of hours in the ER, the verdict is a nasty sprain of her right ankle; at least there is nothing broken and no cast required. But my girl is on crutches for the week and who knows how long it will take to get the ankle back to full strength? She now has two bad ankles... Her first meet is New Year's weekend and includes a much anticipated New Year's Eve trip to Times Square in NYC. So please say a quick prayer that Emily will heal well and quickly. She's worked so hard for almost six years!

Way to go, Premier Gymnastics Level 4's!

This is just a shout out to my great level 4 team at Premier Gymnastics... you girls rock the gym! We had our first meet of the 2008 season today and got first place with a team score of 110.0! That's a great way to start off our season. Congratulations Jessica, Madeline, Isabel, Alexis, Brooke, Sarah, Jaime, Emma, Kassidy, Sammi, Regan, Lauren, Emily, Caroline and Rylee!

I am so proud of all of you!

The I 171 H is here!

Have you ever seen the movie "The Jerk"? I love that part where Steve Martin runs from the mailbox screaming "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! I'm SOMEBODY!"

That's sort of how I felt today... the I-171 H is here! The I-171 H is here! We're on our way to becoming parents again!

For those of you not in the loop on adoption documentation, this is THE golden ticket. We are now approved by the U.S. government to bring a foreign born orphan into the United States as our adopted child. This is the last piece of paper we needed to complete our dossier to send to Ethiopia.

We are all on cloud nine here at the Spears household. It's so nice to have something happen! Now on to more waiting...

And by the way, we recently did get the new Ashland, Nebraska phone book with our new listing... I'm SOMEBODY!

Tagged

Seven random/weird facts about me:

1. I have a 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo.


2. All animals love me.


3. My feet are so ticklish, I can't even stand to touch them myself.


4. I can cross one eye... either one.


5. I once got two traffic tickets in one day.


6. It took me a whole year to switch from regular Coke to Diet.


7. I like to annoy my family by talking like a pirate.

I was tagged by Steffany, her blog is at http://toliveloveandlaughtoday.blogspot.com/.

I really don't have seven bloggers to tag, but here is one and if I come up with more, I'll post about it.

Kristen http://christianchick-kristen.blogspot.com/ (because I've known you FOREVER)