Cooper Martin Emon

Amber, Paul's daughter, had her baby!! She had a baby boy on Sunday, January 11th at 11:53am. He weighed 7 pounds 6 oz. They named him Cooper Martin Emon. Amber went into the hospital at around 3:30 in the morning. She called her dad around 6am stating she was in the hospital, her water had broken and she was around 4-5 cm. We headed to the hospital at around 9:30am. When we got there she was at 6-7 cm and had been that way for a long time. The pain was getting intense as her epideral was not working at the lower part of her pelvis. At around 11:30am they kicked everyone out of the room. Shortly thereafter she gave birth. We didn't get a chance to see him until around 2pm. He is absolutely gorgeous.

We Love Because He first Loved Us

I was reading my daily devotional this morning and God spoke right to my heart. I love it when that happens. Ever since the holidays I've been in a funk ... very irritable, easily frustrated, focusing on those things that really bug me. Satan was having a blast with me. Contempt, anger, and unforgiveness had settled in. Ugly, ugly.

When I read I John 4:19, We love because he first loved us, I was struck. Even with all my "junk" God still loves me. Dear Lord, Thank You for loving me and all my junk. Please help me to love others in the same way, extending grace and compassion like You do and seeing past their quirks. Help me to appreciate the people You have put in my life. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Me & Mom Making Christmas Cookies

Mom and I worked ALL weekend making Christmas cookies. We had great visions of these wonderfully tasting and looking cookies -- like those seen on the front of Southern Living. We went online to Food Network and printed up some great recipes and watch some "how-to" videos. We had our list of cookies we were going to make. Then off to the store we go to get all our goodies. By this time we were exhausted and we hadn't even made 1 cookie. So we called it quits for Day 1.

The next day we looked over our list of cookies and decided we need to make some other kinds. Unfortunately, we didn't have all the ingredients ... so off to the store again. Finally by mid-day of Day 2 we started making cookies. Our first batch of cookies were to be these beautiful stain glass sugar cookies. Well .... our 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th attempts ... still didn't look like the beautiful stain glass sugar cookies that we witnessed on the video that clearly stated how EASY these cookies were to make. They all got trashed.

We attempted another "great new recipe" ... I can't even remember what they were, but needless to say they didn't work out either. By this time we were frustrated and didn't have anything to show for our 4-5 hours of hard labor in the kitchen.

We punted the ball and went back to good all faithfuls -- peanut butter with chocolate kisses, chocolate chip, and sugar cookies. Finally we made some progress and had cookies to give away ... by 10pm that night.

It was a great time we spent together. Kaimon and Hannah our neighbor helped us make cookies. It was a lot of fun.

Dad's 70th Surprise Party

Paul & I and Paul's sister Judy & her husband Troy coordinated a surprise 70th birthday party for Paul's dad. It went off so nice. Dad was totally surprised. We held it at the club house in the development Mom & Dad live. Approximately 70 people showed up. It was a great success. We had it catered by El Pollo Loco. The food was great. Mom created a CD slide show with photos of Dad and family members throughout the years. The family hasn't gotten together as a whole in many years. Thanks to everyone for coming and celebrating Bud's birthday.

Happy Halloween 2008!!!

A family of Knights! We went to a Halloween Party this year -- all dressed up. It was so much fun. I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years. Our next door neighbor had a Halloween Party. Everyone came dressed up, they had food catered in, and a DJ. It was amazing to see everyone's costumes. Our neighbors house was totally decked out. It took them at least 3 weeks to get everything decorated.

This was in our neighbors backyard. They also had a haunted house, which Kaimon was a part of. He loved scaring people as they walked through. He actually had more fun "working" the haunted house then collecting candy.

Kaimon is the alien and Hannah (our neighbor) is the cool goth chick.

Kaimon & Justin carving pumpkins. We went to a big pumpkin patch and got the biggest pumpkins we could carry. They had rides for Kaimon to play on.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. We live in a cul-da-sac, so we setup tables and chair in the middle of the cul-da-sac, brought food & drinks and passed out candy. The kids recruited kids for the haunted house. We were the envy of the neighborhood.

Fire!!!

We got woke up at 3am by a phone call from our neighbor telling us of a fire up from our neighborhood. We had our windows up at the time as it was a warm night. Once we woke up we realized how bad the smoke was. We immediately shut all our windows. It started up on the hills just north of us and quickly came down the wash that is just behind our house. The above pictures are taken from our master bedroom window. Kaimon's school was closed for the day. The smoke and soot hung around for a couple of days. Thank goodness no houses were caught in the fire. They say it was started by some fire crackers.

Honeymoon - Grand Cayman

Paul & I went to Grand Cayman for our honeymoon. We had a great time. Paul got is SCUBA Diving certification while we were there. While Paul was doing his pool work and open water dives, I did my re-fresher course. We both did very well. I thought for sure I would panic, but I didn't -- yeah! It was a great week of relaxation. We hit all the great spots!

While we were in Grand Cayman, Kaimon was with my parents taking a road trip across country -- from Los Angeles to Charlotte, NC. Along the way they stopped by Texas to see Uncle Barry and his family. Kaimon had an awesome time. They experienced a major rain & lightening storm in AZ, went to petrified forest, did some fishing & camping .... etc.

On our way back home, we stopped by Charlotte to pick Kaimon up. What was supposed to be an easy 2 hour flight turned into a major ordeal. We flew from Grand Cayman to Miami, where we were supposed to get a flight to Charlotte. Well that flight was canceled due to mechanical problems. So we had to get a flight from Miami to St. Louis, then St. Louis to Charlotte. Our 2 hour flight turned into a 12 hour flight. We could've almost drove to Charlotte faster.

The ocean is a turquoise blue!! xxxxxxxxxxxx This is a Blue Iguana, which are only in Cayman.

Isn't he handsome!!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Doing my favorite thing - reading a book!!

This is the beach where our Condo is.