Here's a sampling of our Gulf Coast trip.

Wow! Looks like it's definitely time to resurrect my blog! I didn't realize so much time has passed. I have been on here since December trying to upload some stuff with no success. So much has happened in the past 8 months.

The most disheartening is that my beloved Furby passed away. I'm not going to go into details because it is just too heartbreaking, but the short version is that he was hit by a car after being missing for 10 days, he had tried to find his way back home. We were lucky that a friend saw him right after it happened so at least we could retrieve his body and not have to suffer the unknown any longer.

I got a temporary job in March that was 40+ hours a week and boy - talk about a fast paced whirlwind.

Another thing: I turned 40 in March! That is just so incomprehensible to me - I certainly don't feel anywhere near what 40 sounds like.

I have a 15 year old now who is about to get his permit. The only reason he didn't earlier is that we can't do the parent driving course until we've had a TX DL for 2 years. Chad's 2 years is almost here - It's about half the cost it would be to send him to a driving school - and it is required to do one or the other.

The temporary job turned into a longer term than I thought and I finally had to quit in July in order to be able to take our 2 week vacation. We call it our Gulf Coast vacation, most of our time was spent in Louisiana. We loved it.

The kids started school this week - Derek is a sophomore and Micki is in 7th grade.