Grandma, Greatgrandma and Greatgrandpa left this morning to go back to Ohio. They arrived on the Friday I left for San Antonio, so they got to visit for a little over a week. It was wonderful having company. It is always great having family around. We truly appreciate them making the trip out! Jim's grandparents are in their 80s and they just spent over 14 hours each way in a car just to come visit us!! Amazing!

My kids as usual had a blast with grandma. Shane and Debbie have always been very close and are the best of friends. There isn't anything that Shane can't get grandma to do with him! His new biggest thing to do with grandma, is teach her how to play video games!! Kayla was a little more shy around our visitors, but she would always keep an eye on her grandma. If grandma left had to run upstairs for something, Kayla would look at me and say, "where gama go?", and I would tell her she went upstairs, and Kayla would run up there after her to see what she was doing. Grandma also had a makeup bag, so that was a HUGE plus! Kayla is very into looking "pre pre", so she would bug grandma for makeup!



Kayla's bithday is not till the 6th, but we celebrated her 2nd birthday yesterday since we had the family in town. She didn't quite understand what was going on at first, but quickly caught wind that there was cake and ice cream and then presents! I baked some chocolate cupcakes and she just loved them. It was perfect.

We ate fried chicken for dinner and the kids LOVED it!



Here are some pictures of her eating her cupcake and opening her gifts!



Shane got to open a few gifts also! He was very excited about that!!! He got 2 new Ben 10 toys and Jim also got him his own real tool box! Jim also found this little Home Depot bird house that he thought would be a fun project for the to do together.



On a sad note, my flowers by the mailbox are ALL GONE! Within a day, some little bugs ate all my beautiful bright pink petunias. We started to panic because we didn't want these little bugs eating our beautiful impatients in the front of the house. Jim did some research online and found out by the pictures, that they are some sort of tabacoo hornworms, and that they only really eat a few kinds of flowers, one of them being petunias, but thankfully, not impatients.

What a WONDERFUL weekend! Nicole, Rachel and I flew out at 8:55am on Friday morning and headed to San Antonio, TX for the "Living Proof Live" with Beth Moore. I was up at 4:00am and at Nicole's at 5:30am, ready to go!
We arrived in San Antonio and were eager to get to our hotel to rest for a bit and ready to get some yummy Mexican food in our bellies before our first big night with Beth! We were within walking distance from a Mexican restaurant which was right across the street from the hotel, and just another quick walk to the Alamodome, which made the few trips that we needed to make to it through out the day a breeze.



What also made things easier for us, is that we had a reserved "Siestas" area, so we didn't need to "fight" for seating since they were first come, first serve. Watching and praising with the Worship team was incredible.. they were amazing! And Beth, she is just adorable! It is amazing how that little woman can deliver such a powerful message and make it so easy for women to relate to. The lesson you ask?? INHERITANCE! We are ALL heirs and heiresses of God!



On Saturday morning, we went back to the Alamodome for some more time with Beth Moore. Since we are Siestas, we got to spend an extra 1 1/2 with her and got to take group pictures with her and got to have a question and answer time.



In the early evening, we went to visit the Alamo, and then Nicole and I went to the Riverwalk, while Rachel went to the Sietas PJ party. We were pretty tired of walking around, so at the Riverwalk mall, we found a spa place that gave this wonderful foot acupressure massage. Nicole and I were ALL over that!! We then grabbed some pizza and took it back to out hotel room and called it an evening.



On Sunday we attended Oak Hills Church, where Max Lucado delivered the service's message. It was another great day! Our plane didn't leave San Antonio until 6:55pm, so we had plenty of time to walk around and shop at the Market Place before having to take the rental car back and heading to the airport.. it was a good thing we had plenty of time, because it started absolutely pouring down rain!



I didn't make it home till around 11:20pm, and Kayla and Jim were up waiting for me. Jim opened the garage door and when she saw me, she started running in place she was so excited. Shane didn't get to see me till the next morning, since he needed to get up and go to school the next morning. I missed them so much! It was great to have the time to myself, but I enjoy having my family around so much more.

I will add more pics soon. Rachel took some really good pics of the three of us with her long arms!!

1st Day of Kindergarten!!

So today was Shane's first day of Kindergarten. I got to go with him today and we were there from 9:15am till 10:30am. It was a nice, short introductory day. The parents had lots of forms to sign and the kids got to get acclimated with the classroom and their classmates. His teacher's name is Mrs. Davies, and she is very sweet. She went through everything on the handbook thoroughly and while the parents filed out the forms, read a nice story to the kids about going to Kindergarten. I took a lot of pictures of Shane today. I am feeling so many different emotions today.. happy, sad, proud, scared, and one that sort of took my by surprise.. OLDER! I turned 30 this year, but it really didn't hit me until I realized that my kids are growing up and getting older and in turn, I am getting older too! I do have to say though, that life has been getting better as I get older.. hopefully it will continue on that path!!

I took many pictures today.. you can tell by Shane's face on some of them that he thinks I took a few too many!!

Jamie and I thought it would be fun to do something with the kids today.. so we took them to the mall. The weather looked a little sad this morning, so the mall just sounded fun! Amazing how happy and content they can be in there! I took some videos of the kids enjoying themselves!

Here is Kayla at the pet store. She loves all different kinds of animals, I think she might become a veterinarian when she gets older! She was VERY interested in the birds at the pet store! She did wonderful with it, she just didn't really like it when he put the bird on her leg!


Kayla at the pet store from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

Here are the kids playing in the play area. Kayla quickly made a little friend and they followed each other everywhere and Shane and Ryan were off being boys!


Kids playing at the mall from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

After we had some yummy lunch, we took the kids back to the play area. This really nice lady asked us if we had children playing because it was her daughter's birthday and she had received a coupon for a free carousel ride and free balloons for up to 10kids! It was a great way to end our stay at the play area! We picked up some white cherry ICEEs on the way out and made one more quick stop at the pet store!


Kids on the Carousel from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

A good friend of mine forwarded me this youtube video. It is a little long, but take the time to watch the whole thing.. the message is amazing. It is wonderfully reassuring to have reminders of how each of us individually have GOD's stamp on us!!



GOD BLESS!

My daughter has become my closest and bestest little friend. She is constantly with me, where Shane is at this stage where he would much rather spend time doing whatever daddy is doing. I'm ok with that! Shane enjoys the sports and the video games, just like Jim and Kayla enjoys the pretend cooking and the taking care of babies just like me! Shane, as many of you have know and have read, also has his best bud Ryan.. well, these 2 are inseparable. They will spend every minute they can together! So, Shane is either gone over at Ryan's a lot, or they are both here playing together.. well, that leaves my little Kayla feeling left out. She just doesn't understand why the BIG kids don't want her to play with them. Sooooo this afternoon, when Shane went over to Ryan's to play, Kayla started crying. I kept thinking what I could do to take her mind off of it.. I picked her up and stepped outside and looked at my dropping flowers and asked her if she wanted to water them with me. She quickly quit crying, and ran over to the hose. I took a super cute video of her watering the flowers by herself. She had an incredible time.. I think she got wetter than the flowers!!



And here is a video of the boys playing one of Shane's favorite games - "Ben 10".



He enjoys that cartoon so much that for Halloween, he wants to be "Diamondhead" (who is a character on the cartoon).. I am starting to look now because I am not sure if its something I can find, or something I am going to have to make! I am posting a picture of him for all my loyal readers.. along with a plea; please keep your eye out!!!
I guess if I can't find it, he can go as "Heatblast", who is really the only other costume I have found apart from Ben himself.

The 2008 Olympics are on!!

If anyone needs to find me for any reason, I am letting you guys know where I am! My tush is parked on my couch in front of my TV! I SO enjoy the Olympics! I have found two channels that are broadcasting the Olympics, and that is pretty much ALL we will get to watch! I think its absolutely incredible to watch all of these top athletes come together and compete to the very best of their abilities for themselves and their countries. The pride is just amazing!!

As many of you know, (for the time being) I am Brasilian, so I have been having to cheer for the USA and Brasil.. I have resorted to cheering for whoever is on at that event at that time.. luckly they haven't really competed much against each other apart from swimming, so it has been easy on me! How can you not cheer for the USA at the swimming events???

And I don't know if any of you got to watch the opening ceremony last night, but it was just incredible!! China did a fantastic job! Jim and I were seriously glued to the TV!

My little Kayla is not so little anymore. I look at her lately and I have to do a double take. Its strange because I see her everyday, and yet sometimes it catches me by surprise when she says and repeats certain words or when she imitates me, (which she is doing A LOT!) When we play together, I have been calling her " my little mommy". She trades with me and pretends that I am the baby and she is the mommy. She loves it! She will cover me with a blanket, and pretend to feed me.. and she will give me tonnes of kisses.. and then she tells me "I wove you mommy!".. Its funny because she will act like me, but she will still call me mommy and not baby! She is so nurturing and affectionate, I just love it.
As many of you know, she enjoys to sing. I took another video of her in one of her brilliant performances.. Here it is, Twinkle, twinkle, little star!


Kayla singing! from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

I also wanted to post some updated pictures of my beautiful flowers. They look incredible and my green thumb Jim, has been keeping them well watered during there really hot days we have been having.

So I think the good old days of just swimming are gone! Shane and Ryan were introduced to the "Chicken Fight" today! I invited Ryan and Jamie over for a cooling swim this afternoon, and Lacy and Sarah asked if they could join us, and of course I said yes. Lets just say that they enjoyed it very much!! Shane was on Sarah's shoulders and Ryan was on Lacy's. I think after quite a few fights, they ended up tied!



Here is a video I took with my phone. It really is a pretty bad video, but you all can see they were having a great time!!


Chicken Fight! from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

It reached 92F today, with a heat index of 100F!! It was another HOT day! We spent most of the day inside again. We went to church this morning, and I always complain about how cold I am in there.. well, not today, it felt wonderful! And we had a great service.. I left there feeling recharged and ready for another week and as many more HOT days as God wants to give me!! As soon as we got in the car to come home, we cranked up the A/C as high and as cold as it would go! We came home and just hung around, watched the Nascar race while Kayla took a nap and Shane had his quiet time in our room watching cartoons. It was a cool and quiet afternoon!
At around 4pm we decided to go to the pool. It was still super hot outside, and Jim was a little afraid of the sun still being too hot.. but we still went! Good thing we did, because it felt really nice! The water was perfect.. somewhere between refreshing and bath water! Just really comfortable. There were quite a few people there, and it was great for the kids because they got to play with some other kids that they didn't really know in the neighbourhood.
I have mentioned a few times on my blog how well they are both swimming.. they really continue to improve daily!!

Here is a video I took of Shane swimming across the pool. Mind you now, he has had no real lessons and has pretty much taught himself everything he knows with a little parental coaching and encouraging!!


Untitled from Juliana Gallagher on Vimeo.

I have yet to take a good video of Kayla swimming, but I will.. she is doing great! Today she realized that she could float on her back.. she loved that!!

We have been having some HOT summer days! To make matters worse, someone with a temper kicked down the pool gate door, and so the pool had been closed over the past few HOT days! I filled up our little inflatable pool that we got when we had Shane's birthday party for the kids to play in. They had a lot of fun! For the most part, I have kept the kids indoor. We have been under heat advisories, and I just don't think it very healthy for us to be outside... so the kids have been bouncing off my walls!! But, at least the pool gate got fixed yesterday, and since the hot days are not gone, at least we can cool off at the pool again and the kids can get out of the house for a bit!



Today we had our mud volleyball tournament. It was SO much fun. I am pooped out! Its amazing how sun and mud can tire you out! It was so hard to move around in that mud!We played 8 games and won 1! Lets just say that staying up on our feet was an accomplishment on its own!! And as the day went on, the mud was just churned up and the water over it just got warmer and warmer and the smell of mud was all up in the air, and all over our clothes.. pretty nasty! By the end of the 8th game, we were ready to go home and take nice LONG showers! My ankles are really sore from trying to keep myself up, and I have had them up since we got home. I was fine while we were moving, but as soon as I sat down, I could feel them throabing. Jim took a nice little nap on the couch and I even ordered pizza from my computer so that we had to do VERY little moving!!

Here is our team.. notice we are still clean! From left to right - Blake, Christine, Meredith, Jim, me and Brian.


The mud courts!


Here are a few pics of us playing.




They also had this mud hill, which they had turned into a slide. They had a sprinkler going to keep it muddy and I went down it twice with Meredith and Christine went down it once.







For some more pics, visit Nicole's blog

Shane and Kayla got to spend all day at Kelli and Kayla's house. They had a blast! We got back at at around 2:30pm and ran home quickly to shower before we went next door to get the kids. Shane was playing video games with the girls' little cousin, Colin, who is also 5 and Kayla was just having a ball playing with the girls. Kayla ended up coming home with us so she could nap and Shane wanted to stay and play with Colin some more. It worked out great for us because the house was really quiet!