SAFUN

You may remember a post I wrote about my cousin’s high school volleyball team being featured on the front page of the San Antonio Express News Sports section for making it to the final four of the 5A State Championship. She was a senior at the time and preparing for college. She has decided to join the Texas A&M Corpus Christi Islanders team.  They have already begun practicing and she was mentioned in the Islanders athletic blog today, Trio of Freshmen Setting The Future for Islanders. They quote:

The biggest factor working in favor of the Islanders and the players is the athleticism shown by all three newcomers.  Logen Bourque, Renee Ramirez and Brittani Loux will be the three newcomers  helping run the Islander offense.  Bourque is the tallest of the three, standing at 5-11, while Ramirez is 5-5 and Loux is 5-6.

Way to go Renee! We’re so proud of you!

My cousin, Renee, a senior at O’Connor high school played for the varsity volleyball team this past season. They beat Reagan, making them number 1 in the city.  They made it to the final four for the 5A State Championship, beating a team from the valley. They went up against Austin Westlakes, a team that had won the IV-5A title the past 2 years. This was new for O’Connor and I am so happy Renee had the opportunity to make it that far. It will be an experience she will never forget. She is #5 on the far right. Go Renee! Read the full article here.

Jason and I typically hang low for Halloween. We enjoy hanging out with my family and watching my nieces and nephews dress up in their cute outfits. This year, since it fell on a Saturday, we went up to Austin to visit my brother and his wife. Their friends were having a costume party so we got all dress up,  Star Trek style. We made our own outfits and I didn’t even have to buy anything! Jason made the cool Star Trek logos out of foam paper and we just got him some ears and a gun. My brother did an excellent job as Billy Mays (video below) and Layla did the Jessica Simpson look. There were actually some pretty creative costumes at Sean and Sarah’s party, who were Kayne West and Rhianna. My favorite? YouTube!

See all photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/safun/sets/72157622714512654/

My brother finally married his high school sweetheart! Well, they were “just friends” in high school but I think everyone had a feeling they would end up together in the long run. They married on September 12^th – which is the date they became boyfriend and girlfriend. My brother proposed Labor Day weekend at the beach in front of all their family and friends.

My parents hosted a fun rehearsal dinner at Acenar and as favors, they had beach towels embroidered with Layla & Wayne’s name & wedding date. I was in charge of making a slide show with photos of them. I added some video footage for a surprise. Tears filled the room which let me know it was a success.

They married at the historic San Fernando Cathedral, had the bridesmaids & décor pretty in pink, had the reception catered by local favorite True Flavors and had a rockin’ band out of Austin, Texas (where they reside now).  We love Layla and are so happy to have her join our family. She is definitely a girly girl and if it were possible, she would have been born with a wedding veil atop her head. We were all so nervous because we wanted the wedding to go as she planned. I think it did and if it didn’t, she didn’t notice

Check out more photos here.

Download the Slide Show here.

Once again, I am awakened by our barking dogs. Our bed is positioned right next to the window facing the street. We have a corner house so our dogs have a whole side view of what’s going on in the street. They are great guard dogs but sometimes you can do without the barking when it’s just a rolling plastic bag they are barking at.

Early this morning, our dogs were going crazy. I woke up and yelled at them to shut up! Well that woke up Jason. So now we were both up. In between the barking, you could hear this strange sound. Our dogs have killed a cat before (sorry to say) and so I was hoping it was not some injured animal. The sound was very frequent like a quacking duck. The dogs did not stop their barking. So Jason went outside with a flashlight to see what the heck was going on.

Turns out there is goose wobbling down our street. Jason comes inside and says “There is a goose on the street.” A goose? Seriously? So I had to go outside to see for sure (not that I didn’t believe him). It was dark so cars couldn’t see it. Jason was trying to get it to the sidewalk (like it knew the difference). Then when it saw that we were trying to help it, it chased us (or at least that’s what we thought). It almost came running inside our house. It just sat there in our yard. We called animal control and told them we had a goose in our frontyard. They first started laughing and then they gave us the number to Wildlife control. They didn’t answer. The goose laid in the yard the rest of the morning and when we were ready to go to work, it was not there anymore. We hope it is ok. We were thinking it might have been sick and just got disoriented. Who knows. But there was a goose and here is a clip to prove it.