Trying to Catch Up

Hello friends,
Ok, I'm embarrased by how long it has been since I've posted a blog. I have no real excuses just it seems that the day is over before I know it and it's time to start the next day.
This post won't have any pictures as I'm just trying to catch up. But, here are some highlights of Team Rendon since July 11th (my last blog).
1. Matthew started Kindergarten!!! He loves it and so do we. George is a carpool dad and a classroom volunteer.
2. Great progress has occured on the addition of our house-the sheetrock is all in. You can really see what it is going to look like! George says my Christmas present might be moving into the new part. Yea!!!!
3. Matthew has started playing soccer again. We're the Golden Lions and Matthew is playing with quite a few of his friends. They are a force to be reckoned with.
4. Matthew celebrated his 6th birthday!! The Star Wars themed party at the gymnastics place was a big hit. I'm still trying to figure out where the past 6 years has gone. It seems like just yesterday we were at the hospital delivering him.
5. The day after Matthew's birthday, George and I celebrated our 10th year wedding anniversary. George surprised me with a weekend's stay at the Westin Resort at La Cantera. We treated ourselves to a lovely dinner and spent all day Saturday lounging by the beautiful pool and kept the pool waiters busy bringing us drinks. I was even treated to my first pedicure ever.

Ok, I'm sure I've missed something, but those are the highlights. Pictures will soon follow.

Tigers, Cats, Dogs, and Elephants, Oh My!

It's just one of those things that you have to do with your kids at least once-go to the circus. I find, as adults, we tend to view the circus as a form of animal cruelty but 5 year olds view it as a really cool occasion. So, we and the Wiselys trekked to the Alamodome for a Ringling and Barnum Bailey show. Instead of a three ring circus, we saw a one ring circus but that was fine by the kids. There was still plenty to see-some amazing acrobatics, men doing tricks on running horses, cats and dogs doing tricks, beautiful white tigers, elephants, and the ever present clowns. The kids seemed to like the elephants and the motorcycle act the best.

House progress

There's visible progress on our addition!! We have the plumbing done and most of the wiring. We're ready for the sheetrock to go up. But, George's company is so busy working on other jobs that he can't send any of his workers over to put in the insulation. So, who better to do the insulation that George and Susan. Yes, we hung all of that ourselves. And no, we're not done but we at least got the easy parts done.

The 3 F's: Father's Day, First Day of Kindergarten Camp, and Feathered Friends

Father's Day was yesterday and we just hung out and did some stuff around the house. We gave George bar-b-que stuff-a new smoker and accessories to go with it. We would have smoked some meat on Sunday but we were worried it would rain. Matthew also dictated to me a list of 17 things he liked/loved about his daddy. (17 because it was June 17th). Here's a photo of the two handsome dudes around our house.

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First Day of Kindergarten Preview

Matthew is lucky enough to be attending a week long Kindergarten preview at the school he'll attend in the fall. We decided this would be good practice for him as he's never gone to preschool or daycare more than 2 mornings a week. Below is a picture of the eager Matthew. He woke up Monday morning at 7:00 a.m.!!!!!! While that's not early for most people, Matthew rarely wakes up before 9 and has been known to sleep until 10:30! He woke me up at 7, so I sent him back to bed, telling him it was too early. Then at 7:30, he was back, waking me up. I asked him why he was awake and it was because he had to go to Kindergarten today. So, we got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, the whole nine yards. He was so ready! When he got to his classroom he already knew 4 other kids so that put him at ease. When we picked him up, he was too cool to say much about the day. We had to ask very pointed questions otherwise he would just say everything was good.

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FEATHERED FRIENDS

We are lucky enough to have a bird's nest where we can watch it. A sparrow has built her nest in one of my hanging plants in the front yard. Matthew loves to check on it each day to see if the eggs hatched. I was lucky enough to get this picture of the eggs. We'll keep you posted.

A Fun Summer Project

As we were standing in line at HEB one day, Matthew spied a Woman's Day magazine with a picture of a fun cake on the front. I was suprised to hear him ask if we could make the cake. I'm always up for trying something new. So, we bought the magazine and proceeded to buy a very lengthy list of ingredients. Thank goodness, Nena was around to help because it turned out to be a very involved process. Overall we had a good time and Matthew enjoyed eating all the candies and Teddy Grahams that were left over. We didn't eat it because Matthew didn't ever want to cut into it but I'm sure it was delicious.

Catching up

Ok, I see that it has been quite some time since I've posted any news. So, I'll try to post a few so that ya'll can catch up. We're still working on the addition of course. We're waiting for a plumber......we've been waiting.....Once we get a plumber and they finish, then it'll be on to sheet rock!!!!

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is to go swimming. Matthew took swimming lessons at Alamo Heights pool. It was the best thing for him. In 2 weeks time, he is fearless in the water. He's a regular fish, diving down to get stuff off the bottom, jumping in from the side, and going off the diving board. We went to a swim party a couple of weeks ago and he swam for 5 hours!!! Now that he can touch the bottom in the shallow end, he's very confident with his ability.

When he goes off the diving board he swims across the dive pool to the other side-all by himself!! It's amazing what simple things like that can make a parent proud!

Our First Graduation

It's time to break out the Kleenex! Matthew graduated from pre-school today. I know every mom and dad say this, but, I can't believe Matthew is old enough to be leaving pre-school and going into Kindergarten. Where did the time go?

Now preschool graduations are a little less formal than high-school graduations as Matthew's school had a 'sprinkler' party at a classmates house. Instead of validictorian and salutatorian speeches, the students performed a song and dance routine they had learned. Matthew's dance partner is his best friend who routinely tells her mom in a very matter of fact voice that she is going to marry Matthew. And that she someday she'll just have to kiss him because they'll be married. Isn't that just the cutest?

The Newest Addition to Our Family

Well, I finally feel like we have something noteworthy to blog about. This afternoon I was working at the computer at home and happened to look up to see which noisy motorcycle was cruising down our street. Of course I had to do a double take because that 'noisy motorcycle' was being driven by George!!! Shane was ready with the camera to take pictures of my expression when I walked out the front door. I think they were expecting the worst. I of course, think it is very cool. We've taken many rides through our neigborhood. I'm sure our neighbors are tired of hearing us ride around the same six block radius. Matthew loves riding it. We have to pry him off so that someone else can ride. Next step is getting a leather jacket, helmet, and goggles for Matthew. There's just something about a bicycle helmet that doesn't look so cool on a motorcycle rider.

Well, San Antonio is caught up in Spurs fever as the Spurs are in the playoffs. Matthew has become a great Spurs fan. He knows the players by name, can do play by play commentating, likes to watch the replays, and even makes noise when the opponent is trying to shoot a free throw. And he likes to stay up until the bitter end, cheering for his favorite Spur-Manu Ginobili.

More great news around the Rendon household is that Nena made it back. She had been gone for about 6 weeks. During that time Matthew had to spend a lot of time working with George. Actually Matthew worked so much with George that one of George's customers invited Matthew and George to the Spurs game. Anyway, we did not tell Matthew that Nena was back and when we got back from running errands we asked Matthew to come out into Nena's house to help with the laundry. Matthew walked in, saw Nena sitting on the bed, did a double take, and then ran as fast as he could to jump in her lap. Needless to say, Matthew has not left Nena's side.

Sunday's blog

While we don't really have anything monumental to share we thought we might as well put something up so that those who are anxiously awaiting our daily dose of entertainment won't be disappointed. Speaking of disappointed, that's how we felt when the Wisely's didn't show up to our house on Saturday. They were supposed to come over for card games and Wii. But they went to the mall instead. At least the Spurs were playing to help distract us from the pain of being stood up. Matthew was so bummed that he was just taking random pictures of whatever. Hence the trees.

But we have recovered as of today. We managed to console ourselves with a little house work and having lunch at Jason's Deli. Since I begrudingly ate at Luby's the other day, George begrudgingly ate at Jason's Deli. And over his club sandwich he begrudingly admitted it was ok. So maybe there's hope for me to go back soon.
After lunch, I planted lots of begonias up front and tried to repot some of my other plants. Now we're off to the grocery store-still trying to mask the pain of being stood up.

Our second post!!
It's Fiesta time in San Antonio. We went downtown for the Battle of Flowers Parade. We drove downtown with Dave, Cookie, and Jake Houser. After we parked at Roland's store, Delivery Market on S. Alamo, we walked over to the Riverwalk. First we had lunch on the Riverwalk at Lone Star Junction. It was nice for the kids to be able to sit right on the edge of the Riverwalk and notice all the gross stuff floating in our fabulous San Antonio River.
After lunch we walked up to our seats worrying that we would be in the hot sun the whole time. Luckily, Dave had purchased GREAT seats. We were so lucky!! First, we sat under a huge oak tree in front of the Alamo. To make this parade experience even better was the fact that we were directly across the street from the parade judges. So all the bands and floats would stop right in front of us for the judges to see them and each float stopped to deliver flowers to be placed in front of the Alamo-hence 'Battle of the Flowers' parade. The floats were of course amazing as were all the duchesses in their fancy dresses. In traditional parade fashion the duchesses would show us their shoes under their dresses-everything from Crocs, flip flops, fuzzy slippers, to cowboy boots. The huge balloon floats were Matthew's favorite-especially the Clifford one. Seeing those balloons makes me even more determined to go to the Macy's Day Parade. Though I'm not so sure a 'dude' from the
Then it was on to dinner with the Wiselys and the Garzas. We took Fred to a sea food resturaunt even though he doesn't like seafood. We ate at Louie Ledeaux's in the Forum. George guilted Christi into drinking a beer. Especially after he found out that she drank a bunch of beer on their trip to Chicago. As you can see by some of the pictures that the kids all got their faces painted, except for Jakob.
Then, after dinner, we took the kids for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Aren't they cute?
And, because we still hadn't had enough we took everyone to Old Navy to keep shopping. Fred was the babysitter in the store keeping all the kids entertained with football and soccer while the rest of us tried to shop. I'm sure the Old Navy employees were glad to see us go.

First Blog

Greetings from Team Rendon,
I must admit I never thought we would have a 'blog'. But after reading a blog of our friends we decided to give it a try.
Please feel free to post your comments as we would love to hear from any or all of you.