Our 4th of July!

We spent our 4th of July holiday cleaning out the flowerbed of the new house!

Before:

After: Hope everyone had a Great 4th of July!

A Long Overdue Update....

Okay, so it has been a really long time since I have updated the blog. I seem to be able to update on Facebook but it seems to takes a little more effort to keep the blog up to date.

Without being to lengthy, I will attempt to sum up our past few months.

Things have been pretty crazy since April in the Hart house.

• In May I finished up the course work for my masters in Occupational Therapy. I "graduated" but still have 6 months of Fieldwork and a board exam to take before I am officially finished. I started Fieldwork today so was blessed with a couple of months to travel with BJ and take care of some stuff around the house.

My parents and I after graduation!

• BJ has been traveling quite a bit for work. He was in Washinton D.C. for two weeks so his mom joined him for Mother's Day and then I got to come out for a few days. D.C. was nice as always- sorry no pics!


• I feel that this next bit of information deserves much more than a bullet.... On May 13th we lost my Dear Aunt Wynette to a battle with liver cancer. She was a wonderful woman. She always seemed to be the glue that held my Dad's side of the family together. Family was such a priority to her. She was a blessing to everyone she encountered.

My aunt is the one beside me on the left side. This picture was taken at my cousin, Dayme's wedding last summer!

We loved her so much. She will be deeply missed.

As we drove home from the funeral, we witnessed the most beautiful west texas sunset and knew that she was smiling down on us, enjoying her father in Heaven!

• In the mist of all of this we decided to put our house on the market. Much to our suprise the house sold in just 7 days. So we quickly found another to move into. We close this weekend, June 26th. We will be ready for visitors soon! Lots of cook-outs at the Hart's to come!


• BJ was working out in Minneapolis for the last couple of weeks. Luckily he was working with a great co-worker, his friend, Barry. So, I drove to Amarillo to visit some friends and then flew out to Minneapolis with Judy, Barry's wife to spend some time with BJ. We had a great time. Our hotel was across the street from the Mall of America so we got some good tax free shopping in. We went fishing on Sat morning, caught 44 fish in 2 1/2 hours. After a nap, we conquered the amusement park in the Mall of America. It exceded our expectations. Sunday BJ and I went for a wonderful run around one of the beautiful lakes in the area. It was so beautiful there. Too bad the winters are brutal. Sunday night we went to this awesome little pub in downtown Minni. On the roof they had Lawn Bowling. So much fun. My grandparents live in Wisconsin. I have not seen them since 2000. So I rented a car and headed over to give them a visit. It was so nice to see them again. We had a nice time. My Grandad is 97!

Ava, Adelynn and Will hanging out at my parents gym. These are my two best friend's precious children. I love these kids and evey moment I get to spend with them!

Judy had the "catch of the day" at least a 3lb Bass!

BJ lawn bowling at Britts Pub....fun little local hang out!

My Grandparents in Wisconsin!

Hancock Wedding & New Addition

Last weekend we went to Amarillo to watch our friends Todd & Heather get married! Our good friends Justin & Melissa, along with their daughter Ava were all in the wedding. It was beautiful and we had a great time. I didn't catch a good photo of Todd & Heather together. This pic doesn't do them justice!

Precious Ava, dancing the night away! She did so great walking down the isle.

Justin, Melissa, BJ and I.

A new addition to the family.......well, the extended family! BJ's niece and nephew got a new puppy last week. Welker!

Good Friends = Good Times

"Where there are friends, there is wealth."

~Titus Maccuis Plautus

I have a great group of core friends that I have known since middle and high school. We have made it a yearly tradition since 1995 to have a "girls night out" around Christmas time. If we never all get together through out the year, we always do at Christmas. This year due to various situations we were unable to get together. So, it was moved to Spring Break.

I love these girls and am so blessed to have such loyal friends even though we all have moved away and our lives have gone in different directions!

We are missing Niki in this picture... :( She is expecting baby #2 and headed home before the camera came out.

To my Blogging friends with kids!

Please be careful what you post!
The following is a post from a college friend of mine:

"Well, I had just posted 2 new posts a little while ago... the first one is no longer on here. It was a cute little post showing how Logan had learned how to take off her diaper and it included a pic of her walking and showing her little hiney. So not a big deal but fortunately, I checked my site meter right after I had posted it (not sure why I did, but I am glad that I did). Well anyway, in a matter of maybe 2-3 minutes, I had 16 hits from various foreign countries. Anyone that watches their site meter, realizes that you do get some random visitors from time to time, but literally 16 in a 2 minute time span on my blog is little weird. So I quickly removed that post and all pictures and got a little sick to my stomach. I don't know if I am just paranoid, but I have read on other blogs how they have tracked key words that had brought random visitors to their blog and it can be gross (regardless how naive the intent). So, just a word of caution - be careful what you are putting out there of your kiddos... there are some lurkers that are not welcome visitors that have access to everything you are allowing them to have access to... "


On another note, I just purchased a camera on ebay exactly like mine that was recently stolen. I got a pretty good deal since it has no cables, box, etc. So....there should be more posts with pictures again soon!

Weekend with the Merrill's

This post is a little late, but I just got this picture and decided to share.

A couple of weeks ago, Justin, Melissa and Ava came to spend the weekend with us. We had a great time catching up.

Ava was so good all weekend which certainly didn't help prevent the "baby fever" I seem to have!

Melissa and I went shopping on Sat afternoon and Justin captured this pic on his phone. Ava woke from her nap and went straight into BJ's lap! Too Cute!

The Moral of the Story......

Last night BJ and I went to Jake's with some friends to watch a couple of our favorite bands, the Thrift Store Cowboys and Devotchka. One of our favorite things to do is go to concerts and we rarely get to go since we live here in Lubbock. It was a great show!
Backing up to before the show:
We parked and I decided I didn't want to tote my purse in, so I put it in the back seat floor board. I remember actually thinking to myself....I probably shouldn't leave that there uncovered...but we were in a hurry and I did anyway. I am sure you can tell where this story is going! We walk out of the concert and abruptly notice the back window has been busted out, and the purse, GONE!
Contents of the purse: wallet (credit cards, $10 cash, my SS card which I usually don't keep in my purse but had for recent work paperwork, my camera, and my orthodontic splint (very expensive))
We drove home called and cancelled my credit cards and called the Police to come out and make a report, fully expecting to never see any of it again. On a side note, they were at our house in less than 10 minutes, pretty impressive!
I was up until 2 am just sick about this, I KNOW BETTER than to leave my purse in the car. I am usually the one telling people not to leave their purse in sight. I called my phone several times and it was still on. Well, this morning I couldn't sleep and logged onto my sprint on-line account to see if any outgoing calls were made. I noticed there was a free trial for a phone locator. I guess for families to keep an eye on their children. I signed up and it located my phone on 35th street (showed me a map of exactly where it was). Crazy, we jumped in the car and BJ and I actually found my purse along with 2 others in a dumpster.
Everything was in there except for the cash and my camera :( Thank goodness my credit cards and SS card where still there along with my splint.
Never did I imagine we would actually find my purse. I had the serial number for my camera, so if it shows up at a pawn shop I could get it back, doubtful, but you never know. Now we just have the hassle of replacing the car window!
The moral of the story..........don't leave your purse in your car!

Birthday and Super Bowl

BJ's 31st birthday was Monday. We celebrated Sat. evening with his family. We went to Shoguns for dinner and then back to our house for cake and ice cream.

Sunday we watched the Super bowl at Shawn and Jena's. Lots of fun!

Cotton Bowl

We started off our trip to Dallas for the Cotton Bowl with a stop to see my Mamaw. She just celebrated her 90th birthday on Christmas eve! I treasure the visits I have with her!

Some pictures tailgating before the game. We, of course, wish we could have pulled off a win. Overall it was a good season.
The girls.
The guys.
The OT girls stopped by. Wreck 'Em Tech!

I guess we will have to go back to some of our other hobbies now that football season is over....