Seeing the Augustines

Back in August, I made the very difficult decision to stop working with Caleb, the now almost 5 year old autistic boy I used to tutor. I started working with him when he was 2 years old and it was such a rewarding job to have...however, with working full time hours at Children's and having to commute over 35 minutes to get to his house, I was ready for a break. Today, I had the opportunity to be able to go visit with him and his family for the afternoon/evening. Although the next few pictures may not show it (As Caleb is very difficult to photograph) we had a great time together and I almost cried when I first got there because he remembered me and wouldn't let me put him down. He is now giving kisses, peeing in the potty, and just overall doing great with his therapy. Here's a few pictures...

And of course, I also got to spend some time with Olivia, Caleb's 2, almost 3 year old sister. She is now talking in full sentences, counting to 13, and learning her letters. Here's a few pictures of her...

The newest member of the family is Miss Esther who just turned 1 in November. When I left, she was just starting to eat "real" food, starting to crawl, and very, very, chunky. Now she is stuffing her face with chicken salad sandwhiches, walking, and still very, very chunky. :) Here's some pictures of her...

so cute...but anyway, I had a great time today and enjoyed being able to see Caleb and of course, Olivia and Esther too. I hope its not another 4 months before I see them again!

I just love that last picture...tell me, which one do you like best of the next 3...

this one?

this one?

or this one?

Christmas in West Virginia

Tim and I got back from Christmas in West Virginia late last night...now I'm bummed...it came and went soo fast!! We were able to have a little bit longer of a visit than normal...we got their late Saturday night and then, like I said, left later in the evening last night. I just can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. We had a great time with my family...especially little Andrew Bryce. :) I love babies! On Christmas Eve, my sister had her annual Christmas Eve party which was a lot of fun. My little sister and I had some fun dressing Andrew up in this dolls outfit that my sister has...it fit him perfectly!!!

You can tell he was just thrilled about it... I wish I had a picture of the doll...its funny how much he is sitting just like the doll does! Then, we had lots of fun playing this game that my sister got as an early Christmas present. The object of the game is to hold on to this controller and be the first person to push the button after the light turns to green. Its a "shocking" experience...here's a video to help you understand...keep watching, the end is funny...

Then, Christmas day, we opened all these presents!!

Zach's new shirt...

And of course, I spent lots of time with this little guy!

He was trying to watch the rest of the kids play their new Wii

right after he slobbered all over my face...love it

Andrew hates being interuped while eating to burp so this is what he does pretty much each time...I just think his cry is so cute!

No longer the youngest of the family, Miss Ellie Grace, age 5


Ellie and Andrew


Cute shirt...

Unfortunately, since Andrew now steals most of everyone's attention, I forgot to get pictures of everyone else...Over the course of Christmas day, we had my mom, dad, grandma, step-grandfather, all 3 of my sisters, my two brother-in-laws, my aunt, my uncle, and their 5 kids at the house...a total of 18 people. It was so much fun...although, somehow it made my parents 5 bedroom house seem very small. But anyway, we are home now and I am trying desperately to get the house in order and try to hit some of the end of the year sales. I don't have to go back to work until the 4th...so, uh, thats awesome. :) But anyway, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and have a happy 2008!

Christmas Present

This was my favorite present to make and give this year. I made two photo collages with all pictures that I have taken...the first is his "precious parts" and the second is the three of them together. What a blessing it is to have this little guy as part of my family now. As most of you reading this know, my sister and brother-in-law waited almost 4 1/2 years for this little guy and he is so worth the wait! Andrew Bryce is now 3 months old today and growing so big! He is smiling and cooing and such a happy baby. I can't wait to see how the Lord continues to work in my family's life this upcoming year!

Tim and Joanna, opening up their gift

Precious Parts

Precious family

Our Christmas

Tim and I celebrated Christmas yesterday since we will be out of town at my parents house on Christmas day. We were going to have our Christmas today, but Tim was too excited yesterday so he made me change in to my pajamas and we had Christmas around 3 or 4 yesterday afternoon.

First, we read the Christmas story

Then Tim tried to wait patiently so I could snap a few pictures of the tree before all the presents were gone...although, only like 5 of them were for us...the rest are for our family...

its such a pathetic tree...some day, we are going to get a real one... :)

Excited about what was in our stockings!

The gift Tim bought for himself, basically, and put a tag that said "from Shannon" on it

so, he had to act exctied...its a zune mp3 player if you can't see it

my new blue tooth

After we opened all our presents, we got all dressed up and went out for a really nice dinner at the Crown Plaza Resort in downtown Dayton...the restaurant is called "Stars" and it is on the top floor of the resort with window all the way around so that you can see the Dayton skyline...pretty cool

here we are dressed up and pretty/handsome :)

and yes, Tim is growing his hair out...he is now officially a good mix between redneck and surferdude


at the resort for dinner, yes, a self portrait :)

We had such a good time...it was fun to get all dressed up and go out for dinner like that...we had never done that before and we both agreed that we should do it again, but we are okay with waiting for awhile...the bill was a little high and we both hate being dressed up.

Sorry its been awhile since I updated...we really haven't done anything exciting lately. It snowed...that was exciting...

and thats pretty much it...we were supposed to go to California this past Sunday to celebrate Christmas with Tim's family but with all of the winter storm warnings out we figured we should just stay home...I think we ended up getting about 6 inches of snow, freezing rain, sleet stuff....then it rained and so now it is just gross and I want it to all go away so that it can snow more fresh stuff :)

Anyway, have a Merry Christmas everyone!!! I'll post again after Christmas when I have more excitment to share!

California trip

Tim and I left for California the day after Thankgiving and flew with skybus. We bought tickets with them like months ago and only had to pay $75 a person for a direct flight to LA (we knew flying to fly standby the day after thanksgiving was a bad idea). We only bought one way tickets with the plan of flying back standby with USairways. So anyway, we made it out there without a problem at all and overall, it was a good experience. For those of you that have never heard of skybus, it is a newer airline based out of Columbus that sells the first 10 seats on their flights for $10 and then the seats gradually increase in price as they sell. But then you also pay for everything else...for instance, $5 for a checked bag, $2 for a bottle of water on the plane, and the flight attendants walk down the isle during the flight asking if you want to buy stuff like backpacks, cologne, chocolates, etc....Kind of strange, but that is their money maker. But anyway, yeah, it was a good experience and we would probably fly with them again.
So, we made it to California by 8:30 in the morning on Friday morning and Tim's cousin was there to pick us up. We got to see Aunts and Uncles and cousins that we hadn't seen for a long time, one of which is overdue with her first baby, so it was fun to see her and her basketball belly. Then, we headed up north to central california to go to Tim's parents house. Saturday is the annual deep pit barbeque at their house and so we started preparing for that. This is like a 22+ year tradition that Tim's family has been doing. It used to only be for family, but then they started inviting close friends and some people from their church and the growds have been as large as 80 people. We had 67ish people on Saturday. It was awesome. For those of you that don't know what a deep pit is, let me explain (I didn't know either). You start with like this 4'x5' hole that is about 5' deep with rocks in the bottom and then build a huge fire over the top of the fire. The coals then fall into the pit filling it up with hot, VERY hot coals. Once the hole is filled with hot coals, you make a mini pit in the coals for the meat to be placed in. The meet is in a baking bag, wrapped with several layers of aluminum foil and burlap and then tossed in. It is then quickly buried with coals, then tin is placed on top, then again, quickly covered with dirt. Let me show you some pictures to help you understand...

Step One: Dig big hole
Step Two: Put in large rocks
Step Three: Build big white man fire (see pictures below)

(notice how large the fire is compared to my 6'5" husband on the right)

This fire was HOT!! You could stand like 20' away and still be quite warm!

Tim on the tractor thing getting ready to push some brush into the fire...

Notice how even the tractor is dwarfed by the fire

Step Four: Wait for fire to die down
Step Five: Make indentions in hot coals for meat to be placed

Step Six: Quickly throw meat in (I don't have a pictures of the next few steps, it happened too fast)
Step Seven: Bury meat with remaining coals
Step Eight: Place large pieces of tin over coals
Step Nine: Bury quickly with dirt before burlap around meat has a chance to burn

Step Ten: Let cook for 10-12 hours (or 15 like we did, oops! ) and Enjoy!!!

And this is seriously like the most tender meat you will ever eat...it literally falls off the bone. We had a home grown and butched turkey, a HUGE ham, and a HUGE chunk of beef. It was absolutely delicious.

Here's some other fun pictures of the event...

From left to right, Joel, Jon, Sharissa, and myself Sharissa and her dad, and Dakota

We actually had a little too much fun with making the bonfire and we had too many coals at the end so they had to take some of them and throw them out of the pit...this is what a picture of hot coals being thrown looks like. Pretty cool.

So that was the deep pit...Tim also had some fun by shooting a kayote...

I learnd how to drive a manual...sorry no pictures

And, we got to watch Tim's dad with his new and desperately needed helmet for his three wheeler...

We had a blast!! It was one of the most memorable trips to California we have had I think. And next year, we are going to talk Joel and Cynetta in to coming with us. Right?