things have been slowing down...for now

Well the last time I blogged I am sure I exhausted some of you with our events. HA :-) Right now things have been nice, and slow. It is very nice to say. The kids had a 4 day weekend the 17-21st of Jan..so here is what we did.
We took the kids to see a play called the Alamo. (it is about the real Alamo) Austin loved it. It was a bit boring. But the kids were still excited...because as soon as it ended we drove the 30 min drive to Grapevine for our over night vacation. We stayed at the Great Wolf lodge. It is very expensive, hence the one night stay. We had a great time. We played in the giant indoor water park, then ran through the halls and up and down the stairs. Seriously, we did!! They have a game called Magi-Quest. Where you are a wizard in training and you have to find certain things in a certain order to earn wizard points and work towards your adventure of battling a dragon. Well you buy a wand, a game (that is good for 4 days) and they give you a book..that gives you clue to earn all your wizard stuff. Oh my..we had no clue what we got ourselves into. Friday night we spent a total of 4 hours running up and down the "Hidden staircase" hahah that we figured out was the emergency stairwell. I didn't realize a vacation and staying at a hotel would be sooo much physical work. It would tell you to "go up to where Pixie's dwell (the 6th floor) and then once you found that clue it would say climb up one more time or go down two. We literally ran up and down the stairs...all 8 floors. We also played for a few hours on Sat. By the time we left we were all dragging. My calves hurt for 2 days afterwards. :-) But we had a blast. I am sorry for no pictures, but believe it or not I FORGOT my camera. I was so tempted to drive home and get it. The rest of the time we just relaxed. Dan had to go to work..he only had 2 days off.
I do have to brag on Austin. He has had a rough few months at school with getting in trouble for misc. things...talking, not using time wisely, getting out of his seat, etc. Well he has had 3 full weeks of no red marks...only positive stickers. SO it is awesome. We praise him often and reward his good behavior with Super Mario brother trading cards. He loves them!! :-) So way to go Austin...keep up the hard work!
We started painting the house last weekend. Dan took a 3 day weekend off...we were going to go to Houston to watch my brother race, but he was still very sick from when he got back from his race in Germany. So we skipped it and painted..the main living area...the halls, formal dining room, and part of the living room (still need to finish it). We picked a nice color. It is called Cairo brown. A nice sand color. I told Austin we now have walls the color of the pyramids. :-D It looks nice with the white trim and doors. Next is the rest of the living room, laundry room and kitchen. The kitchen will be a different color. I will take some pictures and post them later.
Now last weekend when we decided to paint..I had a major issue develop with my lap top. I turned it on Saturday morning and the screen kept flickering....THEN all of the sudden it went black. I thought I lost power, but noticed all the other power lights were on. So I shut it down and start it back up. The screen came on and then BLACK! I stayed calm..went to the gym and waited for Dan to get back from playing basketball and asked him if he dropped my lap top. HAHA Had to find someone to blame. BUT he said nothing had happened to it. So I took it to my friend, Susan's house..she checked it out and we couldn't figure it out. I got all mys pictures and documents backed up on my external hard drive and felt a little better. I realized while sitting in the sun that you could see a dark shadow of what was actually on the screen. SO I get a flash light and begin to use it. haha It was NOT very easy or comfortable. So I turned on the desk top. It is almost 6 yrs old and hasn't been used very much over the past 2 1/2 yrs. Needless to say it had a lot of updates. It took about 3 hours to load and update. Then when I shut it off it took another hour to update again. I didn't remember it being so slow, but it took me 5 mins to load my email. haha. I then took my laptop in to get another opinion on what is wrong with it. welllllll they said it was the back light and since I couldn't get it to hook up to a S-video cable or external monitor then more then likely my video card was also going out. WONDERFUL.....how much?? $300-400 for the back light and you can double it for the video card. WOW!! The guy recommended me to buy a new one. soooo I looked for 4 days and debated and had panic attacks (ok not really but high stress) and finally Friday night made a decision. I got the new Toshiba. I am still getting use to it and Vista. It is different. Plus I have a newer version of Microsoft Office. So many new things. ooo and Dan said he wants to count the new laptop as my Valentine gift. HAHA I am surprised he didn't throw in Anniversary too. Since we usually do not exchange gifts for these Holidays..just cards! :-) So he better still get me a card!!

So now I am planning the Valentine parties for the kids classes. Lots of fun!
So that pretty much catches you up. Today is my cousin, Michele's birthday. And later this week is Grandma Kobiske (10th) and Ashley's(6th) (my brother's girlfriend) birthday. So Happy Birthday ladies!! Love u!