Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend

Kennedy and I traveled to Lake Conroe with mom and Jim on Wednesday night so that we could stay at Gail’s house and have an early start the next morning. On Thanksgiving Day, we went to the fire station to celebrate with Trey. Kennedy had so much fun running around the fire truck, driving it, and climbing up and down the stairs. Another child, Trey, was there and they played in the volleyball sand after dinner. She got so dirty running around playing, that Trey and I bathed her in the bathroom sink. Fortunately, there were no fire calls while we were there so our special day was uninterrupted.



This is Megan(Jim's granddaughter) and Ashley(Jim's great-granddaughter). They let Kennedy play in their tent and played tea!








We came back home on Friday, and headed up to Georgetown to see the rest of the family. Mom kept feeding Joseph and Kennedy cereal that they loved. Mel and I took the boys and Kennedy up to see Nanny and Papawa. While riding in the car, Kennedy kept picking at Landry until he finally held her hair so she could fall asleep.






On Sunday, Trey and I went walking with Kennedy. Kennedy literally will walk a mile pulling the little popper. She particularly loves walking with it on the side of the road where all the leaves accumulate. We ended up piling up some leaves in Sherry’s yard so we could have a leave throwing fight. She enjoyed jumping in the piles and throwing them on her daddy the best!

Tamales!

This weekend we made Tamales with Mel and Kirk Knussmann. Fortunately for us, Laura and Kenneth were at Sherry's so we were able to get them to come over in the afternoon and help spread the mesa/meat/and vacuum seal the bags.

The first step in making Tamales is to boil your meat. We used pork butt and Mel/Kirk used Wild Hog Pork Butt. A lot of butt was being cooked. You then have to shred and season the meat after it has cooked over night. The hardest and most time- consuming part is spreading the mesa on the corn husk/stuffing it with meat/rolling the husk with the food in it/then steaming them. Might I suggest purchasing the nifty Mesa spreader if you ever make them yourself. What started out at 10 in the morning, ended in the late afternoon with over 25 dozen tamales being rolled. The best part, they were delicious and we knew what was in them!

Kennedy ended up eating 3 tamales, guess she likes that lard!

Later that evening, Gracie and Kennedy enjoyed running with the cooler between our legs.




On Sunday, we went over to Sherry's house for an early Thanksgiving gathering with Sherry,Aimee/Craig/Emma/John, Kenneth/Laura/Kylie, and us.We had a nice visit and took some pictures, although Kennedy didn't want to cooperate with the group pictures.

Happy Anniversary!

If I can hold a flower
And watch its petals fade,
If I can touch the well worn earth
On which my child plays,
If I can hold one moment
Of the times you've made me smile,
Then I can take the bad times,
For you've made them all worthwhile...
*by Robert Sexton

Trey and I are going on our 4th Anniversary. I can't believe how quickly the years have flown by and how fortunate we have been with good health, friends,family, and opportunities for growth. It feels like yesterday, that we were saying "I do" and dancing the night away with our family and friends.

I think the hardest thing this year for our marriage has been trying to learn the best way to handle different parenting techniques on raising Kennedy. Now that she's over one, she had developed into a little young lady who has a mind of her own. It is wonderful watching her learn new things and all the new words that are starting to be said, but on the flip side she is also starting to see what she can get away with. Overall, I believe we have communicated with one another our concerns and our joined hope of raising a child that believes in God and the bibles commandments,is appreciative of life, her family/friends, respects herself, doesn't talk back, helps others, and takes responsibility for her own actions. Thank you, Trey for your continue love and patience over the past years and the years to come. I look forward to growing old with you everyday!

Every anniversary year I compose a list of events that happened within that year of marriage so we/I can reflect back on the trials and triumphs that happened. Off the top of my head here are some of those things:

Births: John Casper, Blaise Christ, Kylie Dodson, Love, Jordan Uplinger, Millie Powers,Kye Schorsch, Allison Watts

Deaths: Donald Graves, Big Mamma, Brian Marak, Pat Reaves, Anthony Palmer

Weddings: Mom/Jim Aucutt,Erica/Keith Uplinger, Sarah Eubank/James, Megan/Pee Wee

Trey passed his Chauffeur tests and is just waiting to be promoted anytime.

We were fortunate to go together as a couple on two trips. One to New Orleans with Lynn/John and Mel/Kirk, as well as a trip to Playa del Carmen with Mel/Kirk. Trey went with Kirk & Scott Knussman to Wyoming and had a successful antelope hunt.

Old Blue, Trey's Mazda truck, finally bit the dust so we had to replace it with the new to us Chev. Truck.

I participated in my first triatholon- The Danskin.

Hurricane Ike destroyed Galveston/surrounding areas.

History was made, when the first black man, Barrack Obama, was elected as President of the United States.

To conclude, our friend Stacie Tom emailed a cute girlie picture with some tips for women the other day. Here are the four tips that I felt corresponded with my husband and how fortunate I am to have him in my life:

1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.
2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn't lie to you.
4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.

In addition to these items, I believe it's important to:
5. to have a man that will let you cry on his shoulders and not ask any questions.
6. to have a man who will say he is sorry and will accept your apology without saying, I told you so.
7. to have a man that loves your child.
8. to have a man that makes you a better person.
9. to have a man that kisses you when you come home, kisses you when you leave, and tells you he loves you when he gets off the phone and means it.
10. to have a man that cares enough to sit down and communicate his dreams and the future you both see.

San Antonio 1/2 Marathon!

I finished, 2:38:01 a 12:04 pace! I was so worried about running the 1/2 marathon because I had only been running once a week which consisted of mainly a 3 mile run and a one time long run of 8.5 miles. I had never done a race by myself(without one of my friends motivating me), but when one of the others runners reminded me I wasn't by myself that I was running with 33,000 other runners, 17K for the 1/2 marathon, I didn't feel so alone.

The day started off fairly normal with a bit of cold in the air, 34 degrees. It didn't take long to warm up. Of course, no run would be the same without me having some toilet story. Before the race, I stood in line for the port-o-pot. When a lady exited she said "there is no toilet paper" and I said " no, problem I'll just shake". We'll I went in needing to go #1 and instead I got #2. I had nothing to wipe with except for first some peppermints wrappers(I wouldn't suggest this), which didn't go over well. So, I thought what on my body can I go without. So, I used my free gloves I got in my good bag. Off I went, hoping I didn't smell like pooh. Along the course there were three people that kept me motivated: one a son pushing his father in a wheelchair, another an elderly man wearing an army hat running with an American flag, and a woman who I only saw the back of her shirt that said "Run like a Mother". All of these individuals, helped me keep my eye on the goal of finishing and kept my mind off my legs and knees of hurting. Before I crossed the finished line, there was an elderly man laying on the ground with EMS crews all around him. I never heard if he made it or not, but I pray he did. This was not the thing you really want to see when you want to jump for joy that you finished the event, instead it left you somewhat solemn for a racer.

On our way to pick up my packet on Saturday, Kennedy was in the car trying to put gold fish between her toes and eating them that way. You can't really tell that is what she was doing, but here is her photos:

While in San Antonio, we stayed with Laura and Kenneth. I thought this was a cute photo of Laura with Kylie and Kennedy and Kylie sharing a chair.

Welcome to the World, Jordan Gerald Uplinger!

Erica and Keith Uplinger are proud parents of a baby boy, Jordan Gerald, born a 1:48 a.m., weighing 8lbs 5oz and 21 inches long. Mom is doing wonderful and daddy has a smile that stretches from ear to ear. Congratulations to both of you on a beautiful son with lots of hair!

Prayers for fallen Firefighter

When I get a call from Trey that starts with, "Kim, I'm ok, but I needed to let you know...so you don't worry", I try to remain calm so I can hear all that he has to say. First, his morning started off to a bang. He left Lockhart at 3:00 a.m. to return to Houston for work. While he was traveling on I-10 he noticed some people in the road, so he pulled over to see if he could help. He saw, what he said looked like a mangled deer. However, that was not the case. Instead it was one of the brothers of this group of individuals that had decided to lie in the middle of I-10 and was run over several times. After the state trooper arrived, he left and went on his way.

Later that evening, his station was dispatched to a 2-alarm fire. Trey and another colleague were cutting a hole in the roof when they heard the mayday alert. They quickly rushed down the ladder to assist in carrying out Captain Unruh from the burning home. The Captain is currently in critical condition. I ask that you keep Captain Unruh and his family in your prayers as he recovers.

Trey and the other firefighters went through a counseling session much like a roundtable discussion so they could all express their emotions and thoughts on the incident. One of the main things that the counselor stressed is not to do the "what if" scenario. Something, that I generally do, but know it doesn't help any situation. One of the firefighters had recently lost a good friend in an accident and asked "Why does God let this Happen?" One of the firefighters, who had attended seminary school, explained the "master plan" God has for each of us. The collaboration of the firefighters and prayers from others has proved that even in the worst of situations that the support brought together by people and the power of prayer can make a grim situation look bright.


Below is a newspaper article I found from the Houston Chronicle:


A firefighter remains in critical but stable condition in a hospital after he was injured while battling a two-alarm fire that destroyed a northeast Houston home Monday evening.

Capt. Darin Unruh suffered third-degree burns and smoke inhalation in the fire, which broke out about 7 p.m. at the home in the 3900 block of Linder, officials said.

Firefighter Dennis Valencia, who suffered first- and second-degree burns, was released overnight from Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

"They're just great guys," Houston Fire Department District Chief John Smith said of the injured firefighters. "Both of them are real hard workers."

Officials are still trying to determine how the firefighters were hurt. Smith said it appears a section of the roof collapsed, sending a wave of flames and superheated gases toward the less-damaged back portion of the home where Unruh and Valencia were.

The flames gutted the front section of the small, wood-frame home. The intense heat scorched the overhanging branches of a neighbor's tree.

Unruh and Valencia went in through the back door after receiving reports that someone may have been trapped inside the burning home, Smith said.

"They knew that if (the trapped person) was back there, he had a chance to survive, and they were going after him," Smith said.

But three people in the house had actually escaped without injury before the fire crews arrived at the scene, HFD officials said.

According to a preliminary investigation, the fire may have started at an electrical outlet, District Chief Tommy Dowdy said.

Fire Department officials said it had been nearly a year since a firefighter suffered such a serious injury while fighting a fire.

After hearing about the injuries, Mayor Bill White went to the hospital to check on the firefighters and learn more about the blaze. At the hospital, dozens of firefighters, many of them off-duty, gathered in ambulance bays outside the emergency room, awaiting word of their two injured colleagues.

More than 100 firefighters have visited the hospital since the pair was admitted.

"Somewhere in your (firefighting) career, you're going to be injured. It's just part of the job," Smith said.

Unruh is assigned to HFD Station 39, 5810 Pickfair, and Valencia works at HFD Station 34, 3100 Laura Koppe

Wurstfest

Wurstfest! Mel Knussman had gathered a group together to attend the 48th Annual "Salute to Sausage" in New Braunfels. Eating or at least trying most of the food there at the festival is a must, regardless of if you can handle grease. I believe between the whole group we tried almost everything: sausages, corn, fried mushrooms, potatoes cakes with applesauce, sweet potato fries, funnel cakes, turkey legs, oh...and beer. Tracy Mikulench knew someone selling hats, so she hooked several of us up. It doesn't appear that anyone captured Trey in his skunk hat, but if you know Trey this hat fits! We all had a fantastic time dancing and visiting with one another. Matt Messing had the brilliant idea to have a potato sacks races against one another at the carnival, but by the time we arrived they had closed the line. Trey was able to obtain several pitchers and glasses to hold him over until next year. One of these years, in the far future, I believe we will have to attend the real October Fest in Germany.

The bus ride back to the hotel was alot of fun. The bus driver played some ACDC and some other music that we all thought we sung so well. Mel, Kirk, Chet, Trey, and I occupied the back of the bus so that we could stand and dance. We didn't even get in trouble with the bus driver for standing while he drove.