Sweet Georgia Brown

For those of you that have any knowledge of basketball at all, you will recognize that as the theme song of the world famous Harlem Globetrotters. Sidney and I attended the game Saturday evening, and we had a great time.


We saw one of my all-time favorite Globetrotters, Curly Neal. He was on the team back when I was a kid, and was even immortalized in several episodes of Scooby Doo. We also saw many of the talented players of today (they have more than one team on the road at any one time.)



Of course, the Globetrotters won the game. They haven't lost a game since 1971. The antics were as good this time as they always were on television, and Sidney really enjoyed herself as well.





After the game, Sidney was able to meet one of the players, "Dizzy" Grant, and get his autograph. If you have kids and can make a Globetrotters game, I would certainly recommend it. It is great family fun, and they do an excellent job of making the kids part of the event.

Kimber is on her way to Norway as we speak. This is a short trip - one week. She will be home in time for the Super Bowl next weekend, so I will be stocking up to make hot wings and cheese sticks for our own little Super Bowl party.

We will probably also make some attempt at riding the newest addition to our "stable" - a tandem bicycle. We want to do some longer rides as a family, and this affords us the opportunity to attach Sidney's trailer bike and roll down the road like a semi! It will take a little practice, but we are looking forward to the Bluebonnet Ride (54 miles) in March.

A little catching up

It isn't that Houston is a boring place, or that we never do anything here. It is just that our lives have returned to "normal." This is the reason there aren't as many posts here as before. Now, our definition of "normal" may not seem that way to others, but I will try to explain.

Kimber works a 9-80 schedule, meaning she works a total of at least 80 hours every nine days, then earns a flex day. She takes the van pool to work on days I am not working, meaning she is up at 5:10 and out the door by 5:40. She gets home around 5:00 p.m., unless she goes to the YMCA to swim or take a class.

I am currently working as an agency nurse, and most of my shifts have been 7 p.m.-7 a.m. in an ER close to our house. I really enjoy the work, especially since it seems you accomplish more on night shift. By that, I mean it usually starts busy then gets slower as you clear the ER out overnight. It is exactly the opposite on days, so it seems like you are running behind by the end of the shift. The agency stuff isn't bad, but not very predictable as to how much I will work during the week.

I am also interviewing for a couple of positions that would allow me to work a regular day shift, meaning I could take Sidney to school and pick her up, and I could continue to work when Kimber is traveling. As it is now, when Kimber travels, I cannot work a 12 hour shift because of the times Sidney has to be dropped off or picked up. The interview process is going well, and I hope to hear more by the beginning of next week on at least one of the positions.

Sidney's "normal" is going to school every day. She goes to the YMCA before- and after-school program, and one of us usually picks her up around 4:30 to come home, do homework, play a little, eat and get ready for bed. Many would say our 7:30 bed time for her is too early, but I believe the sleep does her good. Sidney continues to do very good in school, but also has an issue with staying on task. We are working on that issue.

If Sidney does well with her behavior chart during the week, we all go for frozen yogurt on Friday evening. It is a nice 20 minute or so bike ride from the house, and the yogurt is good.

On the weekends, we try to do something fun on Saturday. This past week, we went to a local store that was having a "Bike University". We all attended a roadside maintenance class, and Kimber learned how to change a tube. Sidney, of course, provided her own coaching and cheer-leading while Kimber practiced. Kimber also went to a concert with a friend on Saturday night. Sidney was a bit under the weather Sunday, so we stayed home from church, though that is our usual Sunday activity.

This coming weekend, Kimber leaves for Norway for a one week trip. She is taking over lots of things for friends there, and I am sure everyone there is anticipating her arrival, much like Christmas! Sidney and I are going to see the Harlem Globetrotters on Saturday night. Sunday, she and I will go to church and get ready for the week ahead. It is supposed to be cool and rainy Sunday, so it will be a good time to finish up homework.

I will try to post pictures from the Globetrotters in the next post.

A White (Sands) Christmas

Well, that was as close to a White Christmas we got this year, but more on that in a moment.

We haven't posted in a while because I have been working (yea!) and Kimber and Sidney have been doing the exciting stuff. Now that the holidays are over and we are back to what we consider "normal", I thought it would be about time to update everyone.



First, Kimber and Sidney did some traveling over the holidays. They left Houston and went to San Antonio, where they spent a day at Sea World. They caught the orca and dolphin show while there. From San Antonio, they drove up to our old stomping grounds in West Texas and saw the house I lived in in San Angelo, the house Kimber and I owned in Sterling City, and had dinner in Midland at Wall Street Bar and Grill (probably one of the best steak houses ANYWHERE!)



After a night in Midland, they headed west to Carlsbad Caverns, where Sidney earned her Junior Ranger badge and the two of them took in the spectacular formations. There are no bats this time of year, so they didn't get to see them leave the cave in the evening.



The next morning, they went through Las Cruces, home of Kimber's alma mater, New Mexico State University. Then it was on to White Sands, the beautiful dunes that dance their way across the desert, for some "playtime" for Sidney. She slid down the dunes, made "sand" angels, and generally had a good time. Unfortunately, this was as close as any of us got to having a white Christmas this year, as it did not snow in Colorado while we were there.

From White Sands, it was north through Santa Fe and on past the cabin Kimber's family built in Westcliffe, Colorado, before heading into Colorado Springs. I stayed in Houston and worked until Christmas Eve, when I flew to the Springs to join everyone.


We spent a very nice holiday with Kimber's parents and got to see many of the nieces and, sisters and others while we were there. The weather was quite temperate for this time of year, and we even spent Christmas afternoon at a park, which provided this view of Pike's Peak.






































We also visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (thanks to Julie for the guiding and helping us with all the animals actual names!) We fed giraffes, saw a porcupine up a tree, and Sidney got to pet a snake, proving that it isn't just her mom that lets her do that (Kimber just lets her play with poisonous ones.)

I headed back to Houston the Monday after Christmas so I could go back to work. Kimber and Sidney stayed in Colorado Springs a couple of more days.



One place they visited while there was Garden of the Gods, a beautiful group of rock formations on the north side of the Springs. In the first picture you can see the "Kissing Camels" formation on the top of the rock. It is named this because it looks like two camels laying face-to-face and kissing. Sidney also took advantage of the large open areas for a game of hide and seek.



Kimber and Sidney were going to travel north to Wyoming before heading back down, but the weather looked like it was going to take a turn, and Kimber had not felt well, so they headed home by going east through Kansas then south into Oklahoma. They spent the night in Oklahoma City and visited the National Memorial to the Oklahoma City bombing victims the next day.

They finally returned to Texas and we spent the New Year taking down and organizing the Christmas decorations.

We are now back at work, school and normal home life, for a little while at least. Kimber travels to Norway at the end of the month for a week. There is also a trip to Chicago coming up in the next couple of months which I think we will all do.

In the meantime, I will try to be a little better about keeping this updated, though our lives here are not as exciting as Norway.

And now the upstairs...

I am finally able to give a tour of the upstairs rooms, as well as show off our Christmas trees. As we have a tendency to buy Christmas ornaments everywhere we go, we now are able to fill two trees. We will start with the trees.

And for the tour, we have the upstairs foyer (2 pictures), media room (two pictures), hobby room (one picture), guest room (two pictures), Sidney's bathroom (one picture) and Sidney's "suite" (two pictures.) As we have mentioned before, we have plenty of room for visitors, so please come and see us!

Sorry this has taken so long!

It has been pretty busy around here this past month. Kimber was traveling when I wrote the last post, and she is traveling again right now. The current trip took her back to Norway again, and then to Aberdeen, Scotland, where she is now. Once she is back, she will be taking vacation, during which time she and Sidney will do some "fun" travel for the holidays.

Part of what has kept us busy around here is my job search. I am in a bit of a tough situation in that I cannot work 12 hour shifts in the ER while Kimber is traveling (daycare here is from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm). Even though I have a Masters degree in nursing and twenty years of experience in leadership and management, I only have one year of actual bedside experience as a nurse. HR departments are hesitant about sending my resume to the unit directors for nursing management positions because they only view me as having one year of nursing experience and do not take the other experience into consideration.

For this reason, I decided to submit my application to a nursing staffing agency. This gives me the flexibility to work when I am available (when Kimber is not traveling), higher pay (it is basically a contracted position), and best of all, allows me to keep working in the ER (which is something I really love doing!) I completed all the paperwork and tests, and am only waiting to finish re-certification on Pediatric Advanced Life Support next week. The agency has assured me that as an ER nurse, they will keep me as busy as I want to be. This will also give me the opportunity to bypass those HR departments and get directly in front of the ER directors and prove my value. Perhaps if I educate them on the role of a Clinical Nurse Leader, they will be interested in creating a position for me.

As for other things, we spent a nice Thanksgiving here at home, then went down to Bolivar to spend a night with Kevin, Dawn and William at Kevin's beach house. The weather was cool, but the cold front that came through made the shelling pretty good. We found several really nice shells, and Sidney had a great time playing with William. We also had some really good meals while we were there, and of course enjoyed the company. On the ferry ride back, there were lots of dolphins swimming near the ferry, which is also always a treat!


Sidney and I have been dealing with the day-to-day stuff here. We did, however, venture over to Space Center Houston and the Johnson Space Center last weekend. The weather was much warmer (near 80F) so I wanted to take advantage of it. We got there early enough to get right on to a tram tour of the space center. The first stop was Mission Control, which is pictured here.


One of the other stops was the vehicle simulation building, where the space station module mock-ups they use for training is located. In addition, the building houses a full-size shuttle mock-up, two other shuttle cockpit models, and several vehicles being developed for future missions to the moon and Mars. You can see a couple of the new rovers in the background here.

During the tram ride, they play an audio presentation that tells about the history of the area and other space-related things. It was very cool when I heard one of the past shuttle and space station astronauts come on and talk about his experiences. His name is Clayton (Clay) Anderson, and he went to church with us when we lived in Friendswood five years ago!



The final stop on the tram tour was the Heritage Park, where rockets of the past are located, including the rockets that carried the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. It is difficult to describe how large the Saturn V rocket really is. Here you see Sidney posing in front of one of the earlier rockets, then in front of one of five exhaust cones of the Saturn V rocket.


Sidney enjoyed the Space Center Houston portion as well, especially the big playground they have inside. I think she would have spent all day there if given the choice. There are a lot of exhibits to see in this part, and one of the newer ones (it wasn't open when we were here before) is the Lunar Rock exhibit. Sidney is posing in front of moon rocks here, which are stored in a large vault.


One final note for this posting - Sidney is doing great in school. Her last progress report was all "A's". She is still enjoying reading, at which she excels. She also seems more settled in class. She is singing in the children's choir at church and is supposed to perform this coming Sunday.

I will try to get some pictures of the outside of the house (decorated for Christmas) as well as the upstairs and post them soon.

Downstairs Virtual Tour

Okay, not a lot of words on this post, but lots of pictures. This is the downstairs of our house.
Entry way
Office
Dining room.
Laundry room.
Foyer to garage.
Kitchen.
Kitchen and breakfast nook.
Living room.
Master bedroom
Master bath.