New Family Photo!!

So it's been forever since I have posted last. Sorry...especially to Shannon who seems to be the only one looking at our blog anyway....love you Shannon!
So this summer has been crazy! Ethan went to three camps and I have been gone 5 weeks out of this summer. It's been a whirlwind for sure. People are having babies....like Shannon and Whitney; people are getting pregnant...Amanda N!! People are moving...like my sister who's moving to NORWAY! Yeah, that's right Norway. I'm totally excited for her but the distance is killer! Brandon, her husband, got a job as an Associate Pastor at North Sea Baptist Church. Totally awesome job. Jenn's going to try and be a substitute teacher at one of the local schools. It was totally God who set all this in motion for them. They sold two cars, all their furniture, and every other thing they own within 1 1/2 weeks! Crazy!  If that ain't a God thing then I'm never going to see one! The first thing they get to is go on this wildly awesome retreat and go water rafting! Jealous? Yes!!! Then at some point they're going to Greece and who knows where else! They're literally traveling the world! Jenn was meant to travel and do missions and do stuff like that. She wasn't meant to be cooped up in a small po-dunk town (called Comanche). So glad she married Brandon who's willing to go to far off places with her!

Any who, we're having a part for Jenn this weekend. Last night we went out to the "Gold Class Cinema" to see "The Switch"... I loved the movie but I loved the theater even more. We have our own personal waiters, we sat in huge comfy recliners, snuggled up to blankets and ate very decedent foods and really fancy pomegranate martini drinks! Living it up high class. Once you go Gold Class you never go back! See you later hard stinky people filled movie theaters with expensive nasty popcorn and cokes. If I'm going to spend money, I'm going to spend it the right way.

Ok enough about that....back to the real world!

Anyways, I got family pictures taken by our near and dear friend and talent photographer Steph Lee so Jenn could have us "with" her.  So now we finally have a family picture of the FOUR of us! YAY!!

Isn't Ethan Hilarious!!!!?

Ethan's Camp and Family Fun

Last week Ethan got to go to his very first camp, Little Buckaroo Mini Horse Camp! We found this camp at a Summer Camp Expo last February and Gigi thought Ethan just HAD to go to this camp.  It's two half days of learning cowboy lingo, basic horse instruction, ranch chores such as: feeding the fish, rabbit, chickens, goats, horses and pot belly pig; gather eggs, water the horses, groom and train a horse.

We also went to the Starlight Music Series and saw an Eagles Cover band called 'Hotel California'...they were ok,  but we were among a bunch of rednecks and punk teenagers. We must have gotten there at a bad time. But it was still fun listening to music and hanging with the family! Below are pictures of us there.

Happy Mother's Day

Well today is Mother's Day. It's not your typical mother's day where the husband let's you sleep in, makes you breakfast in bed, does all the household chores and the kids make you creative things. No today is just another day. Despite all that I am still blessed to be spending the day alone with my two beautiful children. Taking care of them, loving on them and just being with them is my joy for the day. So despite all the traditional things mother's get to do on this special day, it's still special to me. I love my children so much that I'm ok with spending my special day with the little people that have made this day possible for me to be labeled a mommy.

I am also so grateful for my mother who has loved me through this growing process of becoming mommy. She was an excellent example of what a mother is. Self sacrificing, wise, a great teacher, excellent cook, joyful, humble, loving, incredible, knowledgeable, and most of all she gave birth to me. I love my mother so much that now she's my best friend. I'm so glad that I get to walk side by side with her as she still mother's me while I mother my children. How truely blessed that I got, get and will spend my life with such a wonderful woman of God. I truely love you more than you will ever know. Thank you for being my mom!

How do I describe the events that unfolded yesterday evening?

I'm trying to eliminate as much drama from my life as possible, but the annoyance that it is, came in full force last night.
There we are 6:45, 7ish range, Sunday evening enjoying ourselves in our backyard, playing, relaxing, putting the final touches on our newly re-redone pond area, when we look up to the left of the house, stands this Bryan Police Officer with his big AR-15 (a really big A** gun). He says, "What's going on?", we respond, "What do you mean, 'What's going on?'". The officer then says, "You didn't hear any gun shots around here did you or see a 14 year old girl with a shot gun?".
-Pause for a moment and here are my thoughts going through my mind: 'What in the world!?" "Is this a joke?" "That's a really big A** gun?" "Is this for real?" "Are they pulling a prank on Dusty?"...
-Here are Dusty's thoughts, "Hey dude!" "Cool Gun!" "Am I on Punked?" 
Then we turn to the right of the house and there stands two more officers, one with a shot gun and one with a machine gun. OK OK, this is no joke. So our thoughts totally shift from 'Is this a joke?' to 'Holy crap, what's going on?' and "Kids get behind me".
The dialogue sort of went like this, "You guys didn't hear any gun shots?", 'No'. "You didn't see a girl with a shot gun running around here did you?", 'No'. "Is there anyone in the house?", 'Uhm, no, we just got back from church and came straight to the back yard'. "So, no one else is in the house?" 'Not that we know of'. "Dispatch, please confirm location - 'whay whay whay whay' - this is 2317 correct?" 'Yes' "And there's no one else in the house?" 'Uhmmmm...."  "May we go inside to check?", 'Uhm yeah!'.
While all this is going on one more officer creeps up from the neighbors yards, the K-9 unit. At this point the officers know it's not us that reported the incident nor are we the one's even being involved. There was a mass confusion of whether or not they had the correct location. All the while I think two more officers snuck up to join the party. I am totaly freaked out at this point and all I cared about was getting out from the back yard and behind those officers. Poor Dusty probably has nail impressions in his arms from me squezzing so hard.
We finally proceed to get out from the back yard and move toward the officer with georgeous german shepard when the neighbor boy pops out of his house to see what's going. Dusty and I start yelling at him to get back inside and we follow him into his house.
When it's all said and done and the house is cleared of the 'boogy man' (or in this instance a craized teenage girl with a shot gun killing cats) there we stand with 5 officers in full armor with huge A** guns and total confusion about where this call came from.
After about 20 or so minutes of dileberating with dispatch and talking to the neighbors, we come to find out that the neighbor boy, who is 11, was dared by his 'friends' who he was chatting with online to call into 9-1-1 to report this. The officers couldn't orginally trace the call because the boy was using SKYPE. Immidetly two officers took the boy around the corner of the house and start drilling and lecturing him about the seriousness of this incident. The officers come and talk to us or mediate the converstaion they had with the boy. He tells us the boy has to write us a formal letter of appology, do 30 days of chores at our house everyday after school, and the city of bryan is not going press charges.

I cannot believe we were totally surrounded by 5 officers with exteremly big guns trying to find a teenage girl with a shot gun killing cats. Did that really just happen to us?!

Though I do have to say this. I was totally, totally impressed about the sneaky skills that Bryan PD had. We didn't even hear them open the front gates or even walking up on us. It was total suprise. They also were very professional because Dusty knew most of those guys because he works for the county and deals with them on a daily basis.That's why we thought it was a joke. Bryan PD was very curtious and kind to us through the whole process.
But get this...one of our friends who works the night shift is a Bryan PD officer is a part of that team. But since it was Sunday he goes in late and was not there. I can only imagine if he was on shift at the time and the thoughts going through his mind..."What? That's the Maxwells!" We really would have thought it was a joke if we saw him there.

With all that said, my thoughts shift from being freaked out about the whole situation to, 'How can we now minister to this boy who has no father figure in his life and doesn't know Jesus.' Looks like that's our next mission...

Why in the world does drama surround me? I don't like it. I don't operate well with it. But it sure loves me!