Spring Break...Girls Weekend!

My friends Britni, Heather, Carrie and I get together once a year for a girls weekend. We started this 6 years ago when I moved back home from Dallas and we haven't missed a year yet. I look so forward to it every year. This year we decided to go to Britni's family camp house in Paris...Paris, TX that is :) Maybe one day we will go to Paris...I can dream right! So far, none of us have had to cancel on the trip but this year Heather couldn't go. Her father-in-law passed away the week before the trip and she was way behind in home schooling her girls. She had been traveling to East Texas almost every weekend with her newborn baby and girls to be with her father-in-law when he was in the hospital. Needles to say she just couldn't make it work out and we all completely understood. She lives in Allen, TX which was on our way to Paris so we stopped by her house to visit before we went to the camp.

I was so excited to get to see Heather's little girl who is now 4 months old. I couldn't believe how alert and active she was.

Sweet Karah It's funny because we never bring gifts on girls weekend but this year we all brought gifts for each other. Last year, I had an idea to get pictures from all of our girls weekends and put them in a photo album that we can continue and one day when we are 80 look back at all our girls weekends. Britni gave us each a cute scarf and Heather gave us a set of silver measuring spoons.

Carrie, gave us a digital photo book last year of our girls trips and she knew about the photo album I was making. We both had the same idea but since hers was digital and mine was an album we both decided to do it. She is going to print us a digital one every 5 years that way we can have both. As you can tell we are all picture people!!

Heather, Me, Carrie, and Britni

After we left Heather's we went out to Britni's parent's house in Paris before heading to the camp to eat supper with them and to see her little boy.. Pierson. I haven't seen him since last year so I couldn't believe how big he was. He just turned 2 on March 5 (my birthday too)! I call him my little birthday buddy. We had fun watching him hit the tee ball and run all over the living room and back to home plate :) Britni commented that her parents would have never let them hit a tee ball in the house...funny how grand kids can get away with anything :)

Britni's dad and her husband Wade built walking trails and a deck in her parent's backyard for her wedding. It is so beautiful! We walked the trials and took some pictures while we were there.

Britni with her mom, dad and Pierson

Me and my birthday buddy

The walking trails

Fire pit

More trails....Wade and Britni's dad hand laid the stones for the trails

This is the deck that we danced on at Britni's wedding. She got married in her parent's backyard and then the reception was in the backyard and in this area with lights wrapped around every tree...it was incredibly beautiful! She told me while we were there that I could get married at her parent's if I want....I told her I might just have to take her up on that :) We will see!

After we left her parent's house we went to the camp house. Her mom's family has about 200 acres of land and her dad and uncles built the family camp house on the land out of reclaimed wood and material from old barns, buildings, etc.. I have been there once before but it was Carrie's first time.

We spent pretty much the whole next day riding 4-wheelers through all the trails and had so much fun. The weather was perfect...not too hot and not too cold. I love being outside in nature and the land they have is so pretty. There were wildflowers growing in the fields and we even saw several deer while we were riding. They just stood there and looked at us...I guess they knew we were harmless.

Carrie and Britni

We also rode the 4-wheelers into Tigertown where Britni grew up. The camp is actually in Tigertown which is about 30 minutes from Paris. This is a picture of the old store Britni used to go to when she was a kid.

In Tigertown we stopped by her Grandad's house. We had to take a picture on his big ole' John Deer tractor :)

Britni and her Grandad... Isn't he the cutest ever?

Britni helped him move some things out of his shed with the front loader to the back of his property because the weather channel was reporting bad hail that night and we were going to park my car under the shed. It ended up not even raining...you know it would have rained if we hadn't cleaned out the shed!

On Saturday, Britni's parent's came to the camp and brought Pierson.

All Pierson wanted to do was ride the 4-wheeler with Poppi

This is the view off the front porch of the pool (apparently, in North Texas they call ponds pools). Britni's dad said they knew a guy who moved there from South Texas and bought a house that came with a pool...he thought he was getting a swimming pool but it was really a pond :)I would have thought the same thing. We call that a pond or fishing hole.

We ate lunch one day on the pier

Inside the cabin

We slept in the loft area..there are 3 beds on one side and 3 on the other side

There is another bedroom downstairs

Front porch

I have always dreamed of having a family lake house and going to Britni's families camp made me realize just how much I would love a place like that one day. My brother and sister also want one and we have all said that in a few years if it is possible we want to look into it. I think it would be worth the investment to have a place where family can get together and just hang out and have fun. I would love to spend holidays and weekends there with my family and in the future have all of our kids there so they can spend time with their aunts, counsins, and grandparents. It would be a place to build memories and I pray one day my dream becomes reality. Britni's family is so blessed to have their family camp!

Since Heather couldn't come this time we decided to do another trip to the camp this summer. I am looking so forward to going back and getting to see them again. I could seriously live out there and just might not come back from the summer trip :)

Trade Days, Boudain, and Chocolate Punch

Me, Tiffany, Meredith, and Kathy

This past Sunday I went to the Old Time Trade Days in Winnie with a group of people from church. It was out pastor's wife, Kathy's, birthday and we had a lot of fun. I love going out there this time of year because it's not too hot yet. Tiffany just moved to this area so this was her first time to go.

The first thing we did was head straight to the food. The food is honestly my favorite part although I always get the same thing...a hand dipped corn dog and lemonade. One food that is unique to this area is boudain. I forget that not everyone knows what boudain is. When I lived in Dallas I remember being so surprised that nobody had ever heard of boudain before. Southeast Texas has a lot of Cajun influences being that we are so close to Lousianna and boudain and gumbo are two of my favorite!

If you grew up in Southeast Texas your dad grilled boudain on the grill right next to the hamburgers, there are boudain balls at every fair or carnival, and churches sold it on the side of the road along with links for fundraisers....boudain was a staple like chicken. If you have never tried it you are missing out. I convinced Tiffany to try some boudain balls and she loved them. She was a little hesitant at first because I couldn't explain everything that was in boudain...all I knew was rice, spices, pork, and that's about it. To tell you the truth I don't know if I really want to know everything :)

Boudain Balls..boudain rolled into balls and fried..so yummy!

Package of boudain .....you can buy this in the grocery store around here and you cook it just like you would sausage and eat it on a bun, grill it, etc..

Speaking of good food we had a baby shower at work for a co-worker and they had the best punch I have ever tasted. If you love chocolate as much as I do you will love this!!

Chocolate Punch

1 1/2 quarts Boiling Water
1/4 cup instant coffee
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Nesquik
1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream
1/2 gallon chocolate ice cream

Dissolve dry ingredients in the boiling water. Mix well and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve put the ice cream int o the coffee/chocolate mixture by large spoonfuls.Mix until slushy.

Makes about 20-25 servings

Birthday Week

My birthday was last Saturday and my mom took me on a mini-vacation to Houston for the night. We left early on Saturday and spent the day at the Galleria. We ate at my favorite restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory, for lunch, dinner, and breakfast on Sunday morning. We stayed at the Omni hotel and had a great time. I didn't take any pictures that weekend but I did take some last night when I celebrated my birthday again with my friends, Katie and Alecia.

We went to Carabbas to eat and then to Rao's Bakery for dessert and coffee.

Rao's is one of our favorite places to go and get coffee, dessert, and sit and catch up. On Friday's they have live music now and the two guys singing last night were really good. They even sang some Christian songs which I loved!

Birthdays are so much fun and I am so grateful that I got to spend it this year with my mom and these girls!

Freedom Writers

Manuel and his family

I am taking a counseling class this semester at Lamar and for one of our class meetings we were able to go hear Manuel Scott speak. He was one of the original students of Mrs. G in the true life story that was made into a movie called, Freedom Writers, with Hilary Swank. I had seen the movie and really liked it but I wasn't prepared for how much his story would touch me. You can read his whole story by clicking the link above but I will try and tell it in a nutshell.....

Manuel was born and raised in the ghetto with a father in prison who he had never even met and a mother who was in an abusive relationship. He ended up on drugs and dropped out of school at 16. One day while sitting on a park bench, a man walked up to him and asked him why he wasn't in school. Manuel told him he had dropped out and the man began to tell him his own story about how he had got hooked on cocaine and lost his job, family, and everything but how someone had helped him and he was now clean and a changed man. He first introduced Manuel to his Christian faith (which Manuel could not go into at Lamar but he made it clear that that was the first thing that happened to turn his life around) and then the man encouraged him to go back to school. Manuel did go back to school and eventually got in Mrs. G's class. Mrs. G was a 22 year old student teacher that was going to law school when the Rodney King Riots broke out in LA. She was so disturbed by the anger and violence she saw in so many of the inner city kids causing the riots in the streets that she decided to change career paths and go back to school to be a teacher in the inner city to help students like Manuel. Manuel and all his classmates are called the original "Freedom Writers" and because of Mrs. G they graduated high school and most of them went on to graduate from college and like Manuel get their Masters Degree and Doctorate Degree. It is an amazing story and so encouraging for me as a teacher!!

If you haven't seen this movie I recommend renting it soon. I love movies about true stories and to actually get to hear one of the students tell his story was awesome! One of the characters in the movie (I forget which one now) was actually based off Manuel's life.


At the end of his speech he quoted one of my favorite poems called, If, by Rudyard Kipling. What is so amazing is that at one point in high school his English was so bad that his teachers actually thought he was an ESL (English as a Second Language) student. They thought since his name was Manuel that he was half Hispanic and that his family spoke Spanish at home, but as you can see he is 100% African American. He was even put in an ESL class in high school with all Hispanic students. Now he's quoting poetry!!! I love a changed life and his story reminds me that one person can make a big difference in the life of a child. I want to be a teacher like Mrs. G!!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!