The Sun is Rising...

The sun doesn't rise until nearly an hour after we do. Monday - first day of school, first day of high school for Abate, Fantu is in the eighth grade. I'm up at 5:45 am. I need to get Abate up and up to the athletics field by 6:30 am for cross county practice. It is still dark when I drop him. I head back home and make sure Fantu is up and getting ready, she is. The sun has decided to put in an appearance, the sky is brightening quickly. The sky is clear and the forecast calls for 103f later in the day, it's already 80f. By 7:00 am I am out the door, stop off at Mom's then at 7:14 am head to work. I call Fantu and make sure she is heading out the door to catch the bus. I tell her that her friend Grace is waiting on the next corner and she can go wait with her if she'd like. The sun is rising quickly, I drive east into the sun, that really wakes me up and gets me going for the day. A new school year has begun.

The week is now drawing to a close. Both are happy with their classes and teachers. Fantu began Cross Country workouts on Wednesday. She won't race for several more weeks yet. Abate's days are long - football practice is after school and he doesn't get home until after 5. Thursday was their first real game. They played Brownwood, a real powerhouse in 3A. They lost 34-16. I missed the game as they played too early for me to get back in town from work. According to Abate he didn't play much but when he did he made some brilliant plays. The coaches didn't play him too much knowing that this morning he had his first Cross Country meet. Varsity Cross Country is a 3 mile run ( it was 2 miles last year). He would be one of only a handful of 9th graders running on a varsity team. He was competing in a field of an estimated 120 runners. He placed 15th. I think he did amazing. He was disappointed. Only the top 10 receive medals - he likes to get medals. I hope he can realize what a great accomplishment this was. I think he forgets his first year running in Jr. High he struggled to place in many of the races. He will only improve. The sun is rising on this talented young man.
Another school year to conquer. We have many more sunrises to see for the many months to come. By winter we will watching quite a few sunsets. Beginnings and endings, accomplishments and failures, celebrations and sorrow. Always a sunrise bringing the promise of a new day.

A Silent Saturday

Fantu was at Cheer practice all day and Abate our with friends. Tonight they are going Midnight Extreme Bowling. I finished making my necklace and earings for Football Thurdays and the kids are all outfitted and ready for school.

So I'll end it here and enjoy the silence. Just some pictures taken today.

It's apPARENTly a Time to be Proud!

I guess someone didn't want me to brag about my two kids the other day. After telling a very good story about more of my kids accomplishments with photos the internet connection went followed by a crash of Internet Explorer on my laptop and it was gone. Oh nooooo!!!!All that work and it's gone. I was a bit baffled as it saves automatically as I type, but there it was a blank screen and nothing there on the saved/edit page. So Here I go again but I know it won;t be as poetic as before because i just don't seem to have the time right now nor the memory to re-create that which came before.


We are in the final week of summer vacation. This time last year Abate was in the hospital, miserable, leashed to an IV of antibiotics. I was glued to his bedside. This year he is playing football, already played in his first scrimmage. He had a brilliant tackle - the other player was twice his size but Abate held on and wouldn't let go - dragged about ten yards down the field until he finally btought the big brute down. He is also running cross country, 3 miles this year. He made the Varsity team!!! He in the second fastest runner at his school.

Fantu is looking forward to cheerleading. They have a full day practice this Saturday, I think the first game is in 3 weeks. I can't wait to see her cheer. How cute she will be!!! She'll be extra cute as she still rolls her Rrrr's - so everytime she says Horrrrnets - it's just too cute!

So pictures I guess and I'll hope this post. It's going to be busy around here the next few months, but I'll do my best to keep everyone and the blog posted!

I'm Proud to be an American..

As the celebrations came to an end and the clean-up nearly complete with the help of Abate and his numerous friends they all sang as the last bits were carried away "I'm Proud to be an American!" Alan got quite the laugh hearing this group of teenage boys sing this at the end of the day. Proud to be Americans? I know that on Thursday I saw an overwhelming amount of pride on the faces of 355 people from 68 different countries that became our newest citizens.

Fantu went along with us but Abate stayed home as it was the first week of football practice. He was stressing about all the what-ifs if he missed a practice so we agreed to let him stay behind rather than make him go and have him be miserable for the day. Fantu was at times a bit bored by it all. I did get the opportunity to take her to the Alamo and a quick bit of shopping before the ceremony began.

On the way home she asked " Why do so many people want to become Americans? " So many different reasons - as many as there are people doing it. During the ceremony they listed and had the people stand as they read off all 68 countries represented there that day. Some of them do make you wonder. Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Brazil. Others seem a bit more obvious - Nigeria, Ghana, Bosnia, Burma, Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Mexico, Ethiopia, Czechoslovakia. Why do they take the risk - a leap of faith to start over in a foreign land. Again there are probably as many reasons as there are people. But with Fantu we talked about the more obvious - Economic opportunities here and the freedoms we enjoy that many other people around the world do not share. By becoming a citizen of the United States they are guaranteed these rights and the possibility of personal success not only to themselves but to their children and hopefully future generations.

Our BB-Q to celebrate was great fun. The kids had a load of friends over which they thoroughly enjoyed and Alan and I had family, friends and neighbors join us to share this once in a lifetime event. I even had a good friend that I hadn't seen in 6 years make the drive to spend a few hours with us. All the planning and prep and one very tired hostess was well worth it to have a day that we will long remember.

The girls all got into the spirit of the day and showed us that they can all be a "Uncle Sam too!"

Proud to be an American.

America needs another Irish-American

This Thursday will be a special day, Alan will take his oath of citizenship. The ceremony will be a group swearing in down in San Antonio. One more Irish American with voting rights! Actually a liberal democrat Irish American with voting rights! Hey we need all the help we can get here in Texas. The right to vote is one of main reasons Alan wanted his citizenship. It was hard for him to sit idly by with all the high emotions that drive our political process here. So come next year his vote will be among those being counted as we head off to the polls once again.

Alan and I have been married for fifteen years now, the past eight we have lived in the USA. We discussed the pros and cons of him becoming a US citizen. But now with a family to think of it put a few more checks in the pro-citizenship category . So this past Spring he submitted his application, had interviews and exams. Fingerprints and background checks (even though it has been just slightly over 2 years since we did this for the adoption). I was surprised at how quickly it all went. I know they have said that due to the slow economy that applications were down. But I really thought it would be late Autumn or even winter before we'd be celebrating such a momentous day.

I often questioned Alan these past few weeks if he was sure about his decision. The state of our political system right now is just in shambles. It's embarrassing at times to see our elected officials behaving in the manner in which they do. One has even publicly said " My only goal is to make sure Obama doesn't get re-elected". He could care less about what destruction he causes our economy and country just so he can make President Obama look bad and potentially lose the election. It really has become a place of lunacy. I do not understand how so many of these politicians have lost sight of doing the best for the people and the country. How does their mind work? How do they live with themselves when the decisions they make or more often fail to make negatively impact so many Americans lives? Has this scared Alan away? No, I think it just gave him all the more incentive to have his voice heard.

So what do you do after you become a citizen? Well for us it has meant THROW A PARTY! BBQ, beer, hotdogs, soda, cake, pies and hopefully lots of fun with friends, neighbors and family. So we have been preparing for this for weeks now. We even went and bought a new gas grill - which I spent 2 hours on Saturday afternoon assembling. We also had to buy a new lawnmower as our old one dies right in the middle of the yard on Saturday. Alan loves his new one, we got a great deal on a top of the line Craftsman. The yard has been groomed and new plants are about. It's looking the best ever. House is slowly getting cleaned and we are preparing to celebrate our newest Irish-American!