At Home in the Mountains

Fall is here. The past few days have been gorgeous here in Dallas. We have had the windows open and Aaron was even chilled this morning. He tried to suggest that we go ahead and shut the a/c down but I exnayed that. I have spent all summer scorching in this house. I am not opposed to using the a/c a bit in the afternoon to keep the temperature comfortable. Finally! We spent the weekend planting flowers and transplanting a tree that came up volunteer in our flowerbed out front. It is a pretty good sized elm tree but we aren't sure if it's going to make it. The roots were tangled up with a bush so we had to get out the saw to get it it out and uproot the bush in the process too. It looks really nice in the yard so I hope it can pull through. This month has brought a lot of stuff to process. Almost more than I can handle. I think my emotional circuits have just shorted out in a lot of ways. On September 10th my sister and brother-in-law had their beautiful baby Bethany Anne Hall. ...

I forgot something in the first post and have added it to the bottom: Holly asked me to type "in my own words" about the Ironman 70.3 Branson trip. I'll start off saying that this isn't the real Ironman, it is only a half Ironman, or as I like to call it the Aluminum man-- a little joke for the chemists in the group (hint look at protons). None the less, this thing was very very tough!!! Okay, so the run down of the weekend. The Fletcher team was short two for the trip as Maddy had been traveled out so Holly and Maddy stayed home on Friday. I left with a student that came as a spectator on Friday about 3pm. We had great fellowship and discussions about life, science, spiritual matters etc., and that made the trip there go very fast. We got in about 11pm and then stayed up and talked with the group tell way to late. I forgot my pillow (1 of a long list of "forgots") and my allergies caused me to scratch out my eyeballs, leaving me with my worst nights s...

We took a flying trip to West Texas this weekend to see great grandparents, grandparents, and other various family members. I had some great pictures of Maddy visiting everyone and pediasure spilled on the camera on the way home. I think the camera is truly toast this time. Ugg! I hope I can get the pictures of my SD card still if I take it to Wal-Mart. If I can I will share those pics in a future post. I took the pics of our visit to the zoo on my camera on my phone. At least I still have that I guess. Maddy sure had a great time visiting and playing with all of her cousins. We got to Farwell at 2a.m. Saturday morning. Later that day, Brandon and Amanda, Mikali, Daniel,Rachel, Aunt Sherry, and later Uncle Weldon all came over to visit. Mikali and Daniel get cuter every time I see them and they are such good kids. They are a blessing to the Embry family. We had a pizza lunch with everyone and hung out and talked and watched the kids most of the day. On Sunday we went to Lubbock to see ...

I haven't done a post just about Maddy in awhile. She turned 17 mo. at the end of August. It is crazy how the time has flown by. Sometimes I can't believe it because she is so small. Anyway here are somethings that she's been doing lately, etc. This morning she figured out how to take her diaper cover off. Oh joy. I've also been trying to let her use a spoon and feed herself a little bit. I'm sure you can imagine the mess that's been. She is pulling up a lot. Here she is chasing the letter Z over the side of the tub. Should I let her stand up in the tub you ask? Well........... This was at my parents house. She loves putting things where they go. Glasses on faces, lids on jars, puzzle pieces in puzzles, etc. She still loves books and loves watching Baby Einstein videos while she's in her stander. She is starting to say a lot of words and she definitely knows what you are saying about almost everything. Here are some words she likes to say: dogs, flowers, ice...