Life with the St-Onges...

Happy New Year!

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 21:26:31 -0600

Since I included this address on our Christmas letter, I figured I had better update the page. Not sure how many checked it out and figured it was too out of date to return to. Anyway, Happy New Year to all and our prayers for a healthy and prosperous 2010.

Here are a few photos from Christmas and our recent trip to Canada. We went to the Butterfly conservatory here in Houston the Chase Tower on Christmas Eve day. We left for Ottawa via Syracuse on Dec. 25. There are photos with 4 generations, beautiful jumpers lovingly made by Nana, watching the snow plow out the front door, “sliding”, fun with cousins, and the Museum of Science and Technology.

Charles celebrated his 37th birthday on Dec. 31 and we were glad to be with family.

Happy Father's Day

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 20:26:54 -0500

Charles actually had two days off in a row so we had a Father’s Day weekend! We stared with a trip to Galveston on Friday. Olivia was so excited to return to the water and waves and Sophia was content to sit on the towel and eat every possible snack that she could find in the bag. They both had a good time and we did eventually get Sophia to get her feet wet.

(BTW: The city looked really good or the most part. A lot of the vegetation looked damaged [too much salt water?], but many of the buildings and homes were well repaired. It was sad to see the lost piers and the beautiful hotel on a pier that were beyond repair. Reconstruction is still underway).

Our bathing beauties...

On Saturday we took a ride on a Choo Choo (as Sophia calls it). The Houston Area Live Steamers (HALS) is a club that does live steam modeling. It was hot (duh), but lots of fun! Thanks to our friend Olivia Riha for the photos of our family on the train.

Today we continued the celebration of the baptism of Bryn Bartley at a luncheon at the Lakeside Country Club. What a beautiful event and we were grateful that our family was included. Here are a few more photos of our favorite dad with his girls! Hope you all had contact with your loved ones today. God bless your week!

VBS ends in success

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:14:16 -0500

We ended our VBS week with a short closing program and hot dog lunch. What a great feeling not to have our family directing the entire thing for the first time in five years. It made the work we did do seem pretty reasonable! Now summer can truly begin. Well, except for Charles! He had a memorial service this afternoon and a lock-in with the Senior High youth tonight. The relationship complications at the high school level require a different kind of supervision. Let’s hope he gets a little sleep!

The girls and I got to enjoy the pool this afternoon and we did get to eat dinner with Dad. Leftover roast beef with Montgomery Inn sauce made for some great BBQ sandwiches. Thank goodness for Kroger - it’s a little bit of home down here in Texas! We could use some of the rain and cooler weather from home, too. 98 degrees is just a little too hot. (humidex - 105) Charles’ Aunt Louise had to turn the heat on in Ontario last week because she said she was tired of being cold! Imagine!!!

For now, it’s water and fruit bars for us - and lots of sunscreen!

I'm still here!!!

Sat, 6 Jun 2009 21:19:23 -0500

I am officially back to being a full time homemaker again as of noon yesterday. Whew - we made it! I am assuming I will be getting my “old life” back in short order. Today was CPR training and pretending like the house doesn’t really need cleaned.

I have to say that I couldn’t have done it without my fabulous husband who was unbelievable in every way in making my teaching time a success. The photo above was taken on a field trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science last week. I have to admit that I loved teaching again. I hate to admit that I like it better than some of the things I’m responsible for at home when I’m not doing school. Oh well, at least I had a taste of the fun - and the work - and that should tide me over for a bit!

Highlights since my last entry:
Nana and Papa St.Onge come for Easter!

Sunday School Easter Egg Hunt

Nana made dresses and purses and supplied the bonnets! Wonderful Easter Breakfast...

Touring the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory - Yum!!! Admiring the Texas Bluebonnets - Beautiful.

Olya cuts her own hair. Wow - look at all that off the top and even in the back. Maybe we need a professional to help us get it looking tolerable for the end of the school year...

“After”

Charles and Pastor Murray with the 2009 Confirmation Class

Hopefully, the entries will be a bit more regular over the summer. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to update from my parents’ house, though, so it’s hard to say. The girls are certainly providing plenty to talk about these days, so there should be no shortage of material. I hope your spring has been as interesting and fun as ours and that we have fun stories to share in the coming months.

Of note: Charles is now blogging for the Houston Chronicle. You can check it out at:
http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/lutherant.html

Happy Spring!

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:18:32 -0500

Spring Cleaning came to the St-Onge household today - mostly to Olivia’s room. We pulled out all her toys and doll paraphernalia and attempted to organize it all. I was getting frustrated with her putting things on her shelves at night but without it looking “neat”. We bought three containers at IKEA last week and I hope it will help. I took pictures of the items to go in each container in an effort to help her know where things go. We’ll see...

Shout out to Aunt Ann who is having a birthday today. Happy Birthday to you!

We celebrated the first day of spring with the grill and the inaugural dinner in our gazebo. It was a balmy 75 degrees and simply beautiful for eating outside. We’re enjoying it for now as we know the “tolerable to be outdoors” season is not long down here. Hang in there all of you still enjoying the chilliness of the north. Your time will come!

Have a happy day!

“After”

Our day at the rodeo

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:12:18 -0500

So, technically, it’s the “Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo”, but mostly everyone just calls it the rodeo. It’s the largest one in the world and it really is pretty impressive - even if you’re just there for a limited time on a school field trip. During the day is when the animals are shown, judged, and auctioned and at night is when the real fun begins with the rodeo competitions and concerts. Outside is a HUGE carnival and people even attend that without going to the rodeo at all.

Besides looking at all the animals, there are equipment vendors and demonstrations for a variety of farm related items and topics. We saw newborn calves and piglets and chicks hatching out of their eggs. The kids could pet rabbits and look at a wide variety of breeds. The longhorns on display were gigantic and I have to say it kind of makes me want to eat less meat after being around it all. There was a neat demonstration on milking a cow which all the kids loved and right before we left we got to see the “Wild West Dog Show.” That was cool because all of the dogs had been rescued.

Mostly, it was indoors which was a big plus because it dropped 30 degrees overnight and I didn’t dress the girls (or me) as warmly as I should have. We managed at the outdoor pig races, farm to market educational experience and the petting zoo, but we were all ready to head back inside after that.

When we were here 7 years ago, we splurged and went to see Lyle Lovett. No such luck this year, but it was fun to be there with two little ones this time and to enjoy it through their eyes.

A couple more photos here and the rest are in the album you can access above...

Daddy Gets All the Fun

Sat, 7 Mar 2009 16:42:21 -0600

The weather has been so nice here these past few days. Last
night I was outside with the girls and “their kids”. Truly, I
had no idea (or had forgotten) how real these babies are.
Olya insisted on posing with them for family portraits.

Today, Charles was the one that got to have all the fun. He
found a new park that has restrooms and drinking fountains
and not too many people. Ideal! It’s about a 20 min. bike
ride to get there and 30 min. home against the headwind.

I had the joyful task of working on our taxes while they were
out enjoying the spring weather. Usually, I get pretty grouchy
when I’m doing taxes. It’s been this way forever. I was
priding myself (oops! danger...) on not getting too wigged out
this year and WHAM a letter from our mortgage company.
Our house was reassessed at some point since the purchase and
we now owe an extra $1000 for the past year. Yeah, that hurts.

Can I get some stimulus money???

Oh well, at least Charles had an enjoyable father/daughter excursion. Can’t believe it is warm enough for shorts and t-shirts...

Belated Valentine

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:33:57 -0600

Enjoy this little snapshot of the girls. Not sure if it’s inappropriate to post it on Ash Wednesday, but I didn’t want to get too far in to Lent! Cheers...

Laughter Is Good for the Soul...

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:31:15 -0600

Here is a little taste of our nephew Drew’s engaging personality. He is actually like this about 95% of the time. What a blessing to his parents and his entire family. Can’t wait to see how he develops over the next few months...

Happy Feb. 19!

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:42:47 -0600

Ok, so I hadn’t realized how much I had been procrastinating on blog entries! We have celebrated Sophia’s birthday, welcomed 4 visitors from Canada, celebrated Valentine’s Day and the baptism birthdays of Charles and Sophia. It has been a fun filled 6 wks.

Sophia turned two on Jan. 13. Nana and Papa St. Onge made last minute arrangements to arrive on her birthday and brought with them Aunt Lara and our nephew, Drew. We were pleased to have them for a whole week. We thought the girls would go crazy with a real baby in the house.

This was the best picture I got from her birthday.
We didn’t even get a photo of the cake, although
we did capture some nice video. Drew is always
looking at the camera!!! i haven’t seen a bad
picture of him yet, but Sophia has not made up too
well with the camera. Nana made the lovely
Raggedy Ann doll sitting next to Olivia.

The girls enjoyed “mothering” Drew and after a bit of rearranging, we found a way to accommodate everyone sleeping through the night. Sophia was kind enough to share her cold with everyone, so we went through several boxes of tissues and borrowed a vaporizer so we had one in each room. She was also cutting her molars, so it was big fun!

Olivia has a turn holding Drew.... Sophia has a turn....

There were several trips to the park, trips to Sonic for half price slushies, walks in the neighborhood, jumping on the trampoline, and playing with new toys. We also had a beautiful picture taken with grandparents and grandchildren together. It is a lovely memento of the visit. A friend from church provided us with three tickets to Space Center Houston, so the middle generation ditched the kids with Nana and Papa and spent the day touring the really cool space center. Charles and I did not get to do this when we went to Mission Control, so it was fascinating for all of us. If you ever get a chance, we do recommend a visit there.

The week really flew by and we had to send our visitors back to the snow and cold of Ontario. Brrr... (Unfortunately for us, summer is coming...)

View from the kitchen to the St. Onge deck. Yes, there is patio furniture under there and the snow is piled half way up the door... (and no, it’s not a drift)!