HE'S GOT THE PAPER! IT"S OFFICIAL!

On May 20th, Dr. D Brent Halling finally graduated with his PhD. He would like to thank his Parents for making the trek to see it, and for all their love and support. Also thanks to our cousins in Houston who threw a party for him and put up the whole family for the night. It is always fun to see you. And thanks to our wonderful friends who watched our boys during the graduation. The boys were very happy to be with you instead. Thanks to all. Oh and I'm sure, he thanks his wife too:).

Mother's Day

My boys did a fabulous job for M-day. Kenneth probably won most creative present for making me a rock basket out of 100% recyclable material. Brent also got me Josh Groban "Awake" concert on dvd. Sam wrote me a book about a fish, and Evan gave me his hand print. But I think the icing on the cake was coming home after meeting one of my favorite authors and finding my home really clean! Brent said the boys cleaned without complaint too. Oh the joy!

Stepenie Meyer

I had the most wonderful experience last weekend. I got to meet Stephenie Meyer! She had a book signing for her new Sci-fi book The Host. I just finished it yesterday and I was impressed. It has nothing to do with her amazing Twilight series, but it was very good.

I couldn't get any of my video clips to download but it's amazing to hear her talk. It was almost like a RS lesson. (Also I think she's pregnant. We both have 3 boys and it would be cool if she got a girl too.) I had a blast with my friends from Houston, and I miss them so very much. Thanks for the ticket Tara, and it was great to see you guys again.

Adoring Saturn

Our neighbor Phil shares our passion of the night time sky. He recently set up his GPS/autolocator telescope to find interesting sights, and it was a perfect night for viewing Saturn, even in a ligthed subdivision in Central Texas. We experimented using Katie's new camera by holding it up to the eypiece of his telescope, and with a single click of the camera tells an amazing story of what we can see. We did not fully optimize the shutter opening considering we could see four of Saturn's moons with our own eyes, but the best camera images could show the largest moon, Titan. Even in these images you can see some of the color we saw. I made this montage of some of the clearer images. If you download and image enhance, you would be able to make out Titan a little below and to the left of the smallest Saturn image. Saturn is truly a remarkable sight!

Stupid Karma!

Well I know things happen in three's so this better be it! My washer broke, then my camera was destroyed, that's two. Well yesterday, I called my auto insurance to check on our coverage. She said we had unlimited small accident forgiveness. I said

"That's good. I hope I don't hit anyone anyway."

Me and my big stupid mouth. Today, I pulled into a small parking spot and scraped against a red minivan. They were in their car and the guy immediately started talking about the paint and buffer the ancient van was going to need. "Lucky you didn't dent it though." He smiled slyly. In my mind I hoping it's less than $500 bucks but this guy could have easily made it worse, than I wouldn't be covered. Anyway, His wife got sick of sitting in the car, so she yelled it him to drop it and go. He wasn't to happy about that. Oh well. Well, whether it was Murphy's law, Karma, Dogma, or the luck of the draw, I'm keeping my big mouth shut from now on.

Another Fun Trip.

It was another fun weekend with our friends in Houston. Brent had to work at Baylor so the rest of us tagged along.

Tara and I.

Sam and Alex

I LOVE POPSICLES!

Dethroning King Kenneth!

Kenneth tries Ramon noodles for the first time and really likes them. Soooo GROSS!

Ben tries to spray Kenneth and Sam but Kenneth thwarts his plans by clamping the hose.

Monkey Evan.

Death of a camera.

My faithful camera has died. Even though I was upset about the corrupted memory card, I didn't want it to go the way it did. ONE of my children turned on the camera making the lens pop out. Then the anonymous child closed it by stomping on it. When I called the camera repair store, they informed me it would be a factory repair and a flat rate of $160. I told them I could get a better camera for that. Thanks to amazon, I got a MUCH better camera at a discount, for$165 and a 4GB memory card for $13.80!! I up-upgraded my Canon, and I am paying for it with this tax rebate thing, along with the new washer we had to buy. I hope nothing else breaks, OR GETS BROKEN. Oh well!