February 28

Today was a really big day for the Hornbuckles! We went to a taekwondo tournament in Humble (north Houston) this weekend, and Jack had SUCH a good day! To start with, his school won 2008 Texas School of the Year! Wow! He was ecstatic. This reflects on not only him, but his entire staff and students. That's definitely something to be proud of.


Next, he competed in forms and weapons (for those of you who don't know, the weapon he competes with is a normal walking cane. I know, it's funny. Because he's old)


He ended up kicking butt!!!! He won first in forms, first in weapons, and third in sparring! What a day! This puts him at second in the world in weapons and fifth in the world in forms in the standings for the world champion competition.


After Jack competed, he had to judge for the rest of the day, so I headed down to Brittany's apartment to hang out with her for the rest of the day. Man, it's so nice to see her, especially when I haven't in a while! She's the type of friend that you just pick up right where you left off, no matter how long it's been since you last talked.


She tried on all Jack's medals, just for fun. And because this picture truley represents my day. You know, minus Jack.

Jack and I drove back home tonight, enjoying about 6 hours of very pleasant conversation with each other. It's just so nice to have these moments when we're so glad to be married to one another. We fit well.

February 27

Today, we traveled to Humble for a taekwondo tournament tonight and tomorrow. Were we lost? No. Do we have a GPS (that we already had set to get us there)? Yes. Do I have maps on my phone? Also yes.

My old-fashioned husband still plans his route with an actual paper atlas. Honestly, who knew those actually still existed?

February 26

My embarrassing moment of the day year. Wow.

February 25

A big question tonight at AWANA: Where does God come from? Whew! I was glad I wasn't Tiffany, up there trying to explain that one! But she did a wonderful job.

As an illustration, she had some of the kids draw items from a bag, then find where they were made on the map (and then, I was glad I wasn't the kids, up there trying to find all those places on the world map!)

Even though the kids were crazy because it was store night (they get to trade in their AWANA dollars, which they earn for saying verses and doing well at games, for toys and things a couple times a year. It's a very big deal), I so look forward to seeing these awesome kids every week! I'm so blessed to have the privilege of working with them!

February 24

Today, I looked at my Bike MS website and noticed that I was $32 away from raising $300 for the my Bike MS ride, so I posted a quick contest on my blog - the first person to e-mail me gets a discounted blog makeover - $32 instead of $50. Courtney e-mailed me first, but the blog orders poured in after that little announcement! I went from $268 to almost $400 in one day!

And so, I've been coming home and designing blogs every night. This is Pam's blog header!

February 23

Today Quiznos was giving away free sub coupons. And I got one! It's the little things in life.

February 22

Today, we got to go to the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art with Sarah and Owen. What a fun day! I'm so glad I decided to splurge on the tickets and get out and do something! And even though Jack reads everything in museums and takes forever to get though them, it was still a good time. Sarah's girl-talk and Owen's witty commentary definitely made it a much more pleasant experience. Next stop - the JFK 6th floor museum!!

Jack and Owen were playing with some stuff in the gift shop after the exhibit. This is Owen's best "I'm a fearless leader" face.

...and Jack's best "I'm a happy leader" face!

It was a really fun day!

February 21

This morning afternoon, my family went to IHOP for breakfast breakfast food at lunch time.

My brother tried to get my mother, the classy "I-care-about-how-I-act-in-public" woman, to take a bit of all three of his pancakes - and she actually did it! It was quite a sight to see.

This evening, we had a few friends over and had a poker night. It was nice to have the family together again.

February 20

My brother, Shane, lives in Boston, so I don't get to see him very much, but he is in town for the weekend! It's really nice to have the whole family together. Usually we just end up laying around and visiting, but we all get along so well together.

Another fun thing about Shane being here is that it's the first time we get to see his NBA Championship ring in person! For those that don't know, Shane is the Information Systems Designer for the Boston Celtics, so when they won the championship last year, he also won a championship ring (as did his wife, who also works for them on game nights). This is me wearing an actual NBA Championship ring!! Wow.

Also, he brought presents!! We got some Celtics shirts and clothes, and he brought Maggie and Tia some brand new made-just-for-them-by-Cassandra collars, like Ajax has! Maggie even got a leash that matches her new collar!! It's amazing!

She was so excited about them that I put all three of them on her at once. Then she tried to eat her old collar when it was laying on the floor.

Looking forward to a fun, family-filled weekend.

February 19

There's nothing like coming home to a very excited puppy every night after a long day at work. Maggie loves playtime!!

February 18

Today the T&Ters did their "Big Truths" skit. They've been working on it for a few weeks and Tiffany did an amazing job with coordinating all these crazy kids. I think they really liked it!

Robert and I were "Narrators 1 and 2"

In other, less interesting news, my spring toes made their debut today in some open-toed shoes. Yay, warmer weather!

February 17

Today, Chris and I took some extra "Bee" cards from the leftover baby shower invites and made a card for my friend Michelle! It was really fun!

February 16

Happy President's Day! I love weekdays off work! Today I spent the day cleaning, grocery shopping, and most importantly, finishing up Isa's baby shower invitations! They turned out really well, but I called in some sweat-shop workers helpers (Chris and Christelle) to get them all done! I'm so lucky to have friends that will help me out!

Jack even helped!! He drew some of the faces on the little bee heads!


Christelle is soooooooo cool.


We made 50 of them!!!! Finally all done!

February 15

Today was spent in College Station, where we visited with some more friends. It was the most beautiful day! The weather was perfect!

First, we ate lunch with Paris, my college roommate and very close friend, at Freebirds. Even though they have Freebirds in Dallas now, there's nothing like a College Station chicken Freebird on wheat with BBQ sauce!!

We also had a chance to visit with Shelley, Randy, and Natalie for a while, do a little shopping, and I got to meet Brynn's new fiance!

After that it was back to Dallas in what would have been a leisurely car ride if Jack hadn't been trying to beat the GPS's estimated arrival time. (He did, by the way).

February 14

For Valentine's Day this year, Jack and I decided to go to College Station to visit with some friends and go to the Texas Hall of Fame to see an Aaron Watson concert. I'd been excited about the concert for months.

However, tonight we had dinner with Brynn, and by the time we were done with that we were so tired from last night's party and from traveling that we just went to bed! We're so old!!

On the upside, when we checked into our hotel, we found out that our wonderful friend Mike [through whom we had made the reservation] had upgraded us a suite! It was super-cool. It ended up being a really nice day, even though it wasn't as eventful as we'd planned.

February 13

Today was my friend Erin's surprise party. Her birthday is on Valentine's day, and her husband threw her a surprise party tonight. She was completely shocked to see everyone when she walked in. He even had her friends from Chicago there and family from Missouri. It was a really fun night!

February 12

Tonight, after work, my mom and I headed out to Dallas to go to the Mavs/Celtics game at the American Airlines Center. My brother had pulled some strings to get us some free tickets to the game, and when we got there and picked up our tickets, we also had press passes! We didn't end up using them because it was such a late night, but it was kind of fun to be there rooting for "our team." They even pulled it out in the last quarter and won it!

February 11

Tonight, during AWANA game time, the kids got to play paper football! It was so funny. The girls were a bit clueless when it came to the rules of paper football (rather, football in general), but they caught on fast. The boys were really into it. It was so much fun to watch!

February 10

Today after work, I went to "He's Just Not That into You" with Christelle and Ashley. On the way there, it was pretty rainy and dark. When I was about a block away from the theater after driving for about 20 minutes from work, a car pulled up beside me and started honking. At first I ignored him, but he kept honking so I cracked my window open a little. An older gentleman addressed me.

"You've got your lights off, sweetheart," he said, politely.

Oops.

During the movie, all three of us were getting a million calls on our cell phones. Evidently, there was a tornado warning in our county and everybody was worried about us. When the movie let out, there was a torrential downpour and very high winds. Christelle needed to feed Rylan, who was at home, so she ran out in the awful weather, dropped her wallet and phone, then ran around like a lunatic looking for the back of her phone while Ashley and I stood under the overhang and laughed hysterically at her. It was quite a sight.

Thankfully, both Jack and I got home safely and there was no damage done to our neighborhood, but it made for an exciting evening.

February 9

This is what Jack looked like when I left this morning. Actually, this is pretty much what he looks like when I leave every morning. I drag myself out of bed to get ready for work sometime between 7am and 8am, and he gets to roll over to the middle of the bed and go back to sleep for a few more hours! And of course, I'm not at all jealous of that!

But, on the bright side, when I go to kiss him goodbye every morning, he opens his little eyes, tells me I'm pretty, then tells me to "have a most wonderous day." It makes me smile every time!

February 8

Today, after church, we went with Christelle, Jared, and Rylan to Chuy's after church! It just opened here not too long ago (it's famous in Austin and there's one in downtown Dallas) and we've been dying to try it! It was wonderful!! Great food with great friends!

February 7

We had such a fun night tonight! Two of Jack's taekwondo students were throwing birthday parties on the same night, so we party-hopped! First, we went to Lori's "surprise" party - "surprise" is in quotes because she had the flu so her husband had to tell her about it to get her there. It was a shame - she was too sick to enjoy it!

Next, we went to Greg A's wife's party at his house, which is where we stayed until after midnight (actually, Jack was very bad at letting us leave! I asked to leave at 11:30 and we didn't walk out the door until 12:30! He's gets so distracted around his friends). We did have a great time visiting with everybody though! These are the taekwondo "boys" at party #2 (from left to right) Bob, Greg A., Greg P., Jack, and Chris.

February 6

Tonight we went out with Jack's uncle Jack (after whom he is named) and his girlfriend Christine. Jack and Christine live in Chicago so we don't get to see them very often, so it's quite a treat when we do. We went to Javier's, a trendy downtown gourmet Mexican restaurant (it even had a cigar bar!). We had such a good time visiting with them and spent several hours there.

February 5

Today, Christelle called me and invited me to "Annie" at the high school with her family. The show was actually pretty good (though there were some audio issues that made me cringe a little... what can you expect from a high school production though?) This was the best picture I got (not a great camera and couldn't use the flash, which wouldn't have helped anyway), so I'm hoping for the scrapbook I can grab a photo from the professionals that photographed it. But you get the idea. Lots of fun!

I knew I'd find a better picture! Thanks, http://www.allenphotos.org

February 4

Lately, we've been having trouble getting the broadcast CDs that we ship out to stations to burn on the big duper (or super duper, if you will) in our Addison fulfillment center, so today, my friend and I drove up there and fixed the problem, and I got to tour our fulfillment center and warehouse, where all the Insight for Living CDs, books, and other stuff we send out come from. It was pretty cool!

This is the super duper. The arm (the white arm there in the middle) grabs a blank CD, puts it into one of the CD burners, then takes the burned CD and puts it in the printing tray (the top purple tray). When it's done printing the label, it puts the finished CDs on the "finished CD" spindle. It's really quite mesmorizing to watch.

February 3

My craft supplies seem to have exploded all over my living room floor.

Today, I came home and started working on my dear friend's baby shower invitations, which need to go out next week. I'm very excited about it! I'm not quite done with them yet (I still have a lot of antennae-sewing and rosy-cheek-punching to do), but I'm doing okay.

What do you think... something about the "Mommy to Bee" or "Cute as can Bee" or "The mommy to 'bee' is cute as can 'bee?'" I'll take suggestions if you've got them. :)

Updated - I just found out it will be a co-ed shower, so I need it to be not quite so cutesy... maybe something like "Isa and Jeremy's Shower. Bee there." Any ideas for that one?

February 2

This is quite a rare occurrence - Jack actually went to bed before me!! So of course... I took a picture of him, waking him up with the flash. Good wifey.

February 1

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?

Yes, we are. And some a ton of food. Today was the Superbowl! We spent the morning at church with Christelle and Jared again, then had a little lunch in the afternoon and relaxed, then headed to my parents' house for the Superbowl. Although we wanted the Cardinals to win for Sarah and Owen's sake so the Steelers didn't have more Superbowl wins than the Cowboys, it was a good game nonetheless.