birthday boy

We celebrated Noah's 18th birthday this evening by going to his favorite Vietnamese restaurant. It was my first time to eat Vietnamese cuisine. It was delicious and I'm looking forward to more.

Then he took the four dozen chocolate and vanilla cupcakes I made yesterday to Bible study. And when he got home, he blew out his birthday candles and we had lemonade cake. Let's just say he had a lot of cake today.

Happy Birthday, Noah!
Can't believe you're 18.

Love you.

xoxoxo

tst: video games . . .

someone loves video games

someone is having a birthday tomorrow, so I made cupcakes
for the Bible study crowd tomorrow night

someone found out he's officially an

Eagle Scout!

tst: superman

My little Superman will be 18 next week! He loved Superman when he was little. This was one of his favorite t-shirts back then, and of course he had a Superman costume.

Here he is today with his best friend Kevin. They've been best friends since they were about 5 or 6, and look at them now! Wow!

happy birthday, hubby dear

Oops! I'm late blogging about a birthday here this week on Wednesday. Hubby was the birthday boy, so Noah and I took him out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Yummm!

Then Noah skipped out on us after dinner to go enjoy a "Happy Happy Fun Fun" ice cream sundae with the rest of his Bible study class. Soooo, all the more chocolate cake and Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream for the Dale and me. I tried getting a "birthday boy" picture, but he wouldn't stop moving around.

Happy Birthday, Dale!

And many more . . .

tst: aggie girl

Gig 'em!

eagle project day 3

Day 3 of Noah's Eagle project, I arrived after the scouts used bow saws to shorten the fence posts to the correct heighth. Next step was to screw in the fence rails. Hubby manned the power saw to cut the rails to the correct length.

Here's Hubby-Dale, Mr. Cariaga and Mr. Barger conferring with Noah and other scouts while the rails are cut to order.

The fence pickets wait patiently on the little hill.

Installing the rails gave the older scouts the first crack at using the power drills.

Lots of power cords were onsite.

Cody and his crew start installing pickets.

While I was cleaning up the area where the rails were cut, which happened to be inside the church preschool playground, I spied a carpenter's square and a little plastic toy wrench. Too cute to pass up!

Scouts learning how to build a fence.

Ah, the fun part - power tools!

Mr. Cariaga helping get that tricky corner picket in the right place.

Mr. Corpening giving tips to the scouts.

Scout masters supervising.

Noah getting praises from Mr. Corpening on how things are moving along.

Noah keeping an eye on things and supervising the progress.

A thing of beauty!

At last, Noah's Eagle Project completed. It's not only looks great, but it will also provide some outdoor storage space for the church. Great job, Noah! So proud of our soon-to-be-Eagle scout.

make it happen: eagle project day 2

Noah's t-shirt choice was quite appropriate for Eagle Project day 2.

.

Yes, that is Cody James Willyumz, Noah's #2 best friend and fellow scout.

Hey, where are all the other scouts? Yes, those younger boys had to be herded back to the work site every now and then.

Getting the post holes in just the right place.

Finally getting to set the posts in cement. The scouts enjoyed working with cement much more than digging holes (notice the return of the younger scouts.)

Making progress!

Fence posts - done. Day 2 took seven hours onsite and one extra hour for Noah at Home Depot to return extra cement bags and buy more wood. A big thank you goes out to Mr. Cariaga for his time, his truck and the loan of his neighbor's trailer to transport all these supplies to the work site from Home Depot.

Once our business was done, Mom, Dad and Noah walked from Home Depot to Taco Cabana to have some dinner before we all took our tired selves home.

Two days down and one to go!

tst: philmont2 + bonus (eagle project day 1)

This is Noah's troop shirt from his Philmont trip. He brought it back covered with dirt and tree sap after participating in an environmental project on the first day. I have a "take no prisoners" attitude when it comes to laundry stains. It took me days, but I won the battle. He wore this shirt this past Sunday, the first day of his Eagle project. One day down, two to go!

Bonus shirt: Jesus + Awesome = JEAWESOME

That's Kevin - Noah's best friend - weilding a mattock at the Eagle project, which involved removing about 18 large bushes around some AC compressors at our church so that a privacy fence can be built in their place.

Kevin, Noah, Thomas and Dale

These four have been together since Noah and Kevin were about six years old. They enjoyed years of camping together in Indian Guides and then joined Boy Scouts when the boys turned 12.

Here's a glimpse of the bushes in place, about to be removed by a crew of Boy Scouts and some very dedicated Scout Masters.

Mission accomplished. This phase of the project took 4.25 hours.

Now just pray for perfect weather next weekend for the fence building to commence!