Team Francks

The Katybug 5k...

Yesterday I got to be involved in one of the neatest things I've ever been a part of... its ranks up in my top three service experiences.

There's a little girl (who I don't know and hadn't met until yesterday) in the little town next to us who just turned five and has had a severe form of Leukemia for over a year... as you can imagine her family is drowning in medical bills.

My neighbor (and friend from church) teaches at the school where this little girl attends and wanted to help the family out.

So she organized a charity 5k run for their family... she asked me a few months ago to take pictures at the event... I said sure.. not knowing really what I was getting involved in.

I had no clue.... and no clue it would touch me so much.  I was teary from the moment I pulled in to the parking lot and saw the masses of people there in support.

People came from all over the place to participate. 

All different denominations of churches were there to support.

Entire families ran (and walked) together.

All ages from the very very young to the not so young.

Local restaurants gave a portion of their proceeds to the event.

The fire station was there in support.

The police department.

All the cross country teams from all the neighboring schools ran in support.

It was so incredibly overwhelming and so amazing to get to be a small part of something so great.

The thing I'm learning about service... Life would have gone on if I hadn't said yes... I wouldn't have even known what I was missing out on.  But thankfully I said yes... and my life is better because of it.  Mental note: DO MORE SERVICE!

p.s. their original goal was the raise $4,000 for the family... as of yesterday they've raised over $17,000. 

 

Friends from church... the one next to me is the friend that organized the event... the three of us in black were staff.

I loved these guys... orange is the color of leukemia.. .they ran the whole race like this... in honor of leukemia... poor guys were so hot... its still pretty warm here.

The star of the day... she was feeling sad that she had boy hair (growing back from the chemo)... so they got her ears pierced the day before the race so that she would feel more feminine... i thought that was so cute.

Kids race... so funny!

 

The three of us worked together for years in Young Women's at church... such great women.  It was fun to work with them again at this event.

National Anthem

Prayer by a local pastor... it was so cool to have so many churches come together for this event.

 

Part of the check presented to the family... they have to start paying taxes on any "gift" over $13,000... so the check is for $12,999.99... they'll receive the rest of the money on January 1st.   It was incredibly emotional watching the family be presented the check.

There really are great people everywhere. 

Warthogs in the lobby...

Wait, your bank doesn't have a warthog in their lobby?  You are so missing out!  Ok, so its technically not where we bank... but the bank here in town does have a warthog in their lobby... along with two lions, a bear, wolves, gazelles, a yak, a rhino, an elephant head and other random stuffed animals that you'd never expect to see in a bank.

This chain of banks has three banks in the area and they all have quirky stuffed animals in them (and by stuffed I mean dead and stuffed).  Buddy and I took a trip there last week and pretended we were on a Safari... he mostly just humored me because he was upset that I wouldn't let him ride the Bison. 

Next time we go I'm going to make him binoculars and have him wear a safari hat... my years are limited where I can get away with that kind of stuff and I'm totally taking advantage of it!

 

Summer Bliss...

Spending hot Texas days at the lake with friends.

A cute little boy who threw rocks in the water for hours... he was in absolute heaven.

Getting caught in an amazing summer rain storm... so fun.

I love Summer.  Have I already mentioned that?

 

 

 

Berry Picking

we ticked another item off the summer list...

blueberry picking at a local farm with church friends and my sweet little man...
little man ate them faster than i could pick them.

and when he wasn't dipping in to the pail he was eating them
straight off the bush.  absolute perfection (him and the berries!)

did I mention it was hot, hot, hot?  It was sooo sooo hot.
but the texas heat does not wait for berry picking... so we persevered.

we ended the outing with cold homemade blueberry lemonade
I have to find a recipe for it because it was beyond heavenly.

fresh berries, a happy little boy and good good friends.
I {heart} summer.

there is just something about a little boy in a red wagon that just melts this mama's heart

 

dipping in to the bucket... eating blueberries as fast as he could

more berry snitching :)

 

 

 

 

when life is hard and discouraging it's little experiences like this that remind how good it really is.

Celebrating Spring

1.  With lots of trips to the Park...

 

(and giving his mama a heart attack by going down the big kid slide!)

2.  Feeding the ducks... although I'm fairly sure this needs to be a two man outing these days... I spend the whole time trying to keep little one from diving in to swim with the ducks.  He cries and pouts and thinks I'm a mean mama... but he'll thank me later when he doesn't come down with some funky duck disease... despite the fear of bird flu infested water we absolutely love our duck feeding trips.

 

3. Playing with our new friend (friends from church) who just moved two doors down from us...she has two slides AND a bubble machine.  Every time we leave to go somewhere he runs over there assuming he gets to play.  What's not to love?

 

4.  Collecting rocks complete with Bunny ears.  He's beyond yummy.

 

5.  Flowers and snow all in the same weekend... 

 

Helloooooooooooooo Spring.... we're so happy you're here!

Dear Spring,

Please hurry back.  We really really miss you.

Love always,

The Francks

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation: Road Trip to San Antonio

More catching up...

When Carrie came to visit us she wanted to go to visit her BFF who was living in San Antonio... and then the BFF moved to another part of Texas two weeks before Carrie came... but we still wanted to go to San Antonio since we had everything already planned... I'm so glad we did because it was SUCH A FUN TRIP!!!  Seriously so much fun.... we love road trips!!

Highlights:

The Alamo (and getting there 5 minutes after it closed!)

Fun hotel room

Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe on the Riverwalk

Boat ride on the River

Late night runs to Target (which was right across the freeway from our hotel room but took us FOREVER to get there)!

Visit to the San Antionio LDS Temple.. and we pretended we were part of a wedding party... ok that was really only me so I could take pictures of the bride a groom.  :)

Two days at Sea World

Joey wearing his BYU hat and a million LDS people stopping us on the Riverwalk and at Sea World to say hello... those Mormons are such friendly people!

Sea World:

This was the first time any of us had been to Sea World... I found an awesome coupon online... so we were able to get tickets for good deal plus a free day... it was perfect!!  We left the boys at the hotel the first day... they wanted to swim and play and Joey was nice to keep the baby so that Carrie and I could ride all the rides.  And I'm so glad we went on Friday when the lines were way shorter!

We had sooo much fun!  We rode every roller coaster and water ride and on Saturday when the boys came with us we did the aquarium and fed the dolphins twice.  It was sooooooo fun and we can't wait to do it again!! 

Carrie come back and play with us!!!!

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation: Carrie comes to visit

Catching up on summer stuff...

In August when we flew home from Utah Auntie Carrie came home with us to Texas!!  There was much rejoicing and celebration!

Highlights (in no particular order):

Swimming at the pool several times

Going to Sam Moon in Dallas (the Jewelry Mecca!)

California Pizza Kitchen

Playing at the Lake

Roadtrip to San Antonio 

Sea World

Movies

Lots of Ice Cream

Hamburgers/Pizza/Mexican... lots of yummy food was consumed!

Lots of sleeping in

Safari in Oklahoma

Many hands of Skip Bo

Lots and lots of fun.. I'm so glad we got to hang out with our favorite Carrie!!! 

p.s. Carrie did I forget anything?

My Texas Baby...

Having a baby in Texas was totally worth it be able to take these kind of pictures!  Can you stand the cuteness?? 

Little man and I spent this afternoon frolicking through the bluebonnets... I loooooooooove this picture so much... its going to be big big big and hang in my dining room... I have a bunch more that I'll post later and I might find a different favorite but for right now this is the winner!

P.S.  I really wanted to take a cute bare bum picture of him on a blanket in all the flowers... but his daddy would have had my hide... sometimes you just have to pick your battles :)

Summer Evenings at the Lake

Have I mentioned what fabulous people have here?  Seriously some of the best.  They've made our time here so wonderful.

The last couple of weeks we've been able to spend some magical summer evenings at the lake.

Our friends found this private beach... so much nicer than the public beaches that are littered with trash, beer bottles and the occasional redneck (is that politcally correct??).... we've been making good use of the private beach with imported sand from California.

In July we took a couple of weeks off from Young Women's activities on Wednesday nights... so many of the girls are out of town and its nice just to have a small break... but our girls didn't want to take Wednesday's off and wanted to know if we could do something together even though we didn't have church that night... so sweet... so we took a friends trip to our new found private beach... it was a small group but we had such a good time.

As we were walking out that night we saw the "swimsuits optional" sign... not sure if it was a joke or not?  But that could have been bad had we taken a bunch of YW to a beach where others might find swimsuits optional.  oops.

 

We had so much fun with the Young Women last week that we decided to do it for Family Home Evening this week.  We gathered with some of our favorite families and spent the evening at the private beach again.  We thought since we didn't see anybody without their swimming suits the week before that we were safe trying it again.

The evening was glorious and it was the absolute perfect way to spend a hot Texas night.

The only reason I'm even posting this picture (I look beyond horrible) is so you can see my cute little girls... one of them is mine right now, the other one I get this Sunday and the third I get in a couple of months.  I just love these three girls... they are good and kind and I love knowing them and being their teacher right now.

cute cute friends... they're both such incredibly talented women.  we don't get to hang out much but I really enjoy the times when we do.

 

this is another dear friend... she has a full full plate... big family, works full time, heavy church responsibility... she's a dear friend and such an example to me... and seriously has the best hair in the whole world.

Taking over the beach... it was such a pleasant evening.

A good chunk of the evening we spent playing with the volleyball... hitting it to each other seeing how long we could keep it going without it dropping.  Good times.

 

And ending the evening with a song, lesson and prayer... it was Family Home Evening after all. 

 

Perfect perfect evening.  Can't wait to do it again!!!!