Monday Monday

Well J and I have cris-crossed the country this weekend, a whirlwind of the sort we will not be seeing much of after Little Miss Mauck graces us with her presence. Friday we took off to Jones, Okla. (just NE of OKC) to watch the son of some family friends play basketball. This family, the McKays, met Jay simply through watching him play at OC, and they really took him in, inviting him to their home for dinners, to play in golf tournaments, etc. Their oldest son is a senior, so we watched him play in the first round of Districts. What a great family they were, and I was happy to finally meet them. I gotta say though, as the only person who looked at a bracket for the tournament before we just took off, I was getting a little nervous driving the 10 miles NE of OKC--wondering if maybe this seemingly abondoned stretch of highway wasn't going to lead us to a very wrong place indeed.

Saturday, J got a lot of work done on our new backyard fence! That's right, we are now officially responsible pet owners! The boys will roam free no more. I feel so much better about their situation now--I was constantly in limbo, not wanting to lock them up in the shop or the house, but not wanting to let them roam the streets to cause trouble/get hurt/bring shame upon our name. They definitely miss their buddies though--there are several pet owners who let their dogs roam in our area, and we saw a pack of them yesterday. Shadow and Ranger barked their regrets for not being able to join them through the chain link fence.

After a morning of working on the fence and another new addition to our yard--a fire pit (J is a pyro at heart)--we headed to Calera to load up with Paul and Diane and head down to Mineral Wells, Tex., for a 50th wedding anniversary of some camping-at-Lake-Texoma friends. They've been friends with the Maucks ever since they first started camping out at the lake about 25 years ago. Diane made them a really cute camping scrapbook.

When we got home at about 7:30 that evening, we still weren't done! We all went to the SOSU basketball game that night. Check it out, we're now 22-2, and first in our conference!

Other family news:

• Childbirth classes at the hospital started last week, so we learned the basics of labor, some about last trimester pregnancy discomforts, and checked out the delivery rooms and the nursery. Being around a pack of pregnant girls was a little weird, like being back in Kansas for Thanksgiving!
• I take a comprehensive exam for my Master's program in two weeks--Yikes! I think I've taken maybe one comprehensive exam in my life, let alone one over an entire degree program! I'm studying hard.
• Looking forward to heading to Indy this weekend!! Hoping everyone here is well and able to go--Kyle has been sick for about a week now, can't seem to kick this flu-like stuff.