recent pics

Ryan insists I post this story, or he threatens he will write his own blog about it. Since I'm sure he will continue on with even more stories to further prove the point - that I am NOT Heidi Homemaker - I will just tattle on myself here and leave it at that...

Our dryer was taking extremely long (like two hours) to dry a load of laundry and I couldn't figure out why. In my defense, I had a migraine that morning and had been chasing after Ryeligh and Dallas all day, by 6pm my brain was fried. So Ryan investigated the situation and quickly determined that I had forgotten to empty the lint trap for a week! OOPS! Luckily I didn't start a fire, and in the future I will be more careful! Here is the evidence... I particularly like that you can tell the order in which I did the loads: brights, whites, blues, lights, reds... Roo watching Elmo ("Melmo") while waiting for GrMa to pick her up...
Going to GrMa's! note the upside down sunglasses, she insists on wearing them this way!

This is my first attempt at a pillowcase dress! I think it turned out pretty cute!

she's one of those "pouty" models!

We went to a b-day party at Jump It Up, and the Daddies had as much fun as the kiddos!

"Flash flash" Lauren

they are so silly!

Ryleigh went to town on the pizza and juicebox!

Happy 4th birthday Anna!

watching Melmo with GrMa! (Daddy and Pop Pop had monopolized the bigscreen!)

wearing Daddy's shoes!

me and Natalie at the outlets!

Well, I better get going, I'm hosting Girls' Night tonight, and I've got to get my house cleaned and give the dog a bath (Roo fed her a blueberry cereal bar thsi morning and she's got blue goo all over her!) so I'll ttyl!

p.s. Time Warner FINALLY sent someone to give us a new cable box late last night! after four people in their company strung me along and outright LIED to me, a nice guy actually showed up and took care of the situation! WE ARE THANKFUL!

Companies that STINK!!!!!!

Uh, rant number 1 is Time Warner Cable! Yesterday the sound went out on our TV. Ryan did some fiddling and determined that the cable box is the problem, so I called Time Warner Cable first thing this morning. I was connected with a foreign call center where I struggled for fifteen minutes to make the guy understand me (so SORRY I speak ENGLISH!!!) then listened to him give me asinine directions like "turn the box off. now on. it work??" until he finally agrees that yes, someone will need to come out and replace my cable box. He switches me over to someone else where I am on hold another twenty minutes before being told that an appointment has been scheduled for me, and someone will be at my house "before 8pm today"!! So like a dumbass, I believe them and sit at home ALL DAY LONG when I had a million other things to do, just so I can be there for the cable guy. WHO DOES NOT SHOW UP!!!! I give him an extra ten minutes past 8pm just to be nice, then I try to call customer service... only to find out they have disconnected their phones at 8pm!!!!! Seriously! So I log onto their website and sign on to a
"live help chat" which took another 45 minutes for someone to sign on to assist me with! Here's the conversation, I copied and pasted it verbatim for you....


We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

analyst Sohaib Shirazi has entered room

analyst Sohaib Shirazi has been temporarily disconnected. Please wait while the analyst attempts to reconnect.

We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly.

analyst Sohaib Shirazi has entered room
Sohaib Shirazi(Wed Jan 28 21:47:25 CST 2009)>
Thank you for contacting Time Warner Cable Chat Support.
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:47:30 CST 2009)>
hello
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:48:19 CST 2009)>
I am trying to find out why the service I requested was not done today.
Sohaib Shirazi(Wed Jan 28 21:49:09 CST 2009)>
Please wait while the problem is escalated to another analyst

analyst Adam Rogers has entered room

analyst Sohaib Shirazi has left room
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:49:24 CST 2009)>
Thank you for choosing Time Warner Cables' Online Chat. My name is Adam Rogers. Please give me a moment while I access your account information.
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:49:53 CST 2009)>
the volume on our cable is out, and I spoke with a technician early this morning. I tried all the troubleshooting techniques he suggested and he finally said he would send someone out to replace our cable box "before 8pm today" so I sat at home ALL DAY waiting. of course no one showed.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:51:40 CST 2009)>
I understand that you are unable to get cable services. Is this correct?
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:51:52 CST 2009)>
the picture is there, but no sound!
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:52:16 CST 2009)>
I apologize for all of the inconvenience caused.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:52:23 CST 2009)>
We are currently experiencing an outage in your area. Our technicians are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. At this time there is no known estimated time of repair. I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. We are confident that our engineers will have this issue resolved shortly, but if you are still experiencing this issue in 24 hours, please contact us again. We’ll be happy to provide an update to you at that time.
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:52:51 CST 2009)>
then why is my next door neighbor's cable with y'all still working fine?
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:53:21 CST 2009)>
and mine has already been out for over 24 hours already.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:55:43 CST 2009)>
It should return shortrly. It has affected some parts in San Antonio.
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 20:58:01 CST 2009)>
I feel like I'm being given the run-around. Why was I not told this today? And why was I not notified that the technician would not be coming to my home like I was promised?
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:58:51 CST 2009)>
Please accept my sincere apologies for the less than satisfactory customer service you have experienced with Time Warner Cable.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 21:59:46 CST 2009)>
We will be updating this information in the fututre.
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 21:00:19 CST 2009)>
So I am supposed to sit around here all day AGAIN tmrw waiting to find out if you guys figure out how to fix the service I pay you to provide me? And if it is still not fixed, I will have to start back at square one on hold with y'all and hope you actually send someone this time? This is VERY poor customer service!!
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 22:06:43 CST 2009)>We are currently working on the issue. Due to alot of chat flow, the response time might be longer than usual, I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 22:06:53 CST 2009)>Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Ryan (Wed Jan 28 21:07:45 CST 2009)>yConsidering you have not helped me with ANYTHING AT ALL!? I guess that's a company policy or something around there. I'll just have to try to find someone more helpful tmrw. Thank you for your time.
Adam Rogers(Wed Jan 28 22:16:04 CST 2009)>I shall make a note for having you and other customers updated about the same in the future as soon as we receive information about loss of services.


Uh yeah, he "shall"! How extraordinarily UN-HELPFUL!!! I'm SOOOOO angry about crappy customer service and no Sesame Street again tmrw! Oh wait until Roo finds out, I am gonna have hell to pay!!!!

ok, I was gonna share my story about how Gymboree sucks too, but that will have to wait until another day of righteous anger. Right now I'm spent, and I need to go soak in the tub with a glass of wine while I plot revenge on Time Warner (besides the obvious fact that my blog's massive readership of 3 people now know what horrible customer service they provide! so HA, take that!)...

singing!

Ryleigh singing "Zacheus was a wee little man"...

long awaited zoo pics!

Here are the rest of the pics from our zoo trip last weekend!

"CHEESE"!!

Roo Row Row your boat..

she is about as graceful in a canoe as her mommy!

Roo was looking through a window at the prairie dogs! I love my picture-taking stance shadow on the rock! lol!

This is as close as Roo would get to the uber-huge goat thing!

yes, she happily collects rocks wherever we go!

she could work ZooLights!!!

'fishing' in the magnetic fish river!

I've never seen a kangaroo with an actual baby in it's pouch!!

Elephants are stinky!!!!

her favorite animal at the zoo? the goldfish crackers!!

Ryleigh - groomer to the goats!

"Hi, goat"!
that's my girl!!! germs are icky!

Lily wasn't sure what to think of the zoo!

even with bad bangs, she's still adorable!

Lauren got this picture of Roo trying some hot salsa! she LOVED it!

I bit it big time!

Before the story even starts let's get all the jokes out of the way. Cat got my tongue? Tongue tied? Smashmouth... you get the idea! I had a tongue-related boo boo!

So let me just tell you that when people say the tongue is the fastest healing part of your body, they are not kidding! I can testify to this since at this time last night I had a gaping hole in my tongue, and now I am able to fully speak again without a lisp! The story is this...
I'm at the computer checking my email yesterday afternoon while Roo and Dallas are (I thought!) playing in her room right next to me. I hear the front door open and figured it was Ryan coming home, so I jump up to greet him *yes, I am the perfect housewife, aren't I?*... I make it to the door just in time to see Ryleigh heading out it. I grab her on the front porch and stick her back in the house, but Dallas had escaped and was headed into traffic. So I dash into the street in front of two cars and catch her before she's squashed! No good deed goes unpunished, so as I'm yanking her back to my house by her collar I get tangled up in her, the curb, and my own natural grace and fall straight down onto my chin. It's kinda blurry after that but I soon realize I'm standing over the sink spitting lots of blood and Ryan is still at work! I call my friend Lauren who lives a few blocks away, and bless her heart, she is there within minutes to help me determine that I have not in fact lost any teeth (woohoo!) just bitten clean through my tongue! UGH!!!! It hurt soooo badly! I spent all night with a washcloth in my mouth to stop the bleeding, and when I woke up, the hole was closed but still tender. All day today no one could understand a word I was saying, and Ryan commented on my overbite b/c of the akward way I was holding my mouth so my injured tongue would not snag on my teeth! So amazingly enough, by now my tongue is mostly healed!! Which has led me to do further investigation and discover that I chipped two teeth and cannot open my mouth wide enough to brush my teeth without wanting to cry! Fabulous! It looks like I will be headed to the dentist next week! Anywhooo... the moral of the story is I WILL LOCK MY DOORS now so that I don't have any escapees, and in the future of the durn dog gets out again she is just gonna have to find her own way back home, or suffer the fate of evolution - the dumb ones get squashed!

in other news, Ryleigh gets funnier every day! The other night I was trying to pass Ryan some oreos and he couldn't reach, so I handed two to Ryleigh and told her to bring them to him. Without missing a beat, our clever little girl put one behind her back and held the other one out to her Daddy saying sweetly and cheerfully "hereya go!"

I know I still haven't posted the rest of the zoo pics yet, but just be ptient, they are really good, and I'll get around to them here soon, I promise! I just got another Jan Lancaster book today (funniest author in the world!!!) and I hear it calling to me to go read in a bubble bath! BYE!

Monkey Class at the Zoo

On Monday morning we went to the San Antonio Zoo for a monkey class! It was a lot of fun! Here are the pages I scrapped about it (click on them for a closer view)! I'll post the rest of the pics from our zoo trip tmrw b/c there are a ton and I don't have the patience right now to upload them! I'm gonna go watch Sixteen Candles and snuggle with my family! ta ta!

woohooooo Longhorns!!!!!

Yup, the Hemperly household is basking in the glow of last night's GLORIOUS VICTORY!! Here are a few pics from last night and today...

Ryleigh and Dallas... Dallas modeling the UT bandana I made her!

those crazy girls!

Dallas and her football

She's already a cheerleader! lol!

This my friends, is Ryan's idea of heaven! A Shiner Bach and his team winning!!

When I took this picture, Roo was sitting prettily next to Dallas and Brenna! by the time the shutter went off, she was not! lol!

Ryleigh's version of the Hook 'Em sign!

playing in the yard...

Roo and Dallas were playing hide and seek...

Roo hiding!

Roo looking under the chair for Dallas!
best friends

cheese!!!!

As you can see, life is pretty wonderful!!! I am having so much fun watching Roo and Dallas together! of course, a puppy and a toddler is a combo not without complications! the fact that neither one is completely housebroken is fun, and when you tell one of them NO the other cries! I spent half my day saying "no, not YOU!" to the one who wasn't in trouble (at the moment!)! But all in all, I think our family is perfect now! *sigh* I'm gonna go play with my girls and wait for Daddy to get home!

Introducing Dallas Darlin' Hemperly!!!!!

She is soooo wonderful! We love her already!!! Here are a bunch of pics, I'll post some video soon!





Dallas sleeping in her crate on the drive home!

Ryleigh meets Dallas.... best friends immediately!

Ryleigh showing Dallas where her food & water are

they are so funny playing together!

isn't she gorgeous?!?