I hesitated to put up these photos because of a fear of appearing a hunting and fishing fanatic, but Carl is very proud of the buck he shot last weekend (and I'm proud too)- so here it is. For all of you who know about this kind of stuff, it scored a 197 and is a Boone and Crockett deer. His family owns a ranch in south Texas called the Tecomate, which is where he shot it. Carl helped me to find peace with hunting a few weeks ago when he explained that all the meat gets eaten, and they only kill bucks that are old in age and would die soon anyways. I think this one was seven. Its definitely the biggest buck I've ever seen.

Carl and I went off-shore fishing about a week and a half ago. We went 185 miles out into the gulf to an oil rig and trolled during the day, threw lures at night. We had a lot of fun. Carl fished way harder than me, cause I didn't quite feel up to par. But I was still lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time and caught some pretty good fish. Here we are with two of the fish we caught. Carl's holding a yellow fin tuna, and I'm holding a mahi mahi (also known as a dolfin or dorado.) Our good friend Matt took this picture on our other friend's dock once we got back to Corpus. This was my first off-shore trip, and I'm definitely going back. The yellow fin put up the fight of my life. The rod I was using snapped, and the handle of the reel came off. Needless to say, after all that I had to hand off the rod to the mate. But I was able to reel it in almost all the way.

I'm very sorry to report that my Papa, Del Sanford, passed away last Thursday, December 13, 2007. He was the most amazing man I've ever known, and I will miss him dearly. I feel so incredibly blessed to be his granddaughter, and my only hope is that I will grow to be half the person that he was. He was a man of God, a wonderful husband, an amazing grandfather, and a dear friend to so many. This was never more evident to me than at his funeral service. At both services (one in Texas and one in Oklahoma), there was standing room only. People came from all over to pay respects to a man that made such a tremendous impact on their lives. So many people stood up to tell their stories of how my Papa changed their lives and helped them get through good times and bad. He will most definitely be missed, but I know I'll see him again in Heaven and as long as I walk here on this earth I will carry with me the love and compassion that he so humbly exuded and instilled in me and all with whom he came in contact.

About a month ago we went to South Padre Island to celebrate Carl's Papaw's 80th birthday. Carl's parents own two houses on the bay, and they hosted the party. We had a great time. Papaw is hilarious. Here we are on the deck before the party.


And this is a picture of the whole family(well, most of it). Papaw is in the middle. His
Granny is the one to the right of Papaw.
This is a picture of Carl with his brother Brian, Dad, Step-mother Suzanne, Granny, and Papaw.
For the dinner part of the party, there were tables set up on the dock. This picture may not do it justice, but it was beautiful. They always have such exquisite parties.
The next day we spent the majority of the time on the water. This is a picture of me, Matt, and Carl poling to a black drum we saw tailing out in front of the house.

Time sure flies! I felt like I had just put up a new post, and then I noticed that it has been almost two months!
One of my really good girl friends got married two weeks ago. Kirsten, Dez, and I were all bridesmades. We had such a great time together. Kirsten flew in from Santa Cruz, and Dez flew in from Holland. It was great to all be together again.
Here is a picture of me and Brandi at her bachelorette party.


After the rehearsal dinner we took Brandi out dancing for a few hours. This is a picture of Dez and Brand.

And here we all are. We all worked together forever at the Hilton. Definitely the best group of people I could ever work with.

Kirsten's boyfriend Eric was a groomsman. It was his first wedding to be in and his first time wearing a tux. We all agreed that he was super handsome.

this is my friend fernando. he would come hang out with me while carl was surfing. i taught him how to play slap jack. he thought it was so much fun, but he would cheat. every time i would catch him trying to slip a jack on the top of his deck i would tell him i saw him and he would just crack up.
this was our camp site. we used the tent to house all of our belongings, and we slept in the hammock. it was the most wonderful sleep i've ever gotten. it is a two-person hammock. i would put my head at one end, carl would put his head at the other, and it would pretty much make two hammocks. one morning i woke up (at i'm guessing about 7:30) to three donkeys. they were just standing about 5 feet away from us and staring. it was a pretty amazing sight.
the carnival came into town while we were there. it only consisted of these foosball tables, some trampolines, and a snow cone stand, but the kids went nuts over it. they would run from school and gather around the tables. i never had my camera when the whole herd was there, but i got this shot of two little boys playing. every time i snapped a picture they would run over and want to check it out.

the beach was filled with coconut trees. fernando shucked one for me and made a hole so i could drink the fresh coconut milk. man it was GOOD!

well, its been quite a while.... carl and i have done quite a lot since february, including a 1 week trip into mexico. we rode a bus to the pacific coast, more specifically, la ticla in the state of michoacan. its a little surfing village. we had the time of our lives. we slept in a hammock, and did nothing but relax the entire time. i'll post more pictures later, but this is a little taste of what our week looked like. all of the photos were taken from our campsite, which was about 25 feet from the water. the weather was perfect, the people were wonderful, and we can't wait to go back.

Unfortunately, I left my camera at Kirsten's house last weekend, so I do not have any new photos for you. Lorena Kanak had a baby shower for her sister Amy in Hallettsville, so Kirst flew in for the weekend. Since I had to work on Saturday, I went to Hallettsville on Friday after school. I had a lot of fun. Its always a blast hanging out with Kirsten's family. They're really great people- very genuine and tons of fun.
Carl and I have been out on the bay twice now since we've gotten the boat. The first time we were skunked, but the last time Carl caught this baby red. We decided we might wait for it to warm up a bit before we go out again. Carl could probably fish in a blizzard, but I'm just not that die-hard of a fisherman. Don't get me wrong- I really enjoy it, but when my hands and toes become numb, I find it a little hard to keep myself motivated.

Well, after over 6 months of schooling I finally know how to administer acupuncture needles. Carl, of course, is and will continue to be my pin cushion. Here he is acting scared when I gave him his first treatment. He's such a great sport. If you look closely you can see one needle in each hand. I gave him a very simple treatment that consisted of one needle in each hand and one in each foot. My teachers call these the "American points". They are the best combination for stress, and apparently they are used with much more frequency in America than anywhere else. Carl is definitely a good candidate for such a treatment.

Carl and I took the boat out for its maiden voyage this weekend. We went to Copano and Charles Bays around Rockport. We had such a great time, and I can't wait to go back. Hopefully we'll go this weekend again. As you can probably tell, the weather was not very conducive for fishing. I had on two pairs of pants, three long-sleeved shirts, wool socks, and a jacket, and I was still freezing! But it was definitely worth it.

Carl fished from the tower all day. I decided that because of my unexplained tendency to fall, drop things, and stumble, I'd wait until the weather was a little warmer to try fishing up there. Even Carl lost his balance once, so I think I made a good decision.
Here's the view from the tower.

This is what Carl's boat looks like today. School is cancelled for today and tomorrow, so I've just been relaxing. I guess I really could be studying, but who wants to do that?

Carl's boat finally arrived yesterday. He's absolutely ecstatic about it. I've never seen him more excited. Its a 14.5 ft Shoalwater Catamaran. Unfortunately an arctic front is arriving, so he can't take it out for a while.




Carl took this picture of River the other day. I think its super funny.

There is a super cool park by my house that River loves to go to. What makes it so cool is that its more like an escape to the country than a park. There isn't a playground or anything, but there are tons of dirt trails that spread out over acres and acres of park. Even though you're in the middle of the city, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. There are places like that in every town, and I'm sure glad to have one right by me. A couple of days ago River and I were driving by to go to the post office and noticed that there was not one single car in the parking lot. I just had to stop because River especially loves it when she can just run free and not be attached to a leash.





I don't remember if I've written about this already or not, but I started making duct tape wallets over the holiday break. Its really quite fun. I found about 6 different colors and just started going to town. Then I got the idea to paint designs on some of them. Here are a couple of examples.

Heather and I went to the Witte Museum a couple of weeks ago. I told her we were going to start throwing a couple of learning days in with our play days. She was not at all enthused when I told her we were going to the museum, but she ended up having a really great time. The first two buildings had exhibits about animals and history, and I encouraged her to read all the descriptions. Then, we got to the last building- the children's part. They really had a lot of fun toys. Here she is on a bicycle that is suspended on a cable about 2 stories high. You can see the river below. There was also a huge treehouse and a room full of science projects.

I just love the new hit counter I got(on right of screen). It makes me want to post all the time because I feel like people are really reading my blog. I got 19 hits in one day! It was probably all from random people that I don't even know, but oh well, it still makes me feel good. So I think this might be the beginning of a new era for me. I'm not making any more promises, but it looks like I'm addicted to blogging.

I've added two links- one to my mom's blog(bean anderson), and one to Carl's sort-of blog(extreme coast). He doesn't write on their every day, but he does pretty often. His name on the forum is shepnuts, and I'll alert you when he puts up a cool post. He usually writes some pretty interesting stuff and puts up great pictures.

Here's a picture of Carl and Kennedy playing at Aunt Shelly's house. I left them alone for 3 minutes, and I came back to an entire room full of bubbles. It looked like a lot of fun. Kennedy and Carl got along so well. I can't wait till she's old enough to come stay with us.

The weekend before Christmas(which was also the weekend before finals), Carl drug me to the beach. We had a really good time, and I actually got a lot of studying done. Studying on the beach is so much nicer than sitting in a library or something. And I think the ambiance may have made the material stick in my head better. This is a picture of Carl's St. Nick present in action. We never would have made it that day without the waders. The water was 62 degrees, and I wasn't about to step foot in it. He took care of getting all the bait out in the water for us.

And here's me with the largest red I've ever caught (28.5 inches). It was so beautiful. I wanted to throw it back, but it was really tangled in the line and while I was trying to get it off, all the other poles started going off too. Needless to say, we caught a lot of fish that day, but this one was definitely the best.

This is a picture of me in my absolute favorite Christmas gift this year. I've wanted a U of O hoodie for so long, and I finally got one. My mom told me she was thinking about what all she should get me for Christmas, and she thought,"Stacey didn't ask me for a hoodie this year- I should get her one." Isn't that so funny. And it was extra awesome because I was not expecting it at all.

I had such a great Christmas! I got a lot of family time, and it was awesome!
But the one downer- Kirsten moved to California. I'm so sad about it. We got to spend a lot of time together before she left though, so that was good. I tried to throw her a surprise going away breakfast at her mom's house, but only one person could make it- Anthony. We had a lot of fun though. It was probably better that way because we never get to see Anthony since he lives in Ohio, and we got to do a lot of catching up.
Kirsten and I got back to San Antonio on Wednesday, and she was supposed to leave the next day. However, things took longer than expected and she didn't actually take off until Saturday afternoon. When they drove off on Saturday, I stayed behind a few minutes so that I wouldn't have to see them again 'cause we were both a crying mess. But I ended up catching up to them just as I was turning off to my house. I looked over and saw Kirsten waving her arms and crying, and I just started bawling again saying, "They're so cute!!" They were in this huge yellow Penske truck with her car in tow, and they looked so adult-like.


And I'll end with a couple of pictures of the best little girl in the world doing some yoga. Kennedy is just the cutest thing you can imagine, and that's an understatement.

Most of my life, I was super jealous of my cousin Jason for a lot of reasons, but mainly because he got St. Nick presents every year, and I never did. So this year Carl and I started something new- the celebration of St. Nick day. It was totally exciting and very fulfilling.
I got Carl some waterproof waders for him to wear while he's paddling out baits.

And he got me some cowgirl boots. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!! I've always wanted some. Try to ignore the pajama pants and just focus on the boots.