Five Years Ago...

When Gloria was 3, Jake Ledbetters' mom asked if she wanted to go to a Tae Kwon Do class with him.  She went.  She's worked really hard since then (with a few breaks) to earn all of her belts.  Today she attended the 'Black Belt Extravaganza' and earned her 1st Degree Black Belt. She had to go through a series of events - performing her red belt form, sparring and breaking boards.    It was quite a day!!!

Board Breaking...

Kung Fu Gloria

Yes, even the big man himself showed up!  

Even the Chikfila Cows showed up!

The Sheriff's Posse (yes, we live in Texas)...
The Rockwall Yellowjacket band...
The Stingerettes Drill Team...

Our County Judge and former Sunday School teacher, Chris Florance.

Congressman Hall - I love this guy!  It's so cool to have such a sense of community where we live.  EVERYONE and their grandma shows up for this parade.  All of the city leaders show up.

We had a few minutes before the parade started, so we decided to run into 7-11 for some 'breakfast'.  I think that half of the town of Rockwall had the same brilliant idea.  We stood in line for about 15 minutes for hot chocolate, then grabbed a couple of breakfast burritos and a bag of powdered sugar donuts to complete our well-rounded meal.  Then, it began!!!

Well, Jazzy doesn't get out much.  See, when she does, she runs like the wind.  She is tough to catch.  Lonnie, being the cautious one that he always is, suggested that we put her normal collar on (in addition to her special Christmas collar), so that her tags would be on her should she get loose.  Well, in putting the collar on her, I apparently didn't attach it completely. As we got out of the car, she cut loose and ran toward the parade route.  Emily and I chased her for two blocks.  I knew I would hear Lonnie say, 'I told you so!'  It was not a good start to our morning.  Fortunately, this awesome police officer swooped her up as she ran right for him.  He literally saved the day!  We then got settled to watch the parade.  

For Missy...

Well, it's come to my attention that I have not done a very good job keeping my blog up to date.  I was actually thrilled to know that someone cared!!  I promise to be more diligent in my blogging.  

Today was a fabulous day.  I was actually quite tired after being gone for the last three days. I got home last night, unpacked, went to bed, and awoke to my 7 am alarm this morning.  I was tempted to ignore it, but I couldn't miss one of our greatest family traditions!  We have attended the great Rockwall Christmas Parade every year since Emily was a baby.  We've never missed it.  This morning the kids decided they wanted to take Jazzy.  All dressed in her Christmas sweater (it was pretty cold outside!), she was ready to go.