URGENT!!! Prayer Request

I love the idea of a White Christmas, but not Katie being stranded in an airport instead of meeting her sweet niece and hanging out with us! Let's all pray she gets home safely and quickly tomorrow and doesn't get stuck in the blizzard!! :)

Forewarning- a little random!

A little bird told me that this blog was being neglected after all the hard work put into it, so I've decided to blog about what I can.
First, it was not that little of a bird (Sorry Clint!).
Second, I got 3 A's and 2 B's this semester (I could have sworn one of those would have been a C...).
Third, American Eagle is where the cool kids go to shop (you know who you are).
Fourth, Cracker Barrel is the devil reincarnated... but sometimes the money is good...
Fifth, I get 50% profit of Matt's (Go see his blog Things that M@tter!)
Sixth, hopefully Matt's car will be back on Saturday tho he might be sucked into the Hut longer than expected (by a month)
Seventh, that's it for now.. HEROES is on!!

~Ashleigh~

p.s. (Do you use p.s. in a blog?) Don't bite your tongue off!

Making Things Friendlier

I've sent out invites to your emails to become blog authors here at The Gaston Story blog. This way you don't have to log in as thegastongang@gmail.com. You can simply use your own gmail account or whatever. If you have trouble give me a shout. I've also made it to where when you publish a blog it will send it to your email. Hopefully all this will make it much friendlier to post and keep track of everyone's busy buys lives.

I've also done some design updates to the blog. Hope you guys like them! Love ya!
-Clint

New Member Added to Blog

After a lengthy application process that lasted more than 9 months, we have officially decided to honor the nomination for membership of Ms. Maylee Gail Simpson (please see pic to the right under Larissa Simpson). She comes to us from Benbrook, TX. At the time of induction, Maylee is 4 days old. She is related to all of the current members (besides Matt).

Her interests include eating, sleeping, and pooping, though not always in that order. Maylee had no comment at the time of the induction ceremony. Mainly because she doesn't know how to speak English yet though I might mention she is fluid in sheep screams, burps, and wittle bird noises. We are very excited to have Maylee join the prestigious Gaston Gang! As soon as she discovers that she has fingers I'm certain she'll be blogging away.

Please feel free to leave comments congratulating Maylee on this special honor.

Maylee sends Katie a video!!!!

This message goes out to one Katie Gaston from one Maylee Simpson. She can't wait to meet you! Enjoy the video - check it out to the right. Everyone's a critic.

Maylee Gail!!

Maylee Gail Simpson has arrived!! She is a beautiful baby weighing 9 pounds 4 ounces and is 21 inches. She has gorgeous strawberry blond hair and was very content with her numerous visitors. This little girl made her appearance at 11:26pm on December the 3rd in a c-section. To say that I am overwhelmed with love, happiness, and extreme joy would be an understatement! What a long day, and Larissa made it look easy to the rest of her admirers! I can't even begin to describe the love I have witnessed and feel from this amazing event! This girl is God's miracle to us and I can't wait to see her again!! If you even feel a slight bit of love from hearing this news, then wait until you see her. She is so perfect and amazing that you will fall in love with her the moment you see her. Pictures and videos will soon come from her "paparazzi" as there were many of us in there all with cameras and phones. This is a momentous occasion, and I felt that our blog needed to know about it!! God is so good to us for sending this sweet girl!!

From an extremely proud and overjoyed aunt~ Ashleigh

=)

MAYLEE COMES TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
=)
GET EXCITED!!!!

our lives are about to be consumed by the sweetest little girl.
I cant wait!

-Lizzy

My 6th picture...

I don't have six files of pictures on my computer yet, but here is my sixth picture on my computer of my beautiful niece! :)

- S

post your 6th pic on the 6th file........... Sorry it took so long..... This is me, Emily, Lizzy, and Jenna at Joe T's on Emily's last night before heading to Chicago.

Tagged

So I was tagged by Kristin to post the 6th picture in my 6th file.

Liz and Darian at the dcc competition last Ocotober. Don't you love those red lips?!?

Okay now its all your guys turn to post your 6th pic on the 6th file...........

fun times : )
Riss

Oh and I just looked at the baby ticker on the side and that baby is getting awful close to the nest!!!! Crazy! less then 8 weeks, Wow!

August Adventures

As promised- I'll post now that I have something to say.
I left Texas almost two weeks ago and every day has been filled with something new. The trip started out with one crazy day in the car filled with bickering and fast food, but the days to follow were spent in DC eating fine cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory and riding my bike all the way to Alexandria-earning a really wicked sunburn. Then the weekend finished out with the amazing and truly gifted group-coldplay. The concert was awesome. We headed to NY on Sunday, and as much as I wanted to show everyone the entire Island, some sore feet led to a minimal tour...We managed to see the rock, 59th street, time square, battery park, ground zero, and Washington square park. We ate some great food- even managing to pick up some hot dogs at central park on the way...and eating the best cupcakes in the world from Tonnie's.
After the crazy three day stay, I was dropped off in Long Island at my friend Lex's house.
The adventure continued.
We headed to the Hamptons on Friday to spend some time with my friend Laura. Grant ended up meeting us there so it was Lex, Laura, Ian- Laura's boyfriend and fellow resident in the Hamptons, and Grant. We cruised around in a convertible and spent some time on the beach. It really was a FANTASTIC weekend- and pending that the melting ice cap doesn't suck up the eastern part of the island- I promise to buy a house there and take you all there one day.
We returned on sunday and went to the apple store where I decided I realyl want an Iphone, and Lex bought the Itouch for her birthday.
Monday we went to Costco and bought a few things for the dorm and then Breck, Lex's little brother and I, went to the club and went swimming.
Today we went to the Outlets where I bought my very first Coach anything for 40 dollars and a nice Puma bag for school for 20. Nice bargains.
So the trip has been fun so far, and Thursday I finally get to move back to the city- not to my dorm yet- but i'll be there soon enough.
Hope everything is going well in funky town!
-Katie

I'm Falling In Love....Again!

About seven years ago, I fell in love with a beautiful young lady named Larissa. Not a day goes by that I don't praise God for her. I never thought the day would come so soon but I must confess I'm falling in love with another little lady. When I first laid eyes upon her my heart sang! It was definitely love at first sight. It's a bit hard to describe how lovely she is. I can tell you she's pretty short, she's a bit bald right now and her English isn't so good, but she does have all of her fingers and toes. She takes my breath away!!! Sometimes at work I'll sit and stare at her picture and imagine my life with her. I'd like to introduce you....

Her name is MAYLEE GAIL SIMPSON! Her first name, Maylee, means "sweet" in Tongan and "jasmine flower" in Tai. Her middle name means "lively". I can't wait to spend the rest of my life loving my sweet and lively little girl. Seven years ago I fell in love with a beautiful young lady...and now I can say I'm so thankful to God that it's happening all over again. She's a bit shy so she's not quite ready to meet everyone. Larissa says she's in extensive training to be a black belt in karate or perhaps a World Cup soccer star (that's for you Kato!), but she has promised me that come December she'll be elated to meet all of you! I think you're gonna fall in love with Miss Maylee too.

-Clint

p.s. I've included the most recent picture we have of her...it's nice to finally put a name with a face!

(pictured within)
Maylee Gail Simpson...
I just like typing it

New Office

The new office is finally done!!!!!!

Thank you to all who helped clean out the old guest room and a special thanks to Katie for her awesome painting skills(please still be in town when its time to do the nursery).

So I now will present you pic's of the fun new office, where hopefully much work and not to much play will go on!

Okay now I'm off to work on the next project, the old office. Its alittle scary right now but hopefully by the end of the week it will be all cleaned out. I hope!

Hope everyone has a beautiful and blessed week!

Love, Riss

"...go on, film the world before it happens"

tomorrow is a big day...
10:30 a.m- no more hair!!! AH
8:00 p.m.-Death Cab For Cutie concert!!!

oh and the past month highlights that were not included are......
I'm 18!
I'm no longer in highschool! =)
and i'll add more depending on below question...

is the blog family only? or open???

today consisted of counting rhinestones and working alot. im exhausted and will try to update more when I can...but beware I might start to ramble on here...=)


-Lizzy

Busy Lives...Try to Keep Up!

Poor blog.....how you are so neglected. No more! No more! Ok so here's a bit of catch up...or is it catsup...maybe ketchup..mmmm....burgers...I'll be brief to get you up to speed. Life is fast.

Went to Boerne for Uncle Gerald's surprise party. Surprise! Steph was in San Fran (see below) so we took Darian as her redhead replacement. She made weird noises in the car (sort of a whale being harpooned sound). Stayed in Gerald and Brenda's new hotel/saloon/free lodging for the Gastons when they visit place. Too cool! They made it with their own four hands. I have trouble reinstalling my rearview mirror so to say the least I was very impressed.

Got back from the trip and realized it was time to lose some weight. The air mattress that Riss and I slept on in Boerne only seemed to deflate on my side. So I hopped online, like any good fatty does and joined The Biggest Loser Club based on the TV show. I figured 'if it's on tv then it must be true', so I joined. In the past two weeks I've lost 15 pounds thus far. My goal is 40 by the time 'Baby' gets here. I've taken pictures of my beautiful belly (sarcasm) and will eventually post them alongside Larissa's beautiful belly pics (not sarcastic this time) as hers grows and hopefully mine shrinks. It will be hilarious! (and a bit shocking..definitely PG-13 stuff)

Stephanie just left for Italy on a mission trip. She was extremely excited to go and we were all proud of her. She was nervous about getting busted for being a pecan mule, but we reassured her that after a quick strip search and debriefing by security it wouldn't be a problem. We are praying for her and her crew as they go to campuses and tell of God's great news of Jesus Christ.

Rissa is past her first trimester, the most dangerous of all the mesters. Everything is going as planned. At the last sonogram, the nurse used the terms "beautiful" and "perfect". All of the sisters seem to be nesting with Rissa which is really sweet and I appreciate it.

So that's pretty much it. Lots of life in between the paragraphs. Lots of blessings. Lots of love. The blog will not die. It cannot die.
-Clint

Dead?

Should we pronounce the time of death? Or can we resuscitate?
-Ashleigh

California... here we come! :)

My week in California was fabulous... I didn't realize how much I needed a vacation until I was halfway through the trip... I'll post more later, but here's some highlights in pictures!

We ate...

We cooked...

We destroyed...

We relaxed...

We made new friends...

Reconnected and spent time with cherished old friends...

We climbed a mountain...

We played...

And we basked in God's Glory...

And on our last day found out what "thrifty" means in California...

More to come later...

Brother Matt

Clint forgot a member of the family.
Brother Matt must be added.
Revolt.

A Tale of Two Taters...

After looking over all the other amazing posts, I felt it just might be time to put something up for me. This is a post that will talk about baseball, potatoes, and messy rooms... hope you enjoy it?

First let's start with some baseball. Last Sunday, a group of friends and I ventured out to the great Ballpark in Arlington, and watched the Rangers vs the Kansas City Royals (Sorry I meant Minnesota Twins!). The Rangers were not only victorious over the Twins with a 10-0 win! AMAZING! Here are some pics... the rest will be on facebook!

My favorite player, second baseman, Ian Kinsler!




And an awesome looking pitch! He's the pitcher with the shut out!





Here comes the Potatoes! As some of you know... I already owned a Mr. Potato Head who looks like R2-D2 from Star Wars...
R2-D2









But after a great afternoon at TARGET... here came the latest addition...
Indiana Jones! or Idaho Spuds as the box said!
The best part is.... His hat plays the theme song!!
So if you ever happen to find a cool looking Mr. Potato Head... just think of me!





I know this blog didn't have a lot of text in it... but they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I just posted 4 pictures, so I just wrote 4,000+ words. More pictures and words to come as I clean out my room and move from Denton back to Ft. Worth. The pictures might be too gruesome for some....
I hope ya'll are having a great week and I'm excited for Baby Simpson!!

~Ashleigh

TOMs-Shoes for Tomorrow.

I met one of the most inspiring people i've ever met tonight and at the same time saw God tell a funny story to mankind. Who do you know that can cure a disease with a shoe? Tonight I met a guy that God enabled to do just that.

His name is Blake Mycoskie and tonight a documentary about his company debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival which Grant (via a friend of the family who knows Blake-Blake actually made a guest appearance at Grant's 13th birthday party, he was on the Amazing Race) got us tickets to. Anyway, Blake created a company called TOMs. TOMs is a company that makes shoes, but for each pair of shoes it sells it donate a pair to a child in need.

Now, the story in itself is interesting. A guy who really didn't know much about business went on the Amazing Race and saw a lot of people without shoes and wanted to change that. In fact, he even took the shoes off of his feet and gave it to a man he met along the way, running the rest of his day without them. This ordinary guy started a company that sold 10,000 shoes its first year, 50,000 in the next, and 200,000 in its third year. He has donated 260,000 pairs of shoes to children in need. Next year they head to Ethiopia where they are attempting to eradicate a disease. With some profits from the shoes, they will buy antibiotics. Shoes themselves will remove the leading cause of the disease. I don't know the exact name of the disease, i'll google it later, but I have yet to get to the best part of the story.

So to recap, thus far we have an ordinary man who went on a reality t.v. show and was inspired to give shoes to the world. This man with no prior experience was able to start a huge company. As his documentary debuted at the film festival I watched as he modestly talked about his company. Thus far I think he's a pretty cool guy and i'm inspired by his work, but it wasn't until afterward that I really decided I liked him. There was a Q and A session with the directors after the films. Someone asked him what the key to success. was He answered that we would have to ask God. Afterward I heard him talking to two people from Texas (not us) who had asked him if he was religious. He is one of the most friendly men I have ever met and I feel like I gained something out of just meeting him for a few moments-maybe its inspiration?

So there you have it. God took an ordinary guy, inspired him, blessed his business, and used a documentary to spread his word. He's using shoes to cure a disease. Not only that, but he's helping thousands of his children along the way. I thought you all might be interested. I am fully endorsing this company having personally met the man and am going to try and go on a shoe drop sometime next fall.

The website is http://www.tomsshoes.com/. I will be buying baby some.

-Kato

Family Resemblance

So we couldn't resist putting up the first baby pictures. There's text on one of them that the lab tech wrote to tell us where the head is and where the rump is. In the actual pics you can clearly see the eyes and an arm. Amazing! At this point, I think the baby looks more like me than Larissa. I mean come on! You can clearly see two eyes and one arm...that's totally me! Well hopefully as it develops it will look more like Rissa but for now this baby is definitely a chip off the old block. The pic to the right side is the baby's heartbeat. The doc said it was a good heart. I think it definitely got that from Rissa.

From here on out we won't post everyday about the baby on 'How to Tell a Gaston Story'. We don't want to flood this blog with baby, baby, baby 24/7 so we'll be posting constantly on clintand larissa.blogspot.com. I'll put a link to it on the sidebar to the right. Enjoy!
-Clint and Rissa

A Picture Documentary of Me

I'm hesitant to post after baby...it's a hard act to follow, but I don't want to study anymore so I thought I would give a picture documentary of my first year in New York. My view from my room is nice and the park is/was amazing- they're tearing it apart but is promised to be finished by the time I graduate...we'll see about that.

The first few months were spent on the soccer field. You think I kid, but literally every moment I wasn't in class was either spent on the field or eating. Then I got pneumonia and they were just spent in bed...Luckily there are NO pictures from that time period...

I had a birthday in between all of that. I didn't do anything too special, but I DID find Mexican food in NYC which is quite a treat :-D. Halloween in NYC was a new experience. It is a HUGE deal. After almost getting mobbed, we just chilled in a dorm and ate more candy than I have ever eaten in my life (of course, eating...) So soccer season ended and I came home for break...and when I went back I took my first adventure to New Hampshire and snow. It is NOT white and fluffy. Okay, its white, but it is definately not soft and cut my ankes :-( BUT I had a great time with the Navigators and am sad to say that soccer has kept me from going for a while now. But I cleared my schedule for next semester so I will definately be there! We try to fit in as many New Yorky type things as we can into our schedule without going broke...so we mostly go to Central Park. It is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I've ever been and is definately one of the top three places to be in NYC. We also go out to as many MLB games as we possibly can. (Baby will be a Yankees fan.) Sometimes we get bored and play on the macs instead of doing our homework...but we usually get pretty good grades somehow.

Go figure.

We've also taken a few trips to SNL, and of course went ice-skating OUTDOORS which was a little trippy...but I think all of these pictures should be a start to describing the amazing year at NYU. Okay, well its almost one here and i've wasted entirely too much time posting pictures...

Perhaps some more another time...

Kato

A New Chapter in the Gaston Story

As you might able to discern from the previous post, Larissa and I are going to be parents soon. We've known for two weeks now but have pain-stakingly kept it a secret. I ended up telling our pharmacist due to medical reasons and my barber due to the fact I had to tell someone! She was elated, though she didn't cut me a break on the price of cutting my mop. Telling all of you was like Christmas for Rissa and I. We loved the look of excitement on everyone's face and the joy that we know each of you share with us. We're excited to know that we won't ever be lacking a babysitter. We're counting on all of you to pitch in with diaper duty. David you're up first! Lizzy, you're off the hook. I've seen how you clean your room, so I'm worried you won't clean the whole thing.

Our child couldn't ask for a bigger blessing than to be a part of this Gaston gang. Although the baby will carry the last name of Simpson, I'm sure it'll quickly be brainwashed by Disney, dance, soccer and Mexican food (oh, and rollercoasters - thanks Dave!) to be safely in the realm of Gaston.

At this point, Rissa is 7 weeks along. The due date, the doctors tell us, is December 12th. Rissa and I are usually running late where ever we go, so I'm guessing it might be the 13th. We have lots of projects coming up to get our house ready, so we'll be calling upon all workers to help. Once again Lizzy, don't bother signing up for 'clean up' duty. And Matt, you have like 5 jobs as it is, so you're off the hook too. The rest of you folks will be assigned according to your labor skills. Gary, I would give you management, but I think Rissa already has filled that position. You can be assistant manager or assistant to the manager (something like that, I'll let you guys work it out). David, we'll need to paint the nursery, so bring the paintball guns.

We'll make sure to keep everyone apprised on the development of this story with belly pictures (both mine and hers), work progress, and of course any prayer requests that may arise. Start those prayers now though. Once again, we want to thank everyone for their amazing responses and enthusiasm.

If you can, I think it might be fun for the baby to eventually see the reaction that you had to news of its arrival, so try to reproduce that face and post it here at the bottom. I've started the pics already (note: shock, confusion and excitement all in one facial expression). Call me if you need any help with posting pics. Should be fun. Love you guys!

-Clint (typing for two)