Summer 2011

Well, we are back from vacation.  And I have never been more happy to see my bathtub in all my life.  And my air conditioner.  And my washing machine for that matter.  We've spent the past few days in a post vacation haze, lots of staring and milling around and sleeping late and doing nothing.  I love summer.  Really, I do.  I love the heat and the swimming and the traveling and the lazy days, but I always know I'm about ready to wrap it up when the temperature reaches a point where you swear you see satan putting on sunscreen or I catch my children standing in front of the open fridge not to get food, but to cool off.  When I'm okay with my husband's arctic 68 degrees thermostat setting, I'm done.    We had a great vacation to our family's ranch and to the (dry) Frio River, but I could have done without the 120degree heat.  you laugh?  that was the heat index in the parking lot.  The fact that there was no hot water did not bother me in the slightest. 

Anyhooo, now that I am but I did want to share some of the fun things that we have done this summer.  While we have not crossed everything off of our summer bucket list, we have had a great summer!
Here's what we've done so far..... 

We've seen the dolphins at the aquarium!

We got to hold a baby goat!

And asked 597 times if we could have one!

We spent 4th of July with our best friends!

We suprised our Nana on her 80th birthday!

And got to spend time with family!

We love our cousins!

Watching the fireworks with Daddy!

I think these faces are priceless!

We got to dip our feet into some pretty cool fountains!

We melted mommies heart just a little more!

We got to swim in all kinds of places!

We played football with Jay Novacek from the Dallas Cowboys!!

We had a picnic on the Medina River.

We swung from a rope swing into the Frio!!

We rode in the back of the truck and spotted some great wildlife on the ranch!!

Best of all...  we did it all together! 

Whitley's Wedding

We've had a lot of weddings around here lately!  My cousin Whitley (yes, I have a little girl named Whitley...  it's our grandmother's maiden name, and my cousin Whitley have always held a special connection) got married last weekend!  Probably one of the most beautiful weddings I've been blessed to be a part of.  Here are a ton of pictures, so you can see for yourself how gorgeous she is and how much fun everyone had...

The Beautiful Couple...  Ryan and Whitley

Whitley and her precious flower girls (my two girls and my niece Anna)!

perfection.

Little Whitley.

The first dance. 

Happy to be able to RUN!

You said be silly?

gorge. us.

My sweet sister KK

magical

I can almost hear her laughter!

This is about right.

My handsome handsome son. 

Ladies.

I know he wants to dance with his momma. 

This one has her daddy's heart tied up on a string.

bride Whitley

The Mavericks won, Whitley got married, what else is there?  Congratulations to Ryan and Whitley!!

Happy Birthday!

Nathan, our oldest just turned 12.  Can someone please tell me what happened, cause like five minutes ago I was changing diapers and chasing behind him on his bike.  He has grown into such an extraordinary young man!  I am so proud of you!  His birthday is on December 31st.  New Years Eve.  The biggest party day of the year.  We have always struggled with how to have a party for him because it is so close to Christmas and so many people are either out of town or won't commit to coming to a party on New Years Eve.  So this year, we decided to have close friends and family over on New Year's Eve for a make your own pizza party.  Then in the middle of January when they go back to school, we will have a bigger kid friendly party.

This year, he was perfectly happy with pizza and a cookie cake.  How would you handle having a kid with a birthday on a holiday?

Oh Sugar Sugar!

We have a tradition every year to invite some friends over and decorate sugar cookies.  I promise next year to get some better pictures, which I think will be a little easier since they will be a little older.  It's a little hard to hold a camera and a knife full of icing at the same time!

What Christmas traditions do you have?

Weddings!

This weekend we went to my cousin's wedding in Dallas.  Just wanted to share a few of my favorite photos...

Whitley and her great grandmother, Nana.

All the girls!

Nathan and Tyler

So many new babies!!

My flower girl in training!

The food was delish!! 

She'll be back in five!

This is about right...

Congratulations to Campbell and Sarah!!

The Zoo Was Great... the one we brought, not the one we went to see!

So this past week, my husband had some extra vacation time, and because the kids were still out of school, and because my brother-in-law was being deployed to IRAQ...  we decided to take a little weekend trip to San Antonio to spend some time with my sister and her little girl who just moved back to Texas from Key West.  The weather was HORRIBLE!  It was freezing cold and rainy and yucky the whole weekend, but we didn't let that stop us from having a great time!  Not even kidding, it was 75degrees like two days before we left and cleared up literally as we were driving away from the hotel....

We drove through the zoo, where you could feed the animals from your car!  It was so much fun!

Check out these videos that I took:

After the Zoo, we went to eat at Magic Time Machine!  If you are ever in San Antonio, this is a must!  Captain Jack Sparrow was our waitor, and the girls thought he was Captain Hook from Peter Pan!!  Ha!

Getting her face painted and glittered!

Taking a swim in the hotel sauna bath!  Look how dirty that water is...  ew!

Then we went ice skating before we left!  Great workout, holding a 3 year old while skating!