lu's music program

The kids elementary school has the best music programs. In March it was Julia's turn. The first grader's program was entitled, "When I Grow Up" it was seriously so cute.

Julia's had a part. She was a secretary. She was to dress like a secretary. So we put her hair in a bun, put a sweater on her and attached some reading glasses to a set of beads. She did not think she looked like a secretary, but when I asked her what she thought one looked like, she said she did not even know what a secretary was, so I think she does not get an opionion on what a secretary looks like.

This program had the cutest songs ever. Julia had a lot of fun and true to her character after the program I was asked, by her, what me favorite song was, what my 2nd favorite song was ...etc... until I had named every song! Isn't she so cute!!!

Beach Season

Well the first Saturday in March we headed to Galveston to start beach season.  It is so nice to be so close to a beach.  We went to a stake picnic in the morning and then headed to the beach later that day. 

We had a lot of fun, it was not hot, but warm enough to have fun.

So notice the black eye on Julia's forehead.  We went to a picnic that had face painting and my 7 year old GIRL, chose a black eye and lightning bolts on her cheeks.  Why??  I have no idea, all her friends that she was with had cute flowers and butterflies!  What a funny girl!

Each child likes the beach for different reasons.  Ryan's reason-to find things.  He will dig and walk anywhere, if there is a chance to find a shell or animal!

Sawyer's reason-eventhough he like the water, he loves the sand.  He will dig and build for hours!!!!

Julia-well she just loves to be involved.  If someone is playing in the water, she loves to jump the waves.  If someone is on the beach, she will build with them, she just like companionship!!

Sawyer and Julia dug a big hole and buried themselves.

I LOVE THE BEACH!!!  It is so peaceful, the kids love it so much, the water is so pretty!

I LOVE THE BEACH!!

Puppet show!

I took Sawyer and his friend, Caleb, to the children's museum one day.  The both had a lot of fun as always.  The cutest part was that they put on a puppet show.  They just walk behind the curtain, picked up a puppet and started telling a story.  It was so good, that you would have thought thay had been practicing it for hours. 

Kids are so creative and CUTE!!

It does snow in Houston-barely!

If you look real closely and concentrate a lot, you will see the flurry of flakes coming down.  This is the 2nd time that this happens this winter in Houston. Rumor is that is only snows once every 10 years in Houston, well.....this is twice in 1 year.  I am not sure if you really call it snow, since it never made it to the ground, but nonetheless there were flakes in the air.

Brazos Bend-ALLIGATORS!!!

One Saturday we took a little trip down to Brazos Bend State Park.  It is home to many alligators.   When we first got there we went to the nature center and saw some baby alligators, that all the kids were lucky enough to touch.  While we were there we asked where the best place to see an alligator would be, we were told that we would only see the baby alligators that we just saw.  We decided to take a walk around the lake anyhow. 

Well we saw one right when we got on the trail around the lake!  We were so excited, and that excitement lasted the whole walk, we saw around 50 alligators that day. 

All of the alligators were on islands in the middle of the lake, so it was safe.  You can see how close we were from this picture.  We did have some friends that went recently and they were so close to the alligators that the dad of the group grabbed a tail of one of the alligators.  I am glad that they were farther away when we went!

It was a gorgeous day for a nice family walk!

A nice family picture and proof that I was there, there are pictures to enjoy!  Truth be told, Dennis does take pictures of me, but more often then not, I am not in love with those pictures and since I am the blog poster, I get to pick the pictures!!!

Maybe we will go back soon and get closer to the alligators!!

date night

This year we decided as a family to take one child out each week on a date.  Dennis and I rotate week by week and the kids rotate.  This gives each kid an one on one date with one of their parents once every three weeks.  It has been really good and the kids love to think about what they are going to do on their dates.  This particulae time, Dennis and Ryan test drove a mustang for their date. 

February fun time!

My Christmas present from Dennis this year was

one fun event a month for the whole 2010 year.  In January we went to the opera, not our favotire thing.  Glad we did it, but we do not ever have to go back.  In February we went to a Jazz game.  We went as a family and another family came with us.  The Jazz, my fave team, were playing the Rockets in Houston.   It was a fun game.

The stadium the Rockets play in is pretty small, so even the "cheap" seats are not the bad. 

Sawyer was super excited.  He really likes watching sporting events.  He probably watched more of the game then the other kids, whether it was interest, or the other friends of Ryan and Julia that were there, who knows. 

I love watching the Jazz and I am glad me family can enjoy this with me!!

The best part, the Jazz won!!!!

Cancun

Dennis and I took a quick trip to Cancun.  Dennis's parents flew out to Houston to stay with our kids so we could spend some time together, kid-less.  Thank you Lynn and Brenda.  This was out 10 year anniversary trip!!  Wow can you belive that we have been married for 10 years!!  Our anniversary is not until March, but this is when it worked out for us and Dennis's parents.  We flew out early Friday morning, well that was the plan, but with the snow in Dallas, our lay over, our flight was cancelled, so we did not get to Cancun until late that night. So we started our trip minus one day! 

We spent the first day walking on the beach.  It was unseasonably cool, so not a lot of water time.  It was perfect weather to walk around the beautiful carribbean.  We browsed the shops and rested and enjoyed the sun. 

We enjoyed the all-inclusiveness of the resort.  Eating yummy food, but we have decided that we enjoy mexican food more in the US then we do in Mexico.  I like to go on vacation when you get to dress up each night for dinner. 

One day we enjoyed a day touring Talum, a Mayan ruin.  It was amazing and we loved listening to the stories that our tour guide told and the similarities we find in the Book of Mormon. 

It was BEAUTIFUL!!  The water was so blue and the vegetation was so green.  So pretty!  There were iguanas everywhere! 

Dennis really enjoyed this tour.  I decided that if we throw history into all our trips Dennis will be SUPER happy.  All I need is the sun and the beach!! 

We enjoy the cultural and shops around Talum.  Here we are posed with some fun warriors!  This was the sunniest day the whole trip.  It was so nice. 

Our last day was a short day, since we had to catch out plane home.  We took a Kayak out of the ocean.  Dennis spent a little more time out there while I spent more time laying in the sun!! 

All in all it was a great trip!  We love spending time together without the kids, but I will admit that we are always commenting on  how much the kids would enjoy what we are doing!!

horse time

Julia started horse riding lessons this year.  She really likes it.  It is great for her.  She starts each lesson brushing down the horse that she will use.  As she is doing this she learns about the horse.  Is is really good for her, she loves learning and she really loves this particualr horse, Moose.

After taking care of the horse, she gets to ride.  She is learning western style.  Learning how to steer the horse and learning balance.  Just recently she has gone outside and started running around the arena. 

Here is a "Just being Julia" moment:

normally this lady is her teacher and gives her lots of compliments.  One night she had a different teacher and she did not give as many compliments.  When Dennis asked Julia if she had fun that night, her response was..

"well not as good as normal, she did not tell me good job very much!"

Julia likes to be complimented!!

New Posts!

Well I am now caught up through January!  YAY!!!  We are headed on spring break vacation next week to Disneyworld.  So lots more pictures to take.  I will try to get February caught up before we leave. 

Highlights to look forward to for February

*Julia starts horse-riding lessons
*Dennis and I go to Cancun
*Alligators
*Rockets vs. Jazz

Enjoy the 5 new posts!!

My birthday in San Antonio

For my birthday, we spent the weekend in San Antonio.  We stayed at a motel on the river, which was so nice, we could just walk right out to the riverwalk and we were close to everything.  The first day we were there it rained a lot, but we were still able to do some fun things.  This is the view from our motel room.

The first day we went to the house or mirrors.  It was a maze of mirrors.  It was a lot of fun.  Sawyer was so funny.  You could see the exit from a lot of views because of the mirrors.  When Sawyer would see the exit he would run all excited to finish, right into a mirror.  It was so funny, but the best part is he would just laugh and then move on.  It was rainy, but because of that there were hardly any people there, so we could go through the mirrors again and again.  Also at the same place there was a laser maze the kids could go through it was comical as well. 

Because it was so rainy outside, it was not a lot of fun to walk around, so we spent a lot of time browsing the stores.  Julia was having fun trying on a lot of hats and choosing places to take pictures.  She picked this place for a picture. Kindof creepy, but very San Antonio-ish!

Dennis had never been to a hard rock cafe so we ate there the first day, right on the river walk.  It was good food!!

Saturday was much nicer and we were able to spend more time outside walking along the riverwalk.  I love taking walks when there are so many pretty things to see.  The riverwalk is a must go place, so if you have not been there, you should go!!

This in the first eat-outside restuarant on the riverwalk.  It is also on the front of a ton of postards for San Antonio.  So I thought it would be fun to eat here.  I will admit though, the food was only ok!  Ryan had a lot of fun teasing the ducks with food.  We had told Ryan that he should not feed the animals, but when the waitress come to bring us a new basket of chips, she threw the leftovers into the river for the ducks.  So I guess feeding the wildlife is encouraged. 

We vacationed in San Antonio two years ago and were not able to really visit the Alamo.

There were to many people there, that you had to wait in line to even get into the plave.  We did do a quick run through the last day that we were there, but were not able to really read about and enjoy the place.  So we went ahead a made it there this time and was really able to enjoy it.  Well Dennis did a lot of enjoying, I do not really love history type things, but there were a lot of pretty things to look at.  And it was so nice outside, I was able to enjoy the weather.

All in all, it was a grand trip.  I am excited to go back soon.  I love that we live so close that we can visit often!

USS TEXAS

Another day trip during the break.  Some friends invited us to go to the USS Texas monument.  I will admit, I would not have chosen this activity myself, so I am glad we were invited because it was a nice place and the kids really enjoyed it.  I am really not into history, but I am sure that Dennis would like this place, so we will go back with him sometime.  We also went to the San Jancito monument this day, but I guess I was done taking pictures.  There was a very nice museum there.

On the ship deck you could climb on and play with everything.  I thought that was nice and the boys really liked pretending to shoot the big guns!!!

Under the deck, you could tour the insides of the ship.  It was like a museum, lots of displays and information all over.  The kids like the bunks the most!

The groups of friends that we went with!

A view from the fromt of the ship on deck!!

Bowling

During the holiday break, we went bowling.  There is a website called Groupon, I am pretty sure that it is for other places besides Houston, but anyhow, the website will send out daily deals to various places.  This was one deal- 2hours of bowling, shoe rental and soda for 6 people, and I think it was only like $20.  We were able to get in 2 games each, but if you are faster bowlers, you might be able to get in more games.  There are great deals with groupon, we have taken advantage of about 5, check it out, you might find some great deals for your area.  Anyhow, bowling was a lot of fun, Julia was able to get a strike so she was really happy!!We all had fun and this particualr bowling alley was very nice, but I will admit, I miss the less nice one in Wyoming, simply because no one could smoke!!!!!

THE GIRLS!!!

THE GUYS!!!

Painting

There is a fun place here, where you pick out a shape and then paint it and they put a nice glossy finish on it and you get to bring it home.  The kids were in heaven.  Ryan picked a 3-D mountian goat, Julia picked a huge butterfly and Sawyer picked spiderman's head.  Of course Sawyer would pick this, since at this time, if you asked him what his name was he would reply, "spiderman".  To funny!  I guess that I did not take any finished pictures, so I will have to remember to do that, since they are hanging up in there rooms. 

Nature center

The kids had two full weeks for Christmas break from school. The weather was beautiful and we were able to do a lot of fun things.  One thing that we did was go to the Nature Center here in Houston.  There was a little interactive kids center, which the kids had a lot of fun learning about houston animals.  Then we took a long walk on the trails in the park. 

The funnest thing was seeing this armadillo.  It was just right there next to the trail.  Ryan spotted it and was so happy, he had to tell all the other hikers around us about it.  Armadillos are really cute, and we ended up seeing three that day.  The only other animals that we saw were squirrels and fish.  I guess there in normally more animals to see, but it was cold, so they were all hibernating. 

This is such a cute picture of Julia and Sawyer.  Julia is constantly taking care of Sawyer, showing him how to do things, teaching him things and just playing so nicely with him.