Glass Bottom Boat

The real reason for our visit down to San Antonio was originally to go to the coast but Hurricane Ike put an end to that dream. And of course we would not want to forget about Oma and Grandpa, they are after all reason enough. Since we could not make it down to the coast we thought about going to Sea World and I was having a cheap moment and we decided not to do that. Instead we took a glass bottom boat tour. We checked out the small native Texas fish aquarium first and then got on the boat. Both of the kids were fascinated that they could see under the boat at the turtles, fish and plant life. The area we visited was a fresh water lake, fed by a fresh water spring that travels hundreds of miles across Texas to reach San Marcos. Many of those miles are actually underground. Pretty cool when you think about it, we could even see the spring water bubbling up from the bottom of the lake. Both kids really wanted to take pictures of what they saw, so with a little help from Mom and Oma they did get some good shots off. (I really liked the part when Bear was licking Grandpa’s head and Grandpa did not even notice. I tried so hard to get a picture but was too slow.)

Anyway, the fish were pretty cool and were all different sizes, and so were the turtles. Our guide informed us that the little white flowers on the vegetation growing under that water meant that the water was very healthy. Over all the water was pretty clear and the depth varied from I would say 2 feet to about 27 feet. While not the ocean, it was still pretty fun for the kids, to check out water life in a natural habitat.

Grape Stomp

How would you like to put your feet into a vat of purple grapes and stomp up and down to produce the largest amount of grape juice for a competition? Sounds like fun huh. Well we did not do exactly that but the kids did get to step into some grape juice and make their feet prints on a t-shirt, and then try their “feet” out at stomping a few grapes. I would think it might hurt your feet with the stems still in there but who knows. Not having tried I could not say. For those of you who would like to try, you can go to a grape stomp and see how good you are at making juice. No I don’t think they will make you drink it but who knows. This was the first annual grape stomp at a new housing development down in San Antonio; I can only hope that it will get better with time. The one good thing was that your taste of wine was like a whole glass. That’s right no little bit, that you are swishing around and possibly swallowing, but a whole glass. Pretty cool; except for the prego woman who wanted to try as many as possible but could not because of the size of the “samples.” What I did try was very yummy. Now normally I would not want to ruin a good wine by adding things to it, but the Sangria they had was nice. You could drink a lot of that and not really know that you would be messed up later. I had to pass my cup away after one sip, bummer. I think the kids had the most fun, running around in the pool “trying” not to get too wet. Isabelle really likes her t-shirt and wears it to bed every night she can.

Jumping Off . . .

While we were down at Oma’s and Grandpa’s house, we took the kids for the train ride and to feed the ducks. Now the one set of ducks were not very smart and did not come down to get any food, so we had to a wait a little while for another set. That was hard for the kids, but they got a chance to feed some fish. Anyway, while we were waiting on the ducks I went to take a picture of Bear sitting down looking at all the fish, then he got up. Never one to hold still in a spot for long, I just happened to click the button right as he was getting up and it looks like he is about ready to jump in. The water was not very deep but he did not go swimming in the little river.

Baby room help

Here is the first baby poll. No nothing so exciting as what the sex, weight and date will be but instead, a poll for how we should decorate the room. Since I did not really get a chance to use Isabelle’s bedding and window treatments for either her or Bear I am determined to use them for this baby. I have included pictures of the bedding so you know what it looks like. The curtains are a green toile, with a nursery rhyme theme. The skirt is green and light pink plaid while the bumper is the toile and a cream diamond pattern.



I will put up five different options of what we are thinking about, and by we I mean me. You will have to use your imagination, since I will not use the colors in the pictures. I am looking to use shades of green; a darker green and a lighter green, to match the fabric that we already have. So you will have to picture those colors on the walls. Now I will even need some help possibly in choosing a second color not in the green family based on what you guys like. Help us (read me) out to pick a wonderful design for the baby’s room. He/she should be able to enjoy the room for a while, and that is what we are looking for, longevity.

All of the room design pictures are courtesy of HGTV and people who have posted their pictures on the web site therefore I am not responsible for the quality of the picture.

High School Football

Last night was a big night for the small East Texas town of Sulphur Springs, they had the pleasure of being the featured High School football team on ESPN. Each week an ESPN crew travels to a different city in possibly another state. Sulphur Springs High School played host to a team from Wichita Falls, TX called Rider High School. Now this may not seem like a big deal to anyone who lives in a big city, but this was the BIG TIME for Sulphur Springs. The town went all out, with window decoration contests, t-shirts for the day and much more. They will be talking about this day for years, that’s right, years to come.

The main purpose of these featured games is to highlight the up and coming talent for next years college season. Both teams had players of interest, mostly the two quarterbacks. I believe the student from Rider, has already selected a college to play for but the player from Sulphur Springs, has many doors open to him. I am happy to say that Sulphur Springs pulled through with a win of 22 to 16. Go Wildcats!

Now you might wonder as to why I am writing this post, well, I finished High School in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Not really much to write home about there, but they are very serious about high school football; as are most cities in Texas. After all Sulphur Springs, only has about 15,000 people who reside there, and about 7,000 were out to show their support for the high school football team. I know crazy, but it is what it is.

Our baby is . . .

healthy. That’s right we are going against convention and not learning early on what the sex of our baby will be. Isabelle really thinks it is a girl, so we are just trying to prepare her just in case the baby is a boy. Right now we have a very wiggly 8 inch, 11 oz baby moving around. You would think the baby is so much bigger based on the size of my belly but who knows. I think we might be on our downhill run, coming to the finish line, but I’m not really sure, I have only been keeping track in months, not weeks. I think that later on we’ll see about a little poll or contest to pick the date, weight and sex. Start thinking about what your guess might be. And for those of you who think well maybe she’ll share name ideas, nope, that’s a secret too.

"Free" Sports

The kids are “trying” out a couple of different activities over the next two weeks at three different places; gymnastics at two different locations and soccer tots at another. Now of course Isabelle is all ready for gymnastics, and Bear I think might go along with what ever Isabelle wants to do. We are going to try to let them choose what they want and go from there, but it will be interesting to see what they choose. If all else fails they will have lots of fun and get out and meet some different kids. Ben really wants them to do soccer; he has issues with sports that are judged instead of based on goals. Either one I think will be good for Bear so that he can learn to follow directions better. I’ll let you know later what they decide to do.

Paint, Paint, Paint

My Labor Day weekend included some interesting items. My goal of the weekend was to be able to park my car in the garage. Well Ben had other plans. Needless to say my car is still in the drive way. But we are getting closer to organizing the chaos. I will say that he did work on the garage for a little while then came in and said I want to paint the kitchen. Well ok! So on Sunday after Ben went to work and I took Isabelle to Instant Care, we were one our way to Home Depot.

Instant Care, what, you say. Early on Sunday she was complaining that her head and neck hurt on her left side a lot. Now Isabelle has a pretty high pain tolerance and does not complain all that much, but this time she was really whiny. And would just not stop, it seemed that if she moved her head she would complain. I did not want to take two kids into the store to get Tylenol so I called Ben, and left a message for him to pick some up. Well he did not get home soon enough. Instead of taking two kids to the store I went to Instant Care, (Ben did come and pick up Bear) only to find out that the doctor had no clue what could be wrong, and to give her some Tylenol or Motrin. Long story short that’s what we did and she seems to be doing better were just watching her.

Back to my home improvement project, now painting our kitchen is an undertaking because of what we do to the walls. Essentially, the process is three coats of paint; the base color, top coat and the lines. As you can imagine the base coat does not take too long, just the taping does so nobody makes too big of a mistake. We got the base coat done on Sunday and waited until it had dried to start on the top coat. Early on Monday we got started on the top coat. This takes a little longer only because you do not roll on this layer you brush it on. I would say a couple of hours, because it does not have to be covered completely. Then we start the lines, after Ben has drawn them on. This all together is very tedious and takes forever, at least one full day, working with two people. Finally after dinner on Tuesday we were able to complete the lines. Yea! Our kitchen is now complete.

Ben says now it feels like home. He was so funny, like a kid in a candy store, he was so excited to start and complete this project. At last it is now completed and I can slowly put stuff away. This paint treatment is by far our favorite. We always get tons of compliments and Ben’s oldest sister even copied it and put it in her house, not once but twice. How’s that for a compliment? Anyway, I hope you enjoy our “new” kitchen be sure to check it out in person.

The House

At last pictures of the new house, please don’t judge the mess. I am really trying hard to put everything in it’s place but there is just so much stuff. Two of my favorite features are the bonus room upstairs and the eat in kitchen. No more having to worry about food getting stuck in the carpet. Don’t get me wrong, we have a formal dining area that is on carpet but we don’t eat there. I can easily sweep or mop up any messes. The bonus room is of course our playroom. The kids love it. So much space I’m sure they don’t know what to do with themselves. A coat of paint and some bean bag chairs and we will be on our way. Now none of the rooms have any paint at all, but the factory installed standard flat wall paint that comes with most new homes. Our first project will most likely be the kitchen. I will do before, after and during pics once we get started. And then the baby’s room, since we just put everything in there it will hopefully be “easier” to paint since nothing is set up. I might do a poll for that one. And look that big blue splotch on my “patio” is my bounce house. I would have put it up for dramatic affect but it might rain. So I really should try to move it to the garage but I don’t think that will happen. Now that you have seen the photos when do you want to come for a visit? Just let me know, we have plenty of room.

The belly

Here is my growing belly, I think it is getting harder to take pictures by myself so the next one will be of my whole person. I hope you enjoy!

House

We have a house! Much more to come later, but we are pretty excited. Isabelle no longer is sad to come home, and is already asking when she can have some friends over. It will be a work in progress for a while since we have so much stuff to open. But we have a house, with a yard!

Sleeping

In the continuing saga of my kids can sleep anywhere . . . Today they fell asleep while I was cooking dinner at about 5:30pm. Not really the best time to have a nap in my opinion but hey I guess I will take what I can get. Either way Isabelle laid down first and was out pretty quick. I kept trying to wake her up but she would not have it. Bear soon joined her after I chased him out of the kitchen for trying to help when Mommy was not right there. So what does he do, he goes to his sister for comfort and lays down next to her and falls asleep. It was pretty cute. No we did not get a dog we are taking her for a test drive, but she fell asleep next to the kids. Who could pass up the opportunity to take the picture.

Movie Stuff

While I am very excited about the Twilight movie that is coming our I am so sad that Harry Potter has been postponed for almost a year until next summer. The only good thing that comes out of this is that, Twilight gets a chance to move up in the year to come out before Thanksgiving. Yea! That helps to shorten the wait. I keep going to movies hoping to see a trailer and nothing yet, I have seen a short one on the Penelope DVD but none yet in the theaters. I am scretly hoping that if Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince comes out next summer that they will do a double movie release and also put out the seventh movie in the winter. One can dream but most likely that won't happen.

While I am talking about movies, if you have not seen Mama Mia, you should! It was great. We laughed so hard, my neice was looking at Ben and I funny when we left. The music was great, and so was the singing. Do not get freaked out by the fact that it is a musical, because they all do such a good job. And Amanda Seyfried from Big Love seemed so much happier as a potential bride on a Greek Isle than she does in the Salt Lake Valley. Surprisingly everyone who they cast does an excellent job of singing and dancing, even some bigger names who you would not think of as a singer. If you have not taken the plunge you should, it was very entertaining.

Just a note

I really just wanted to write something on my blog, so here it goes. I think that as adults people in the work force should be able to communicate better. My level of frustration between my realtor and mortage company is unreal. But hopefully we will be closing on our house next Friday. I should know on Monday. The closer at the title company is out of town today, does he not understand how important this is?

Two, two year olds together can be very interesting especially when one of the two year olds is not use to playing well with others. It makes me wonder about how they will adjust when they spend time with other kids their own age. Oh well I guess that is not my problem, since my two year old has spent time with other kids, and has an older sister who is a little closer to his age.

Yea I get to start packing soon, what a huge relief. I can hardly wait somedays, and then others I am just wondering how we are going to get all of our crap out of storage and the apartment. I should have looked into a pod. That would have been so much smarter, than a regular storage unit. I guess that is what happens when you are prego, your mind tends to go. At least I still have my girlish figure, ha, ha.

Winter Garden

As our closing date draws closer the kids are getting more excited and so am I. With that in mind, the kids and I are getting ready for a winter garden. Since, the ground will not be covered with snow; I figured we have a good chance of getting some veggies before too long. They were pretty excited to help pick out which seeds we would start and putting the dirt in the containers. After all what two year old would not want to play in dirt. Bear was very happy to be tasked with putting the seeds in and did a pretty good job with lots of supervision. I hope it all turn out, it should be interesting to see what comes up.

Tummy shot

Here is a self portrait of my growing belly. Just in case you did not know, your belly pops out so much sooner on any subsequent children. Who would have thought? We’ll see if I can keep up the self portraits or if I’ll have Ben help me out.

Our past two weeks

I know I have been gone for a while, out to the hinter lands of Texas, down to the coast and back to the hinter lands again. It was an exciting previous two weeks. The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and spending time away from the apartment. But we have at last returned home. We are slowly getting ready for the close on our house and our eventual move. The sooner the better in Isabelle’s opinion, she is ready to go. Until then we’ll have to think of things to do to keep us busy. I digress; here are a few highlights from our visit. The kids had lots of fun, at Vacation Bible School, Bear had the run of the place and he new it. The cousins all helped Grandpa build a teeter-totter for the back yard. I think Grandpa was most happy to have the task done, since one of the kids always wanted to step or climb on the board while he was trying to screw it all together. And of course lots and lots of swimming. Isabelle has now graduated to being able to swim without her floaty swimsuit. I am so proud of her. She is doing such a great job and does not seem to be afraid of the water at all. She is really staring to grow up.





In between the hinter lands week; we traveled down to SA for the weekend, so the kids could have some grandparent time while Mom and Dad went to a wedding. One of my college friends got married down in Corpus Christi; it was very beautiful and nice to have some adult time. And of course the kids swam and went to the drive thru safari with Oma and Grandpa. They had lots of fun on their visit, but were excited to see their cousins again.

Baseball Birthday

To celebrate Barrett’s second birthday we gathered together a small group and went swimming and to a Rangers baseball game. He had so much fun doing both of those that I think he would love to do it all again. Of course he loves to swim and jump off the diving board, and just plain be wet. Who knew a kid could love the water so much? Besides being very hot, the Rangers game was a lot of fun. They have a kids park where the kids can go and play games be giving away tokens and usually win a prize for participation at he age. His favorite game was the one where you could hit a ball pitched to you and then you won a bat if you hit the ball. Well Bear waited until it was almost the end of the day to go and play and he came back with a bat. He was so proud of himself. Isabelle had lots of fun playing all the games and came home with a whole bunch of prizes, that she can hardly wait to put up in her room. They did watch the game and went to batting practice, but were a little late to see the Rangers bat, but Bear was able to get the General Managers autograph on a ticket. Ben was pretty excited about that one.

The game was pretty fun too! It started out good for the Rangers then went downhill a little bit but they started to make a come back in the 8th inning. It was pretty close, since I think they had to come back from being seven runs down in two innings. They almost made it, but the ump made what looked like a bogus out in the bottom of the ninth for the last out of the game. The Rangers ended up losing 7 to 9 against the Chicago White Sox, but it was entertaining and fun. At least after the sun went down behind the stadium and it cooled off a bit.

Ben was really happy to share his favorite baseball team with his two kids. This was Barrett’s first major league baseball game, and I’m sure he will have many more to come. Especially if Dad has anything to say about it.

Memories

The Memory Post

So here's how this works:

As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! If we're only blogging friends, write about a post that is the most memorable for you.
Next, if you feel so inclined, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me, I'll be sure to write one about you...!
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. And please do this on your page, too, so we can all share in the fun times together. :)

Barrett is 2!

I can hardly believe that it has been two years already. Where does the time go? He is an amazing little person, with an every growing and changing personality. Who could help but love this kid. He always keeps me on my toes, and is fascinated with the way the world works. You can almost see his brain analyzing the situation to figure out how he can do the same thing. I am so grateful that he and Isabelle get along so well, since they are so close together in age. I think they will always be fast friends who look out for one another.

One of my girlfriends asked what is he doing now that he is two? I decided to make a little list of his many talents.

• Talks and learns new words everyday
• Runs
• Jumps
• Swims with a floaty swimsuit
• Backwashes into your water bottle
• “Shares” your food
• Makes a regular mess
• Says I Love You
• Makes the cutest faces

And the list goes on and on. He is so much fun, we could not have asked for a better kid. We are so happy to have him, even when he makes me want to pull my hair out. Happy Birthday Barrett, your two!


Bear is blowing out the candles on his card, how funny!