Houston Rodeo - March 2010

With the new year I am AGAIN setting the goal to update my blog more regularly.
We'll see how I do in 2010! I should have blogged our trip to the Rodeo last month just to keep things in order, but better late than never, right?

Over spring break my sister Angie and her kiddos came to visit us. One of the things we did was to go to the Houston Rodeo. By far the highlight of the Rodeo this year was that Andrew took part in the Mutton Bustin' competition. YES! He actually rode on a sheep, cowboy boots, vest and all!

Though you can't really see him, this picture is of him in the stall with the cowboys getting him all saddled up on the sheep. My camera isn't quick enough to have caught him actually on the sheep, but he stayed on for about 6 seconds. :)

They all got to march out into the arena after the competition and he was SO proud of himself and SO SO SO cute.

The kids loved the petting zoo - so much in fact that the only one I could keep near me was Andrew because I had him on a monkey leash. There were tons of animals and people in a very small fenced in area, so I didn't get many photos.

The kids remembered the Fun on the Farm exhibit from last year. They get to walk through a "farm" and feed chickens, plant seeds, sheer a sheep, pick oranges, and milk a cow (all pretend - but they love it!) Then at the end they go to market and sell their egg, vegetable, wool, orange and milk for a dollar, which they get to use to "buy" a snack at the county store.

Andrew and his cousin, David holding the "dollar" they earned at the market.

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All in all, it was a great day and tons of Texas style fun!

Bluebonnets!

I got an email that said, "You know you grew up in Texas if..." then it went on to list many typical Texas things. One of them that struck me was, "if... you have your yearly pictures taken in bluebonnets." I realized that we have lived here for 3 years and I didn't have one single picture of my children in the bluebonnets.

SO - today we drove up to Brenham to take pictures in the bluebonnets... and now the kids are officially Texans!

The flowers were gorgeous and I was surprised to see all the cars stopped on the side of the freeway with people taking pictures. If I wasn't driving I would have taken a picture of all the cars and people literally walking around with their children on the side of the 65mph freeway.

We found a spot about 1/2 mile off the freeway with a gorgeous field of flowers. We started out trying to keep the kids from stepping on any of them... but once Andrew ran through them and threw himself down on them, I just surrendered and let them have fun.
Andrew thought it was great fun to be out running in a field of flowers. Sean and I were both a bit stressed out by his jubilation, however, since he kept running and darting toward the road and parking lot. At least we weren't by the freeway!

Sean wasn't real excited about the whole adventure... but he suffered through it. :)



What I didn't think of was to dress my kids in cute matching outfits. We'll have to do that next year! :) Check back in 2011...

The Family Reunions Trip - June/July 2009

On our drive out to the family reunions, we stopped at several places. We didn't have it planned, but we saw Chimney Rock and decided to check out this landmark that the pioneers used. Very cool!
Our first planned stop on the way to Idaho (for the Biolo reunion) was at Mt. Rushmore. We had all seen pictures but never had been there. It was very impressive!

Our trip to Green Bay - August 2009

We got to spend 2 weeks in Green Bay with my parents which was tons of fun. Here the girls are playing in Grammy and Pop's woods.




















Bay Beach is always fun!

Back to School

Everyone was excited for the first day of school this year. Andrew is starting preschool, but not until October, so he was really confused and disappointed that he didn't get to go to school, too.

Ellie has been looking forward to kindergarten all summer, and she rode her bike all the way to school and marched right into the classroom. I can't believe how big she is... where does the time go?

Family Reunion photo shoot

Aunt Molly brought her new camera to the family reunion to try to get a photo of the whole entire family, which she did!

We also had fun trying for a new picture of just our family. We were hoping to get individuals of each of the kids, too, but the mosquitoes almost ate us alive (see Ellie's chin!) so we gave up and ran for cover!

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Brazos Bend State Park... aka "the Alligator Park!"

We went to this park about an hour from our home in Houston one time last winter hoping to see some of the alligators that roam free in the park, but it was too cold and they were all hybernating somewhere (I don't know if they do actually hybernate, but we didn't see any!) Well, this time it was warmer and we were all amazed to be so close to wild alligators. If you look closely you can see the fear in Rachel's face and the death grip I have on Andrew's shoulder! (And, of course, don't miss the gator right below our feet!) :-)
Rachel was nervous about being so close to alligators at first, but it wore off quickly. Sean, Ellie, and Andrew were all super excited to actually see them.
I didn't once feel nervous about being so close to wild animals that would eat us whole if we got too close (honestly, I really didn't!) but I kept thinking about how much my mom would freak out when she saw these pictures. I guess I didn't inherit her nervousness/worry. I just figured that it was a state park that has been around for a long time, and if there really was danger they wouldn't let us be there.
We lost count at 11 (and that was at the very beginning), but we walked a 1 mile trail around a swampy lake, and saw lots and lots of these guys just hanging out in the water. We didn't get a good picture of him, but we also saw a tiny baby alligator. You can tell in this picture how close this gator was to the shore, and the trail was just right next to the shore, but apparently if you stay on the trail and don't bother them, they don't bother you! It was like playing "where's Waldo" because they would just lay still in the swampy water and were hard to see if you didn't look hard, but I think each of us (even Ellie and Andrew) had a chance to say, "Oh, there's one!" and be the first to spot an alligator.

Nashville- Country Music Marathon

We drove 13 hours to Nashville for me to run in the Country Music Marathon.
We were only there for 2 days, but we wanted to be able to see as much of the birthplace of country music as we could. We didn't get to go to a performance at the Grand Ole Opry because I needed to be in bed early on Friday night, but the we enjoyed the museum they have on the grounds.
Ellie and Rachel with friends, Sadie and Vanessa Morris (middle two) "performing" in the Grand Ole Opry museum.
Probably the coolest thing we saw in Nashville was the museum/store dedicated to "The Dukes of Hazard." I wanted Ryan to slide across the hood or jump in the window of the General Lee, but he wouldn't do it.

Disneyland!

Our first ride of the day was the Matterhorn -













At the end of a long, fantastic day, it was finally time to go home. We were in the park from 8:30am until 11:30pm (which was 1:30am Houston time). The kids were exhausted, but very happy, even though it doesn't show in Rachel's face.












We flew to California for the week of Thanksgiving and while we were there went to Disneyland!!! We went with Ryan's brother Scott and his family, and through peer pressure from her cousins we got Ellie to ride on Space Mountain! She was pretty scared the whole time and wanted me to cover her eyes. She said she had fun, but definitely didn't want to do it again!


Andrew, Karson, Kelli, Kylie, Ellie, Rachel, and KC (all the K names are cousins - Scott and Wendy Brady's kids!)