Aggieland

Sophie and Bella gave Stephen tickets to the Texas A&M versus Utah State game for Father's Day. My mom watched Emme and Harrison while we took the girls up the Aggieland for the day.

We parked at the LDS Institute and met some friends there. We walked over to the Quad from there to watch the Aggie Band shoot off the canon and start the march into Kyle field (about 2 hours before kick off). We had never explained the girls anything about the Corps of Cadets, so when we turned the corner to enter the Quad (the Cadet dormitory..., and also were Celeste lived her freshman year on campus since the university decided to turn one of the dorms on the Quad into a unit for female students) where there were Corps members standing, Sophie turned and asked, "What are those weird soldier dudes doing?" It was so cute.

Each unit was lined up on the Quad yelling back at their line leader getting psyched for the game. It scared Soph and Blue a little. Once the canon went off, the Aggie Band started their march. It was really exciting to see. You couldn't help but sing along to the Aggie War Hymn.

After that we were off to the student center to get the girls some maroon Aggie shirts. They are doing construction on the MSC, so the bookstore is in the G. Rollie White Coliseum (former basketball stadium prior to Reed Arena being built in 1998) right now. The girls had fun running up and down the stairs while Stephen waded in a sea of football fans below scouting out what shirts to get the girls. Here they are after getting their new shirts on.

Our football tickets were on the first row, right next to the field. It was a good game and fun to watch! The people next to us started cracking peanuts like crazy, so I ended up taking the girls up for a snow cone while Stephen stayed and watched more of the game. We left at about half time because the girls were getting tired, and Stephen and I were craving Freebirds. We could hear the Aggie Band playing as we walked to the institute where we had parked. Here's a pic of the field from up high where the snow cones were.

We got our Freebirds fix (Stephen and I got burritos of course, and the girls got nachos) and some caffeine in us, and then headed home. Both of the girls fell asleep on the way home. We had a great time and are planning on making it a yearly tradition for our (hopefully) future Aggies! Once Harrison and Emme are 5 years old, they get to join in on the fun as well!!

Stinky trip!

We had planned a fun weekend in Galveston at Pointe West. We had vacationed there a year ago last summer before Ike hit, and we were excited to go back. It has a private beach, pool, on site restaurant with pool-side service, a work-out room, and very nice accommodations. We spent the day packing, getting all of the food ready, stocking our cooler with cool drinks and burgers to grill on our first night there. We got Sophie and Bella out of school early and headed down.

We rented from a 3rd party this time rather than through Pointe West directly. After picking up the keys to the condo, we headed over to Pointe West to unload our stuff before heading down to the beach. Once we got out of the car, we were immediately attacked by swarms of mosquitoes (it had been raining in Galveston all week, so they were especially big and bad!). We scurried into our condo as we swatted at the mosquitoes. The minute we opened the door, an awful smell hit us. It smelled like mildew/rotten eggs/rotten meat all combined. We immediately called the rental company to tell them that we couldn't stay in the unit. They agreed to give us a full refund and said they didn't have another unit for us to stay in.

Stephen went to the Pointe West office to see if they had another unit they could rent us since the third-party rental company said they had nothing else to offer. But apparently there was a power outage to the main beach club building, so they were not able to even check other availability on their computer. The lack of power also meant that the on site restaurant was closed and the pool was out of service after dark (which is where we loved to swim after the sun had gone down at a sandy day at the beach..., they had the pool all lit up with great music blasting through the speakers last summer). The kids and I stayed in the condo and watched iCarly while Stephen tried to sort the mess out. Sophie kept her nose in her shirt the entire time we were in the villa, and Bella kept saying "Mom, we've got to get out of here; this smell is going to make us sick." Bella has a very strong sense of smell!

Despite some resistance, the rental company ultimately gave us a full refund. The kids still wanted to play at the beach, however, so after we sorted the refund issue out, we stayed the rest of the evening and played on the beach. Fortunately, there were no mosquitoes on the actual beach and the rain held off the entire time we were there. A storm started rolling onto shore around 7 pm, so we packed up our things and started heading back home. The big girls could have looked for shells all day. And the baby girl LOVED the ocean water. She got soaked and we had to take her shorts off (our bathing suits were packed deep in our bags so we just played on the beach in our regular clothes). Sonny boy, on the other hand, is a little scared of the ocean, and doesn't like the feel of sand on his feet. He kept walking on the outer edges of his feet so he wouldn't have to walk directly on the sand. He'd also freak out anytime we got a little ways into the water and yell "Watch out! The ocean gonna get you!" Here we are right before leaving for home. At least the kids had a little fun. We got McDonald's drive-through on the way home in Lake Jackson (nothing like refinery McDonald's). And as a bonus, 3 out of the 4 kids feel asleep on the way home, and we just carried them to their beds and let them sleep in their sandy clothes all night (well, "all night" is a relative term in our home; no one, except Sophie and sometimes Bella, sleeps "all night" unfortunately). I guess the rest of the weekend I'll be washing sheets!

Creepy

When we came home from church on Sunday, this is what we found in our garage..., right in the crack where the garage door meets the floor. Our pest control guy always puts these sticky traps in our garage for mice, etc. The only thing we have ever caught in there are lizards. Not anymore!!

It's head was totally stuck in the sticky box, so it couldn't see anything and was just lying there.


Times like these are when I'm glad I have a husband!! I'm glad he was there to deal with it right after coming home from 3 long hours of church with 4 kids in tow. Stephen took it out behind our fence and put it inside an old tree stump (after inflicting mortal injuries to it with a shovel). The next morning, it was gone. Most likely another animal got it, or maybe it mutated into a bionic super snake that will come back and exact its revenge on us for trying to chop it in half with a shovel!

ONE

Emme turned 1 years old on September 1st. I can't believe my baby isn't a baby anymore!! I remember a year ago when she was born, we were in the hospital watching Hurricane Gustav hit New Orleans on the TV. She was born right as the storm hit. Several woman came into the hosptial that night from New Orleans in labor to deliver their babies. They say storms like hurricanes can induce labor. It seemed to do the trick for me since she was by far the earliest one born before her due date.

Bella always loves all over Emme, and Emme loves the attention that she gets from her big sis. She can even say the word Bella, and she's not afraid to shout it out whenever she wants her around. This is a picture of the two of them shortly after Bella arrived home from school the other day. Bella is the first one to get Emme out of her crib in the morning. She likes to play peek a boo and sneek up on Em to give her a good scare and laugh. This is a picture of Emme opening up her present (an awesome toy she loves!) that Grandma Wee gave her..., with some help from her older siblings of course. She's also munching on a preztel (she just got her 5th and 6th tooth in on the top).

A is for Apple

Harrison started preschool last week and he loves it! A few of his friends are in his class with him, so that makes it even better. He comes home with all of these fun paintings and crafts stuffed into his ever so cool dinosaur backpack. He is exhausted by the end of the day though and usually takes a nice little nap for me in the afternoon. He is such a happy kid, and so full of life. He has the funniest personality and is always making us laugh (and pinching our ears!). We love our "bunky boy."

Summer Rewind 2009

This summer was a hard summer. No two ways around it. Record-breaking heat + four little kids ages seven and under = many long days filled with boredom, fighting, and cabin fever. Add in the fact that we had our house on the market for two months during the summer (we had thought about moving back to Pearland but we ultimately decided against it when our house did not sell quickly enough) and our continuing (seemingly endless) battles with illnesses/allergies/asthma/eczema/sleepless nights, and hopefully you get the sense of why we happily shut the door on the summer of 2009. But we managed to make it through. We even found some time to do a few fun things along the way.

In June, the older kids went to vacation bible school for a week, and they had a blast. Also in June, Sophie and Bella were on the neighborhood swim team (the Piranhas), and they had fun at the meets, even if they weren't the fastest fish in the water.

For the Fourth of July week, we drove to Ruidoso, New Mexico for a family reunion and my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. We stopped in San Antonio on the way up and back, staying at the Omni both times. On the way back, we talked our way into staying in their premiere suite on the 20th floor for a steeply discounted price. It was opulent. We ordered room service, went swimming, and watched a great fireworks display from our rooms. Stephen even talked his way out of a ticket between El Paso and San Antonio on the way home, though he probably shouldn't have been so argumentative with a state trooper in the middle of nowhere. Here are a few pictures from the reunion:

As often as we could, which was several times a week, we went to our nice neighborhood pools and swam in the evenings after the temperature dipped below 100 degrees and after Stephen got home from work. All the kids love to swim, and they are becoming good little swimmers. The lessons at the Houston Swim Club have been worth it.

In our newly created media room downstairs, we watched many movies and ate a lot of pop corn. We joined Netflix this summer, so we had plenty of variety to choose from.

A few sleepovers here and there. A couple trips to the Blue Bell factory in Brehnam. The Zoo, the Children's Museum, and family/friends gatherings round out our summer rewind for 2009.