The Beach

This is is year 3 of our Aunt Emmy and Aunt Kasey beach trip! The kids are so excited when we start planning things and the past two years Papa has gotten to go with us, which gets them even more riled up! Though, next year he may want to take his own car...

This is actually a little backwards, but that's fine. We always have a 'super fun ice cream party' on the last night of our trip. The two big ones count on it! They are already planning which kind they are going to get before we ever make it to the hotel.

Lore found this guy and played with him for a solid 20 minutes. She named him "mist-o cwab' and kept dragging him out of the water! So funny!

I love this trip so much. Galveston is not the most attractive place on earth, but to the kids its paradise! Here's to many, many more Texas beach vacations!

Texas

Henry loved getting to play at Grandma Terry's for the 4th!

Getting a picture of all of them is almost impossible!!!

These two couldn't love each other more. It's so adorable!

This is kind of a 'dump' post! It was all taken before Rob left, so it's been a while. It's hard to believe he's been gone for over 2 months!! We are so ready for him to come home.
This post is about our Strode 'babies'! All of the Strodes came and stayed with us for a week on their way out of the country. We had so much fun with them!! This was Henry's first time to bowl, and it was HILARIOUS!! Every. single. time he veeeerrrrrryyyy slowly rolled his ball down the lane he would dance and jump and say "I am a CHAMPION!" Clearly, self esteem should not be an issue with this kid!

Irene.

We have been busy! A lot has happened since our last post, but I'm not going to pretend that I am actually going to catch up so I'll just start with the most recent. And then if I do catch up, we'll all be surprised!
Most recent was our run in with hurricane Irene. What a witch. In the week leading up to Irene, we experienced a decent sized earthquake one afternoon. I have been working on a project and thought I was just so nervous about it I was going to pass out... until I realized the plates were rattling too! Then came Irene. It wasn't a big storm by the time she really swung by, but you would have thought she upended the entire state. Over 300,000 people lost power for days. In our neighborhood it was SIX days. Six days with no tv, no internet, no hot water, no ice. You would think my house would be cleaner than it is. We were fortunate enough that one of our friends did not lose power, and graciously insisted that we stay with them. We already thought we loved the Dickensons, but after living with them for a week and waking up today a little sad, because we weren't going to be hanging out with them, I know we REALLY love them now!
One of the nights I decided enough was enough, and Henry and I needed to get out and give them some family time. Especially since Zack just got home from a 6 month deployment! We headed to the Westin for the night and had a great time swimming in the cold and 'hot' pools. Henry thought it was the best thing ever!! After that night we stayed at home one night in the dark, but ended back up at the Dickenson's for the last night. While it sucked to not have electricity for so long, we are so grateful that there was no damage done to our house, we were not hurt, and we have an amazing group of friends that kept us busy!