Family. Joy. Love. Oregon.

Big Trip Part 2

First of all, I don't know why my new title picture is so GIGANTIC; I can't figure out how to make it shrink...so please excuse that for now. =)

OK San Anton! Grandpa, Grammy, the boys and I drove to Uncle Matt and Aunt Amy's beautiful new house in San Antonio. We finally met up with Geoff and got to see our new van! I was nervous about the color of the van because it was advertised on the auction as "light blue". There are a lot of different versions of light blue. But it is more of a metallic silver blue and it is perfect. I love everything about it...I have never been so excited about a car before! It is a 2008 Honda Odyssey that we were lucky to find on auction with a whopping 24 miles on it.

Grandpa's first ride in the van:

Here are the boys opening birthday gifts from Uncle Matt, Aunt Amy, Chloe, and Logan:

Geoff and Matt and the kiddos:

Hanging out with cousin Logan in the window:

We got to visit with some great friends:

Love that girl!

All the boys together:

W hanging on the playground:

We got to enjoy a free trip to Sea World:

A dolphin up close...so pretty:

Cousin Chloe feeding the dolphin:

The boys now know who Shamu is:

W during the sea lion show...it was very loud:

J not sure about all the larakeets:

And then we had a big morning of boating on and swimming in a lake.

Aunt Amy and Logan and Chloe:

Here is Logan about to do some serious jumping:

Serious jumping:

After returning to Houston, we had a small party for the boys so Geoff could be there when they blew out their candles:

Happy Birthday to you......and you...........

Followed by some more swimming:

Our good friend Tom making J laugh:

Attacking Grandpa:

And playing the piano with Grammy:

And our birthday project. I bought this table on Ebay from a family in Conroe. It was very beat up. So Jan and I sanded it down and stained it. Then Mark and Geoff built these drawers for it. It is fantastic. And now we have a place for the used Thomas set we bought for their birthday gift.

Big Trip

OK, now I will backtrack some...how did we get the dogs and the boys to Texas without Geoff? Mark gave our dogs a first-class ride in his plane direct to Houston. We had to give Katy medicine for her motion sickness so she was a tad sleepy but did fine. They both slept most of the way, but Bear was ready to hop back in after she got out. I wish I had a picture of them in their cute harnesses in the back of the plane.

Jan, the boys and I started our drive the next day. Jan was a savior. She kept the boys laughing for the long 11+ hour car ride. Here is a pic of J and me at the first rest stop:

And here are the troops shortly after arriving to Grammy and Grandpa's house. The boys were quite fond of the waterfall and spent much time there:

They also dug this step in the pool. They got braver and braver the longer we were there:

The boys weren't the only ones loving the pool. We always considered Bear to be more of a water-lover than Katy. But Katy was in that pool after her ball several times. She swam more in the last three weeks than in the last four years combined. She would do all she could not to fall in...then lunge for the ball and dunk her whole head underwater. It was funny though, after she was in the pool, she didn't scramble to get out. She would kind of paddle around or hang out on the step and then get out. I think it cooled her down. Check out her kangaroo legs in this picture:

Here she is swimming:

Speaking of the dogs, our dog Bear and Grammy and Grandpa's dog Bandit had a couple of scuffles. Here are our two fighters. Don't let the pics fool you, Bandit is the true fighter. He even has a reputation with other dogs in the neighborhood. Bear had never been in a fight before and she just didn't know when to quit. Bear got a good scratch on her face and a big slash in her ear. She gave Bandit a small wound on his leg (hence the halo to keep him from messing with it). These two were on antibiotics together:

The boys were busy bees in the room they were staying in. It was filled with shelves of nice big books. They spent a couple of hours transferring heavy books from the shelf into their pack 'n plays. This was during their nap time. Then they would sleep on top of the books:

We got to see Aunt JJ three times while we were there. She kept popping in from her Southwest trips. The boys were always asking where she was the morning after she left. She got to join us on a trip to a children's museum on their birthday:

The boys spent lots of time on top of the pool table. J could even climb up on his own. Grandpa pulled out some fun instruments. They both liked the ukulele. They laughed everytime we would say that word...ukulele (and yes, I had to spell check that one!)

We got to take our second trip to the Houston zoo. Here is W pointing at a warthog:

Check out those Texas horns:

This guy cracked us up...can you see the sea lion? He is hugging that pole.

Here are the boys getting the exact same idea at the same time. Let's climb up to get closer to those fish!

Next up...our side trip to San Antonio.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

J and W turned two last month while we were in Texas. Since Geoff wasn't with us on their actual birthday, Grandpa, Grammy and I had a small celebration with some ice cream sandwiches and a couple of Thomas the Trains. Ice cream sandwiches you say? Well, there was no need to make a cake for just the three of us (I knew the boys wouldn't eat much if any and there are no eggs in ice cream sandwiches). I thought they would like them....but from the pictures, you can tell they were suspicious.

"Hey W, do you see that?! What is that fire-thing on that round thing?"