Friday Favorites...

Today my Friday Favorites are these FUN characatures of Miss Em and Lainey Girl! The last two summers Lainey and Emiley have gone with Poppy and Dee to the Hyatt Hill Country Resort while we have gone to other places like Honduras...

While they are there, they get these fun little characatures done by a girl named Erica who Lainey, our little artist, has come to LOVE! Emiley and Lainey insist that these portraits of themselves be hung in their rooms.

I really dont mind because I kind of like them too. They are cute and remind me of the summer FUN they have had! Miss Lainey LOVES them so much she keeps Erica's card and wanted to hire Erica the characature lady to come to our family reunion to paint self portraits for the entire family! She just knew all her CRAZY COUSINS would LOVE it as much as she does!

I am sure they would! She read on Erica's website that she does events such as reunions and since we are heading out for ours this weekend, she thought that was the perfect idea! Lainey girl is so fun... wont be too long and maybe she can draw the characatures of our family for us at our family reunion!

Happy Weekend!

Wordless Wednesday...

Grape Jelly... Yummy, Yummy! This is the jelly from the grapes off of our trees...

Thanks Patti!

We LOVE it!

You can read about us picking the grapes HERE!

Tuesday Smiles...

Today I made a trip to the BIG TOWN with my three girls and a girlfriend and her three girls! It was FUN! I bought some simple things that make me smile! Like these $5 flowers from HEB! And I found these Rice Bowls. They were on clearance... Now I am a bargain shopper! They are also gluten free. They were 75cents a piece so I bought five of them. I hope I like them!
I also found these Smart Ones on the clearance. They were only 50cents. Now they dont say gluten free like the rice bowls, but I didnt see any thing in the ingredients that screamed gluten at me, but I am still learning so we will see after I eat them! They are rice noodles and only 260 calories! I bought five boxed of these too. I will say I checked for an expiration date and didnt see one so I am hoping they were just on clearance because they are no longer carrying this brand! Although if I love these two foods I will be sad they dont carry them any more because they sure would be handy when school starts back! Quick lunches seem to be the hardest way to eat G-free unless you want a salad every day!

Tuesday Smiles to you!

Summer Fun!...

Well, we made it on our 2010 Summer Vacation! This year we had lots of things planned during our six days! We had a little bit of fun for everyone planned... Our first stop was in Corpus Christi and Port Aransas at the BEACH! We saw the Lexington from afar but decided not to take the time to visit it!

If you remember, Lainey won tickets to the Texas State Aquarium. That is the main reason we planned our trip for this area. The girls LOVED the aquarium. It was small but GREAT!

The weather was beautiful the morning that we went. We even experienced a little rain shower during the bird show that cooled us off! The girls loved seeing the dolphins, sea turtles, and otters. It was a great trip!

Abbey of course had to act a little silly! We decided to stay at the OMNI in Corpus Christi instead of staying in Port A since we were going to be doing some of the attractions in Corpus. We are so glad we did! The pool was AWESOME! It had an outdoor pool then a swim under area to swim to the indoor pool!
The girls were greeted at the OMNI with a kids backpack, they were given cookies and milk at bedtime in our room, they had an ice cream sundae one afternoon. It was a great hotel. We spent lots of time by the pool when we were not on the beach.

We would lay by then pool, then walk 1/2 mile down to Magee Beach in Corpus. We did drive to Port A one day and do the beach there but we enjoyed Corpus LOTS!

The girls LOVED the beach in Corpus because it was seaweed FREE! (This pic was taken in Port A.)

We collected lots of seashells and sand dollars. Some people we were parking next to gave the girls a sea horse!

We even saw a JELLYFISH! Thank goodness we saw IT before he saw US!

We rode the ferry just to say we did...

We ate LOTS of food. Another great thing about staying were we did is that we walked to LOTS of great restaurants downtown. One night we ate at a Thai restaurant. This is our food that night! It was amazing... Emiley was NOT impressed with the shrimp that still had their eyes!

After four days at the beach, we headed back north. We made a stop in San Antonio at the Rain Forest Cafe at the request of the girls!

That evening we arrived in New Braunfels to see Seth James (Will's BFF) play with Cody Canada from Cross Canadian Ragweed at White Water Amphitheatre. It was FUN! It was an outside concert along the river! Really Neat!

We got up the next morning and headed to Schlitterbahn! We got there when it opened so that we could hit all our favorite rides before the lines got long. The weather was perfect!

What is a vacation without IHOP!

Our daddy was a great driver all week!

I tried to be a good co-pilot!

The girls played lots of DS!

Giggled a lot in the car...

And didnt sleep much!

Finally we headed to LBJ Ranch on our way home. Abbey did a project on President Johnson and wanted to visit his ranch so we worked it into our vacation. It was a great tour!

The girls REALLY LOVED it!

That evening we had dinner with my cousin Tonya and her hubs, Shane and her boys, Mills and Mason! It was a great end to a week long trip! (Cant believe I didnt get a picture!)

Family Vacay 2010...

We are home from our Family Vacation 2010! It was 6 days, 5 nights of lots of FUN filled days.
Honestly, I am way too tired to even begin filling you in right now. We made lots of stops, ate lots of amazing food, wore our swimsuits 90% of the time, laughed our heads off, and came home pooped! These little girls are growing up into FUN bigger girls with very different personalities who keep their momma and daddy on their toes.

I promise to fill you in soon!

Date Night???...

I guess you could call this a date night! It was a few hours away from home, without the kids, with other couples, and we had a GREAT time!

Last Thursday night Will, Joe, Miles, Lee Ann (not pictured), and Gina rode their bikes from H-town to the Gap. That is approximately 18 miles. Liz, Betsy and I drove the sag wagon to the Gap with our bikes then rode our bikes from the Gap toward H-town until we met them which was approximately 10 miles round trip.

Then we had dinner at the "World Famous Horny Toad" with all the riders and Randy and Gina S. who met us there! We missed Derek and Luke who were working!

It was a FUN couples night and I guess you could call it a date night... its as close to a date night as we have gotten in awhile so I will take it! And man oh man, we laughed... A LOT!

Good Time, my friend... and a good workout, too!

Friday Favorites...

Friday Favorites- Pickin' Grapes! Earlier this week the girls and I ventured out into our pasture to pick some of our wild grapes. Patti, who works at Will's office was wanting some to make some jelly! So we got out early in the morning to get some of the grapes for her. Lainey took it as serious business!

Some of the grapes we could reach on foot...

Others we had to use the ladder to reach!

We still have LOTS of grapes that we couldnt get to but we worked for over two hours and got three bags full of grapes.

We had a fun morning! The grapes are pretty sour but we cant wait to taste the jelly.

What a fun thing to do on our little place... right in our backyard!

Happy Weekend!