Going Bananas!

I know that banana trees produce bananas, but ours never have... Until now! It has been so neat to watch the petals of the flower unfold - each petal is covering a banana bunch! We're excited to see how far it goes... in the meantime, I'm looking for banana recipes :o)

Look at all of those bees!

Cousin Week 2011

We had our 2nd (now annual!) cousin week the last week in July! When Nat headed off to Mississippi for our church's mission trip, Bernie (N's mom) and Chelsie (N's sister) flew down to Texas with Joel and Ella (the cousins!). We had a WONDERFUL and chaotic week with the three of us running around with 4 kids aged 4, 3, 2, and 1! I am so very thankful that they came all the way down here and an extra thank you to Pop and Todd for graciously letting their wives leave them for a week :o)

I took so so so many pictures of all of them, but here is a glimpse of our week together...

So much fun with the hose and little pools in the backyard. We actually put this one at the bottom of the slide and the boys especially loved this... I think I have videos of this on the ipod - I'll try to figure out how to post that later!

Fun at the spray ground at Kemah (and in the puddles), a pizza lunch, and a train ride!

Bluebell popsicles :o)

Lots of wrestling and climbing...

A few (not too serious!) injuries!

Installing a new car battery! I was so super impressed that Bernie did this all by herself! The van had been acting a little funny but I thought it was not that big of a deal and could wait until Nat came home (oops, wrong). We had gone to the grocery store that morning and on our way home, J had to go to the bathroom. We were a block away from the library so we stopped there for Chels to take him in. I turned the car off but then thought, "What am I thinking? It is over 100 degrees so I'm turning the AC back on while we wait!" However, the car would not start. Thankfully, there is a governmental building right beside the library and a police officer pulled up while we were trying to figure out what to do. Hooray for being rescued! And hooray for a handy mother-in-law!

A self spa night after the kids went to bed and the car work was completed :o)

Fun, giggly girls!

Bernie also made these adorable dresses for K and E! They are beautiful and twirl well :o)

A trip to the Aquarium downtown...

J, K, and E loved the sting rays!

G, not so much, but he enjoyed being a scuba diver :o)

Last night was a movie night complete with popcorn, blankets, and pillows...

Thank you again for such a memorable week! Not only was it fun, but I thoroughly appreciated the refreshment of your fellowship!!!

Visit With Granddaddy

My dad came to visit us from Mon-Fri one week in July! It was a fun time to visit and he was also gracious in doing some of the tedious work that we've been needing to do in our house (read: lots of drywall). Kate was super content to sit and watch everything he did!

One afternoon we went to an Astros game!! It was such a fun day (but was officially completed when K vomited [alloverme] at the Whataburger)!! ...she was fine after exactly 24 hours :o)

We love you, Granddaddy (and we missed you, Gramma)!!!! Thanks for flying to HOU to spend the week with us!!!

Postponing "Goodbyes"

As mentioned a few posts ago, some wonderful friends moved to Colorado in July. We miss them! The week that they moved we enjoyed their company as much as we could with a sending off party, cleaning, and a few late nights... we postponed our "goodbyes" for as long as we could :o)

At the party...

Not all, but most of the kids!

And some last times at their house!

Blastoff!!!!

Living in the NASA community, the last Shuttle launch was a big deal! Nat had an awesome opportunity to watch the launch with a friend at JSC and we turned on the local news!

The slight "failure" with 31 seconds before liftoff gave me just enough time to grab the camera!

Very focused...

Success! Congratulations to all of our friends here who have worked so hard on this!!

Beach Day!

***I wrote this on June 23rd -- it is now August 10th!! I figured I would post it anyway***

This is a bit out of order, but last Saturday we had a fun beach day in Galveston with some of our dearest friends. We planned to do some work around the house, but upon being asked to join them at the beach for the day, we got ready for that instead! These friends are moving to Colorado at the beginning of July - we are going to miss them so much!!

Graham with his bucket of water - this is a big thing! The first hour he would not go anywhere near the water. We finally convinced him to come to the "wet sand" but at the first little ripple of a wave he hightailed it back to the towels. After a bit of watching everyone else in the water, though, he came back and loved the water!

Kate had no problems going near/in the water!

The girls

2 of the 3 boys!