Veggie Tales Live!

Friday afternoon we drove down to Houston to see Veggie Tales Live! Caleb loves Veggie Tales and was so excited to see the "Bob Show." Our friends, The Turners, were so nice to get us tickets. They spoiled Caleb with a glow stick and a "Bob ball" too. Caleb was a bit quiet during the first half of the show just soaking it all in. But by the second half he was dancing in the aisles and having a good ol' time.

The show was awesome and then we went for ice cream. Thanks guys, for everything! We had so much fun with you!

Here is Caleb in his new fashionable bob hat:


We were originally going to go to a baseball game and go to the aquarium and such. But because of the hurricane a couple weeks ago, every hotel room was still booked and our poor friends STILL didn't have power back on at their house! (Luckily it came on late that afternoon). So we decided to come back late that night and had to miss the fun birthday party on Saturday too.

But we didn't leave town without tracking down a Kroger that sells my coveted Cincinnati Chili. It is one of the many things that I seriously miss from Cincinnati. You eat it over spaghetti noodles and it is soooooooooooo yummy! So we were soooooooo excited when we discovered a couple years ago that some Kroger stores sell it. (Maybe because Kroger is based in Cincinnati or something? I don't know...but it doesn't matter as long as they keep selling it! :) But we don't have Kroger in San Antonio so whenever we go somewhere that does, we have to try to stock up!!



We didn't get home until after 2am, but Chris and I had a lot of fun on the drive back talking and laughing. We spent a good portion of the time devising ways to open the soda Chris bought that required a bottle opener that we didn't have. After too much time and effort, we finally got it open--only to find out it was pretty gross. :)

Hawaii

We just got back from a week long trip celebrating our 10th(!) anniversary. Our anniversary isn't actually until December, but we decided it is always too crazy around all the holidays to take such a trip, so we went a bit early. Chris planned the whole thing and refused to tell me where we were going until we were at the airport ready to check our bags. He tricked me because earlier he had given me a hint and said that we were staying somewhere on the east coast. So that's where I thought we were headed. But we actually went and stayed near the east coast of Hawaii! Chris did a fantastic job planning everything!

First of all, I have to say that it just about killed me to leave Caleb for a whole week! And if leaving him wasn't bad enough, he had double ear infections and a hurricane was supposed to come through the day after we left. Here...watch my kid with double ear infections during a hurricane while I'm in Hawaii...thanks! But our good friends, the Plumlees watched him and we knew he was in good hands. He had soooooooo much fun with them! Most of the time when we called to chat with him, he was too busy playing and having fun to take much time to chat! Thanks again, guys!

We stayed at a cool place right on Waikiki Beach (THANK YOU, Kaylyn!). It had a pool, ping pong tables, pool tables, tennis courts, a playground, tons of picnic areas, etc.



We arrived just in time to go to the Aloha Festival which just happened to be going on that day and happened to be a block from our hotel. They had tons of food and vendors and live music.

We went to the huge Swap Meet where just about everything you could imagine is sold for cheap prices. It was held at Aloha Stadium--we were also hoping to catch a Hawaii college football game, but they were playing away that week.



We went to the Polynesian Culture Center which was awesome! I really enjoyed our day there! The show at the end is very worth the price!!



We went to a Luau and the food was sooooooooo good!




We also went to Pearl Harbor



We attended church in Tongan

We went to the LDS Laie temple



To the Dole Pineapple Plantation



We enjoyed walking up and down the streets near our hotel. At night, every few feet there were different artists, musicians, magicians, dancers, singers, mimes, people making huge balloon animals, and all kinds of crazy stuff. It was so fun to check everything out! This guy was dressed head to toe in newspaper stuff and just sat totally still like a statue:



We went to the beach every day, sometimes several times a day. Sometimes we'd just walk around, other times Chris surfed while I read a book on the beach. There was also a different show every night on the beach with live singers and hula dancers.








And of course, what is a vacation without lots of card games and tons of good food!

Chris took about a billion pictures that turned out really good, but I'm too lazy to go through them all right now for the best ones. I'll have to post a slide show of them later!

We had a wonderful time ! Thanks, Chris, for all your hard work planning this trip! I think the only reason we came back was to get Caleb!

I can't believe it's already been 10 years! Time flies when you're having fun!

It's a...

It's a boy!

We are due February 5th and we are VERY excited to be having another boy! Everything looks good except they did tell us today that he has a moderate dilated renal pelvis--basically both kidneys have some urine going back into them for some reason. Or something like that. Maybe some of you could fill us in better on what that is exactly. But the doctor didn't seem worried and said that we will be watching it for the next few weeks and that in most cases it clears up by itself-- so that is what we are hoping for.

We are pretty much just giddy to be having two boys in a row!

Just About Perfect...

We had so much fun together this weekend. Chris had no schoolwork to do (yahoo!), nothing for work that had to be done, and few church responsibilities which made for lots of time together!!

We've been wanting to go on the train down by the zoo for quite some time, but wanted to go when Chris could go. So we headed down there Saturday morning. Caleb was just about in heaven!




He also got to buy a train whistle while we were there. At first he would just put his mouth on it and make the sound with his voice. But he figured it out pretty quickly and then he bugged everyone at the zoo for the next few hours by constantly blowing it. Here is a little taste of what all the lucky zoo patrons got to hear anytime Caleb was around:



Caleb did take a quick break from the whistle to feed and brush the goats with Chris:



We went out to lunch together and went home and we ALL took a late nap during the afternoon. An unheard of event at our house.

We played Candy Land together (Caleb legitimately won on his first time playing ever! Darn him! :) He proved once again that he is definitely half Nelson by showing his competitiveness. Even in Candy Land. Every time he got a good card he would say, "Oh yeah!" and such phrases. Later that evening we did some shopping together.

Sunday we were lucky enough to have dinner with the Weatherholtz and then they came over to play games. Always so much fun! Thanks, guys! (We took some pretty hilarious pictures, but I thought I might get in trouble with certain people if I posted them here, but you'll have to ask them about the cool pictures....)

Monday we went to Botanical Gardens. Here is Caleb climbing all over:



Then we went out to lunch, and hit the Kung Fu Panda movie. We were going to go swimming, but the pool we joined this summer was closed. So we did the slip-n-slide in the Weatherholtz backyard and had a barbecue there. Again, too much fun!

Overall, it was pretty much a perfect weekend together and the way every weekend should be in my mind! :)

Mac 'N Cheese Cheerio Tacos

Caleb decided to dress up his taco the other night with leftover mac n cheese and multi-grain cheerios. (Ok, I admit it...so I'm still not feeling great and both were my leftovers still sitting on the table from earlier that day.) He actually ate most of it and kept trying to convince us that we wanted some on our tacos too. He is a lot of fun and keeps us entertained.

As a follow up to the whole sleeping thing, Caleb has switched to a toddler bed and has done AWESOME! The first night before we were really prepared to do anything he was up about 4000 times. So the next night we tried a child lock thing on the inside of his door. He cried for about two minutes during which time I felt like the worst person alive. But then he got in his bed and went to sleep and has been going right to sleep every night since then for the whole night. What a sweet boy. He always amazes us with how good he really is. I feel like we avoided yet another messy time with him. He spoils us! I love that boy!

On a completely unrelated topic, we're sad the olympics are over. It's so much fun to watch! Caleb enjoyed them too. Every time the olympic theme music came on (as in every time it went to a commercial and came back), Caleb would shout, "Dance with me!" and rock out to the music. Not sure how that started, but it was really funny. Too bad I forgot to get it on video. The last time we went swimming, Caleb would put his hands over his head just like they do on tv and jump in the water. Good times. On the other hand, I'm also kind of glad they are over so I can sleep again.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, we are so totally enjoying having Chris around in the evenings again! Yahoo!

More Exciting News

We are expecting baby #2! We are soooooooo excited!! We are about 17 weeks along, so hopefully we'll find out in about 3 weeks whether we will be having a boy or a girl. I've been quite a bit sicker this time around, even with anti-nausea/vomiting medication. But hopefully that part should go away soon. Otherwise, things have been great and we are so excited for Caleb to be a big brother!

Changes

We've had a few changes at our house recently.

Today my brother Kip and his wife Bridget (who were staying with us for the summer) left to go back to law school. We are so sad to see them go! They were such a huge help around the house, made great treats and meals, and it was just fun to play games, watch movies, go out to eat, and just have fun with them! The summer just flew by! Caleb keeps asking if "Dip and Bibbets" are at work. He just doesn't quite understand...so sad! We love you guys and we'll miss you tons!

The next change is a good change. Chris takes his LAST final tomorrow night! I can't believe he's completed his second masters! It really did go by fast. Looking back. Caleb and I are so excited to have him around in the evenings again!!!!!!!!! Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our other change is a new trick that Caleb has. Today I had put Caleb down for a nap and decided to go read a book. I fell asleep and the next thing I knew someone was tapping me on the back. Scared me to death!!! So Caleb has decided to climb out of his crib again. A long time ago he tried and fell out and hurt himself and much to my delight, he hadn't tried again. I knew once he tried again it was over because he is an excellent climber. So today I rocked him for just a minute and he fell right asleep and took a nap. As soon as he was done sleeping he scared me to death again by popping into the room. So tonight he has climbed out about 10 times since 8pm. I'm hoping I'm not in for a long night. Any advice for convincing a 2 1/2 year old to stay in his bed?!?!

Fire Ants

To me, one of the definite drawbacks of living in Texas is all the nasty creepy crawly stuff. I've never lived anywhere with quite the variety, size, and quantity.

Caleb had his first experience with fire ants the other day. A few of us had gone to the park to play a game and Caleb was just running around having fun. He went over to this fence and was standing on a dirt pile that ended up being a big ol' fire ant hill. He just stood there with this grimace on his face that will be forever ingrained in my memory. We ran over and the fire ants were all over his feet and crawling up his pants. The poor kid is a trooper though. He didn't even cry, just made this sad little whimper as we yanked his flip flops and pants off and swatted away the rest.

Maybe I'm just a wimp, but I think those things seriously hurt! My first and only (hopefully!) encounter with them was last summer when I was buckling Caleb into the car and inadvertently stepped in a pile on the edge of our driveway that I didn't know was there. They swarmed my foot in just seconds and it really did feel like my foot was on fire for like 10 minutes.

The picture is kind of gross, but here are Caleb's poor feet. He had these nasty marks up and down his legs and on his feet:

Washington!

Caleb and I just got back from a couple weeks in Washington state. Unfortunately, Chris is wrapping up the summer semester and was unable to come. But he was able to get a ton of stuff done for school and work, so that is good. But we missed him tons!!

But Caleb and I had such a blast! We got to stay in a palace on the hill (a.k.a my brother's family's palace). We stayed with my brother Kerry and my sister-in-law Christy and their three cute kids (although they're not really kids anymore!). My sister, Kaylyn, also lives fairly close so we spent lots of time with her too. My dad was able to come up for a few days too. How could we not have tons of fun?!?!

My family has lots of July/August birthdays, and we were able to celebrate 4 while we were there. Here is Caleb helping my brother blow out his candles. (Hmmm...there sure are a lot of candles on that cheesecake... :)



We went swimming, to the park almost every day, miniature golfing, and of course played tons and tons of games. This time the favorites were Rage (a VERY fun card game and appropriately named) and Settlers of Catan, although we still fit in tons of others. Oh, and what's a visit with family without eating out?!?! A TON!

Growing up we were always playing games in our backyard. One of our favorites was croquet. So of course we had to break out the croquet and play a few "friendly" games. :)



The weather was a bit colder than I expected, but a nice break from the Texas heat! I was surprised by how early it got light in the mornings--it was fairly light by 4:30a.m. The first couple nights we were there Caleb woke up at 5am and must have thought it was daytime. We had a great view from our room with a balcony and at 5am Caleb was exclaiming, "Oh wow! Mom! Trees! Tall trees! Oh wow!" So after that we had to cover up our great view and keep it dark and had no more problems with early risers. :)

My niece Kathryn was in this awesome dance festival put on by like seven area stakes. It was awesome! And Kathryn did a great job! And of course, Caleb enjoyed every moment of it too. Here is sample of how much Caleb liked it:

He was so funny because he was trying to imitate each of the different dances. When they were dancing and clapping he was dancing and clapping, if they turned in a bunch of circles, he turned in a bunch of circles. When the crowd cheered, he would bow and say thank you--he was convinced everyone was clapping for him.

We were also able to attend my niece Karalee's baptism. We very much enjoyed it and it was very special.

Caleb was spoiled ROTTEN. Ok, we both were.

Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but my brother promised to send me some of his. So when I get those, I'll post them too.

Lame

Last weekend we went to Seaworld in the evening so we could see the different shows they have going on at night. After a couple shows we had to stop and feed the flamingos and ducks. Then there was a little band that came out to play and Caleb ran over and sat down by them. He didn't sit long though...who can sit when you can dance along? So even though it was getting late, he was having so much fun that we stayed until the band finished. And then we turned around to get our stroller and it was GONE! LAME!! I was sooooo bummed!

I asked one of the workers where to go if a stroller turns up and she said to just talk the customer services at the front. I was walking through the park thinking about how many times I had left my stroller at Seaworld in various places as they don't let you take it into the shows and how I've never had a problem before. I was also thinking about how expensive that stroller was and how often I used it! I used it to go on walks, to the zoo, Seaworld, the mall...pretty much EVERYWHERE. We got to the front and they told us that no strollers had been turned in and that we could check back the next day if we wanted to. Um, yes, I wanted to. As we were busy doing that, my brother and sister-in-law happened to ask a security guard who happened to know that they just located a stroller. There was another family there who were trying to claim it though. But it happened to be our stroller and we happened to leave a receipt in it with our names on it! YIPEE!! So we got our stroller back! Apparently the stroller had been "left unattended for quite some time" so the security guard took it. Hmmm...aren't strollers left unattended all the time at Seaworld? Like for each and every show all day every day? But whatever. I'm just glad to have it back. :)