Galveston Island

It was incredible to see the amount of destruction that remained, but it was also incredible to see how many businesses and homes had been repaired already and back to pretty much normal.

McDonalds was completely knocked down:

See the giant hole in the beachside hotel?

Sweet cheeks...

Cousins having fun dumping water in a hole:




Trying out a photoshop action called "Heartland":

Attack of the birds!
In the background you see the seawall that is approx. 12 ft. tall, the storm surge of the hurricane was well above that!

Having fun with Aunt Carrie:



Uncle Jason and Syd:

The girls found some dollies left on the beach:

and here they are drowning them (actually they said they were washing their hair!):


The kids were totally enamored by a baby sitting near us:



Jamie loved to swim in the ocean as the waves were really small and gentle. Both Chad and I walked him out aways into the water.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of jellyfish that day and Jamie ended up getting stung, the lifeguard gave us some vinegar and he felt better in no time at all.

Armed Forces Day Parade

Armed Forces Day Parade

I took the kids to the parade this year while Chad was gone one weekend. I think it was the first parade they ever watched. They enjoyed it but got bored after a while. When we first got there, they both got lollipops and balloons. But the balloons soon got in the way so when Abby said she didn't want it around her wrist, I gladly took it off and let her hold, secretly hoping that she'd let go :) Well, that I must've been a terrible mom for thinking that because when she did let go and saw her balloon going farther and farther away, she burst into tears and lay and the concrete. Another person offered her balloon and she took it, but it was not "Abby's ba-oon". And throughout the entire parade, she'd occasionally look up to the spot where it disappeared and say "Abby ba-oon fwy away..."

And when the kids got this tired, it was time to leave...
Time to go to CJ's for lunch,
and then park to throw rocks and look for crabs.

:)

due late Jan 2010!

haircuts and random stuff

The kids both got their haircuts a few weeks back. Jamie was getting shaggy (or filthy, as he calls it) and Abby's was just way too hard to comb with all the snarls.





Here is a photo of the cherry blossoms we had on our tree a few weeks ago. They quickly came and then went. I'm hoping with all those blossoms that we get a lot of cherries too, but we'll have to wait and see how many the birds claim for themselves!

While Lulu was over, I let her try and color with the kids:

but her favorite part was dumping out all the colors ...

One day I remembered how we used to play "fishing" when we were kids and so I tried to duplicate this for my kids. I must admit that having an open staircase made it much easier (like at Grandma and Grandpa's!). So anyways, I took this fishing pole that was one of their bath toys and tied two clothes pins to it. I pulled out the couch (and cleaned!), put some toys back there and then took turns with the kids either fishing or loading up the pole. They both had a great time, but they weren't very good at "no peeking". Jamie wanted to tell you exactly what you should attach to his pole and I tried to tell him "you never know what you're gonna get!".

Abby as you can see, was our resident diver:

Happy Mother's Day

So for Mother's Day, Chad and the kids took me out to one of my favorite restaurants Chevy's in Tacoma. It was very yummy! Afterwards, they took me shopping at the Tacoma Mall and I picked out a few clothes for myself for this summer. It was a great day, I loved it!