Texas Trip: Hanging Out and Little Things

Since this blog is serving double duty as our family photo album (our real ones are about 8 years behind), you'll have to excuse me for posting so many pictures in this post.

I think I took this picture of all the shoes by the front door on the day of the blessing. There were even more people in the house than this. Fully ELEVEN of us were actually sleeping there! (While I'm on that topic, Eric and Ann were excellent hosts!!)

The first couple of nights the boys slept in sleeping bags up in the loft.

Our second day there, I was trying to get Chris to take a nap because he was getting a bit cranky. Sometimes all I have to do is get him to close his eyes and he'll be out. So I told him to close his eyes and pretend to sleep so I could take his picture:

I took the picture then sat there real quietly, hoping he'd conk out. No such luck. He opened up those eyes and said we needed a picture together. (Drats!) So here it is:

I lost that battle and let him get up to play. About 30 minutes later he started crying over nothing and I finally managed to get him to sleep. This little munchkin just does not know when he's tired!

One night I was trying to get him to lay down, and he insisted he wasn't sleepy at all. So I took a picture of him for proof:

Now was I right, or was I right? LOL.

The last two nights, the boys got to sleep in a tent set up in the dining room. Pretty fun!

See Chris in there taking a nap? This was on Sunday. He fell asleep at 4:30 pm or so, in the car. I put him in the tent and he slept straight through till the next morning!! Uh-huh. That's what I thought.

Anyway, in between the bigger events, we did a lot of hanging around.

Even though I'm pretty used to it by now, I STILL don't get why boys think it's so fun to play fight.

Uncle Eric, the Great Human Elevator:

It's very cute to see Grandpa doting on his granddaughters:

Course, who doesn't want to dote on these cute, little girls?

We also played games:

Just Grandpa and the boys. :)

This is a game called Settlers of Catan and is soooooo fun! Does anyone have this?

We let John bring his Waveboard since it didn't take up that much room in the car.

One night he demonstrated for his Uncle Eric, who hadn't seen one before. John loves teaching his older uncles how to do this. It makes him feel so grown up!

We all went to Chuck E. Cheese one night.

This is one of those rides where the seat goes up and around as the little kid sits on it...

Or the big kid...

Or both. You know, whatever. :)

And we swam...









Ben doesn't always like water in his face:



But he's getting over it:

The pool had a neat zero-entry area for little kids, with water fountain spouts. Brian discovered that if you stand on two, it makes the other ones shoot higher.

He wanted me to stand on one too to see how high we could get the last one to go. Thus, the picture of my foot in Texas was born:


Strangely, I now have a picture of my foot in three states. If we go to San Diego with Kimmy and Daniel this summer I'll take a picture there and that will make four states. It makes me want to make a goal to get a picture of my foot in all 50 states. But the only way that's going to happen is if I sell my book and become a huge, bestselling author. If anyone thinks that's easy or likely, please see my post on the dismal realities of publishing. LOL.