First Field Trip

Jackson went on his first ever school field trip today. Jackson and 6 of his classmates, his teacher, teacher's helper, and a few moms all made our way to Tyler to hit up the zoo. We weren't the only ones who had this idea. The zoo was swimming with school groups today. Crazy!!! It was fun though and the kiddos loved seeing the animals. Here's a look out our zoo trip.

He's checking out the HUGE goldfish that live in the pond. They're ginormous.

Jackson and his buddy, Kai

Don't you love the mid blink look?

She made matching shirts for all of them.

Get ready for summer!

Our playgroup met at the spray park today and we all welcomed in the warm weather together. Take a look at how much fun the kids had.

Such a fun time and the kids were exhausted when we left. Bonus!!

Birthday Bash

Our good friends, Jorge and Carrie, invited us to their lovely home to celebrate their precious Annabel's first birthday this past Saturday. We were so excited to go. The kids and I had never met Annabel, we'd only seen the pictures of her sweet smiling face here. Annabel is a very special little girl - an angel on earth. Her smile can lift the grumpiest of spirits. I'm sad that I don't have any pictures of her beautiful smile to show you here but there are many to see on the lovely blog her parents keep for her.

Her parents really know how to throw a party. There was food, food and more food, good music, good company, a pinata, face painting, and get this, a bouncy house. How cool is that?! Jackson and Caroline would answer, "Very COOL!" They had a blast. We were there for about 3 1/2 hours and I think Jackson may have spent a collective 10 minutes outside the bouncy house. Check out the party!

Baking with Oma

Jackson is quite the cookie maker.

He was so excited to help Oma make sugar cookies.

He helped add the ingredients.

He helped mix it all together.

He helped with the cookie cutters and the decorations.

And he helped eat them.

They really were very good.

Great job, Jackson!!

***By the way, this is my 300th post.

Wow!

Thanks for sticking with me through all of them.

Here's to the next 300.

Photo Booth

Nate and Randi had a photo booth set up at their reception.

It was a hit with all of the guests.

This crazy couple snuck in

for a few photos.

I love the gun in the front suit coat pocket.

Seems like a reasonable place to keep it. Right?

Here's a group one.

Can you count how many people we crammed in?

I was laughing so hard through all of the group ones. We really were so crammed in there and then we all had to lean back as far as we could to get in the picture. It was hilarious!

Fun, right?!

Party of 2

Chad and I got to take a weekend for ourselves. (Sigh)

It was fantastic.

the view from the car as we drove down I-20

One of Chad's high school friends was getting married in Austin on Saturday so we enlisted Eileen/Grammy to come and stay with the kiddos so we could have a mini vacation.

We left Friday evening and made our way to Waco where we stayed Friday night.

We never thought we would "vacation" in Waco, but one perk to doing so is

this place...

and these.

The VERY BEST Apple Wheat pancakes EVER!!

Look at the size of that thing!

It was a fabulous way to start the day and we ate way too much. But that's ok because who knows when we'll get back for more.

After our pancake feast, we completed our drive down to Austin. We didn't have any big plans for the early afternoon so we thought it'd be fun to park and walk around downtown. It was fun. Our first stop was...

Wait for it...

WHOLE FOODS.

Yep, that's right.

A grocery store.

But this isn't just any old grocery store.

This place makes food look like art.

I could live in their produce section.

I mean, just look at this.

I was only able to snap these 4 before a Whole Foods employee walked away from spraying some lettuce to let me know they don't allow photography in the store.

Bummer!

At least I got these, right?

We picked up some fabulous organic sodas and some SUPER yummy smoothies and headed out to wander the streets.

We did just that. We wandered and talked and laughed. Fabulous!!

We stopped in Waterloo Records to check out their collections.

Chad found 2 record albums that he couldn't leave without.

We walked some more, talked some more, laughed some more. Chad's really funny. I mean, really funny!

We knew this wandering fun couldn't last forever. We had to head to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

The place where the wedding was held is called Hacienda del Lago and it's on Lake Travis and it's Beautiful!

Check out the white peacocks that roam the property.

The ceremony was short and sweet and very nice.

We gathered with friends and made our way to a table to await the meal that we were just beginning to smell.

It was so fun to catch up with everyone that we hadn't seen in a while.

We talked and laughed. (That seems to be the theme for the weekend)

We played with the cute centerpieces.

each table had flowers and different salt and pepper shakers. Cute, right!?

Chad tried on Rob's Bowler hat that he wore in the ceremony.

That's Rob in blue in the reflection of Chad's glasses.

I walked around the beautiful grounds and snapped some pictures.

This is where the ceremony was held. All the chairs had been moved at this point. But I think you can get the picture.

This house is beautiful. It has the greatest bathrooms I've seen in a long time.

Fun lanterns in all the trees.

And finally, the reason we were there.

Nate and Randi

Don't they look great!

these kids were blowing bubbles onto the dance floor during the first dance

the flower girl couldn't wait until the first dance was over to get out there so she danced circles around them

Here are some of our friends that we talked and laughed with.

Jorge and Carrie

Weston and Michelle.

I actually knew Weston before I knew Chad.

Britt

He wrote and performed a song for the newlyweds.

It was fantastic.

It was a great weekend. Can't wait to do it again!

To come tomorrow - our awesome photo booth pictures. You'll want to see these. Trust me!