Red Sox - Astros Game

In what has now become a fun tradition for us, we went to our annual Red Sox - Astros game at Minute Maid Stadium for the third year. We left Dottie home with Myranda and had a great night out, it was so much fun!

Home run by Big Papi

Beach Trip

Our friends just bought a beach house in Galveston. The Friday before Memorial Day was their closing date, and they invited us to come down and spend the first weekend with them. We had the crawfish boil on Saturday so we we headed down on Sunday and were so excited for the trip!

Sunday was sunny and beautiful, the perfect beach day

Ella and James slept in twin beds in the same bedroom and they were both so exhausted after a big day (plus Ella had been up way too late the night before) that they both fell right to sleep and actually managed to sleep through the night in the same room. We've done overnights at the beach with friends before and it never works out that the kids manage to fall asleep together and one or both end up in bed with the adults. So Ella was very excited for her 'first official sleepover'! 

Going for a walk on Monday morning

Monday was overcast so we went fishing in the waterway in the back of the neighborhood instead of back to the beach. The waterway is beautiful with gorgeous houses and so peaceful.

She caught one!

We really had a wonderful trip - relaxing and so much fun! I'm also so grateful for our friendship with the Callaways, we always have such a great time with them. 

Crawfish Boil

We hosted a crawfish boil last Saturday for Steve's company. Last year for our first crawfish boil we had several of the guys that work for Steve and their families, and they brought all the supplies and made the crawfish. They all wanted to do the same thing this year, but it got big quickly and ended up being an event for the entire company. 

Steve assured me that he and the guys on his team would take care of everything and I didn't need to worry about the planning, and that's exactly how it worked out! 

Josh did the crawfish this time and set up this professional looking station in our backyard

Because we had so many people, we needed over 100 pounds of crawfish! This is just the first batch-

By the end of the third batch, just a few people still going...

Ella and Jake steered clear of the crawfish but had a fun time swimming and playing all afternoon and late into the evening

 

Lily and Andy looking adorable

The party went great, and it was so nice that I had only minimal responsibilities throughout!

Painting the Rainbow Fish

My friend Carroll and I took the girls to The Paint Pub last Sunday for a kids class to paint The Rainbow Fish. Ella was very excited - she read her book in advance and wore her rainbow fish necklace from Aunt Kelly.  

She had a great time and I really enjoyed watching her listen to the instructor and create her painting.

She followed the instructions almost exactly and then added some of her special finishing touches at the end - the little black fish to the left of the Rainbow Fish, the 2014, and the cursive Ella in the bottom right corner. It is definitely a one-of-a-kind original painting!

Ta - da!!

Looks like she means business!

We were at our friends' house last Saturday night, and Ella was a little wild-woman playing with James' nerf guns -- look at this face!

Afternoon at the Boardwalk

Steve has been working very hard lately with lots of long days, evenings, etc. After we got past all the business of Christmas, New Years, and Ella's birthday, we finally had a quiet weekend with very little planned. 

Steve decided to do a special day with Ella just the two of them, and they headed to the boardwalk.

They had so much fun and came home with lots of stories about the afternoon.  And even managed to take a few cute pictures!

Moody Gardens

Ella and I went down to Moody Gardens in Galveston for the day the Thursday after New Years. The Festival of Lights was still going on in the evenings, so I was hoping we'd luck out and there wouldn't be a crowd during the day, which is exactly how it turned out!

 

We got there right after they opened and headed to the Rainforest pyramid.

 

Ella loved this sea lion. He swam right in front of her and did a little show for her 

 

 

 

 

 It was so neat inside the rainforest. We saw beautiful birds, flowers, plants, butterflies, and even some monkeys who were really active

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later we came to a photo booth and Ella wanted us to take pictures. For some reason the camera caught a glare on my tooth and gave me a completely green tooth! Ella found this hysterical, hung the picture up in her room, and even brought it into school to show her class this week.

 

 

And a good one!

 

This is her "I'm so surprised because I just got turned into a frog!" face

 

 

 

Later in the afternoon we went over the Discovery pyramid which has a hands-on music exhibit with a bunch of sound-proof booths

 

Singing into the microphone

 

This was really funny. These are Whisper Pipes that you can talk in to. Ella got a big surprise when someone on the other side of the museum started talking back to her!

 

We had so much fun there, it was a great outing and really fun day together.