Final "Weekend in TX" post

I feel like I was in Texas forever ago and yet here I am, still trying to finish up posting about it.

On Saturday we had a surprise party for my Grandma's 75th birthday. We rented out a room in The Woodlands Resort and ate and laughed and shared fun memories of Grandma. Most of which included her making some sort of yummy food for us. Afterward, we went down to the pool and swam and ate some more and just enjoyed being together. It was such a fun day.

(Grandma with her four girls)

Sunday was the flight home. I was smart this time and got some benedryl for Brandon. It didn't make him sleep (I wasn't expecting it to), but it did help his ears. The flight was much better, though still hard. But at least he wasn't screaming his head off.

Now if you have ever been to Texas, you must know about Blue Bell ice cream. It is the BEST! And is basically only sold in Texas (although I think they are branching out a tiny bit). Well, the weekend was SO busy, I didn't get to have any. I was so bummed as we got to the airport. (I know what you're thinking....poor me. Blah blah blah. It wasn't that big of a deal really, but still. It is yummy ice cream). ANYWAY, we had some time to kill at the airport, so we stopped to get a bite to eat. I asked the guy at Wendy's if he knew of a place in the airport where we could get some Blue Bell. Much to my delight, he said "YES", and that it was in the next terminal over. It meant we had to hop a monorail, but we had PLENTY of time so we thought, what the heck, let's go! We got over to the next terminal, enjoyed our ridiculously OVER PRICED Blue Bell, and stopped for a bathroom break. About 40 minutes before our flight left, we thought we better head back over to our terminal and get ready for boarding. We get on the little monorail type train that takes you back to your terminal and waited for it to depart.......but it didn't. And it seemed quite full for a train that goes back and forth all day. We waited.....and waited.....10 minutes went by and we were still sitting there.....waiting. I couldn't believe it. They were having "technical problems" and now we were going to MISS our plane ALL because I wanted some (now) DUMB Blue Bell ice cream. IT WAS NOT WORTH IT!!! We contemplated walking back to our terminal, but then found out we'd have to LEAVE the airport and go back through security to get there. There was NO way. Not enough time. We crossed our fingers (said a little prayer) and hoped for the best. LUCKILY, the train got back up and running in a few more minutes and we got back to our gate shortly before they started the FINAL boarding call. Whew! I will NEVER do that again. NOT even for Blue Bell.

On the drive home. Even Ashlyn fell asleep. That's EXTREMELY rare.

THE END!

It's my turn now

Me and a few friends got together earlier this year and decided we wanted to do a mommy run preschool out of our homes for our three year olds. Leah has been anxiously awaiting her first day of school ever since Ashlyn started school a month ago. Well, today finally came and she was so excited. She even told me that she needed to wear "tennis shoes" since Ashlyn had to when she was in preschool too (this coming from a girl who wears flip flops year round). She also insisted on having a backpack and was more than willing to pose for her pictures at the stairs. Too cute! She of course had no problem when I dropped her off and had a great time while she was there (except for the boo boo she claims to have gotten, but I can find no evidence of it).

Day two...the wedding

I have to admit, I'm already getting tired of posting about last weekend, but I want it for the blurb book, so here I go again.

Let me start by saying, that if you're ever planning on getting married in Texas in August....DON'T. It's TOO blazing HOT. Seriously, we were dying from the humidity. That is not an exaggeration. But we some how suffered through it for Sydney because we love her and we wanted some darn pictures. It's always all in the name of pictures, right?

So Sydney got married on Friday morning in the Houston Temple, which is absolutely beautiful. As was she. The sealing was so sweet and I'm SO glad we were able to be there. Thank you to my wonderful sister and her hubby for coming early and watching my kids so that Paul and I could both be in the temple. Even if the lady at the front desk was grouchy to you (which she was....very grouchy. So not like most temple workers I've seen.) Anyway, after the sealing, we took a few pictures, and headed over to the church for a nice AIR CONDITIONED luncheon where my Uncle and his Barbershop Quartet sang, a few good toasts were given, and we all chatted and had a great time. That night was the reception. The girls had a BLAST dancing on the dance floor and watching Sydney and Nate cut the cake, dance their first dance together (as a married couple), and of course watch them do "true love's kiss". Do I have girly girls or what?

I thought these next two were the greatest pictures because they both made the same face when I told them to smile. Leave it to sisters.

My cute sister, Desiree, and her husband, Chad.

Paul and Brandon. Here Paul is explaining how he practically got kicked out of the temple by the "grouchy" front desk lady because he went in there to change Brandon's diaper in the waiting room restroom. She even made Paul pull the diaper out of the trash and take it with him out of the temple. Crazy lady huh?

My mom, sister and me.

The newlyweds walking out of the temple. Hooray!!!

Cute little Ashlyn. She was so excited to see Sydney and Nate get married and when we went to leave the temple, she said, "But I didn't get to see them get married yet?" Ah...poor little girl.

This is my one and only nephew Brent, who I swear can sleep anywhere. This is at the chapel while we were waiting for the luncheon to start.

I LOVE how Brandon makes a "zoom" sound when he plays with cars.

Apparently all three sisters make the same face when told to smile. How funny! I wonder if my Aunt does too?

All the little girls with Sydney. We don't have very many little kids in the family yet. Just four. And three of them are mine. Hooray for Brittany's baby. That will make five! So glad for Brandon that she's having a boy.

Every girls first love. Their daddy. And what a good one they have!

This little boy melts my heart!

Can you see my girls off to the side sitting so still in their chairs? They were mesmerized the entire time Sydney and Nate were dancing.

These luckies got to cut TWO cakes. Who gets to do that? Or am I just behind the times? The chocolate one was to DIE for. So yummy. Didn't even bother with the other one. Sorry Syd's. It looked quite pretty though.

Day one continued...

After getting off the plane and getting our rental car, which took forever, as usual, because they never seem to have carseats for us, even though I reserve them (does this happen to everyone else or am I just lucky?), we head to my Grandma's because she hooked us up with a totally nice 2 bedroom apartment style room for us to stay at. It was SO nice and roomy. Perfect for a family of five. It was a quick stop to drop off our luggage and get freshened up and then we headed over to my Aunt's house for a Texas style BBQ (of course).

Here's me and two of my favorite cousins (I have LOTS of favorites). Sydney is the one on the left. She's the bride. Yes, she's young. Nineteen to be exact. But she graduated early and is already a Senior at BYU this year. Yes, I have to brag. She's a smarty and totally cute too! The one in the middle is my cute cousin Brittany who is 8 months pregnant with her first little baby. A little boy due beginning of October. We are all SO SO excited for him to get here.

Ashlyn and Brandon "playing" the piano. I keep asking Ashlyn if she wants to take lessons, but she says she'd rather play the flute. Okay, whatever. Any instrument will do.

Here's my other favorite cousin Chelsea (on the left) and her little baby girl, Cali, who will be one in 12 days. In the middle is my totally great brother (who lives only 10 minutes from me) and then my Grandma (on my mom's side. She's also the only Grandma I have left. And really the only Grandma I've ever known.)

Leah saw my Aunt's pool and fell in love. I didn't think to bring her swimsuit over, so I let her get in, in her clothes. She played on the steps for over an hour I think. She was TOTALLY soaked, but had a great time.

Going...

Going.....

Gone.

We had this dying pine tree in our front yard. It was huge and it left TONS of needles ALL over the place. So we got rid of it. It's weird to see it gone. But I don't think I'm going to miss it. I think we'll plant a nice queen palm tree in it's place. Like the one our neighbors have. That will look much better. And leave less mess.

Day one

I took SO many photos, I'm going to have to split them up. Too much posting in one day is irritating to me. So here's the beginning of our trip.

We left early Thursday morning for the airport. Drove down, traffic was great, got to "Lot B" at LAX for long term parking, unloaded the car and started walking to the bus. Leah falls. Scratches her shin and starts to cry. Clean her up, load my arms back up, head to the bus (again). Get to the bus, start loading the bus with all our luggage and kids. Ashlyn falls. Scratches her knee and starts to cry. Get on the bus, clean her up. So we're not even to the airport and I have already applied three band aids(Ashlyn's booboo required two). This is going to be a "fun" trip I thought to myself.

Ha...okay, it really wasn't all that bad. But it was a pretty funny start to our trip so I wanted to document it.

The airplane ride there was...hm....how to describe 3 1/2 hours stuck in a TINY little spot with three young children....interesting. That is my best word for it. The girls were actually pretty darn good. They played playdough (who would've have thought that would be a good thing to bring on a plane, but it was), colored pictures, watched a movie, etc. It was a grand ole time for them. Poor little Brandon on the other hand. Not so grand of a time. He had been kind of congested, and smart me didn't bring any benedryl or anything for him. His ears must have been hurting pretty bad on the way up and down because he cried his little eyes out the whole way. That was not so fun. The middle part of the trip with him was...okay, I guess. It's just really an awful age to fly with. I really think there should be a "no fly time" for all kids between the ages of 1 and 2 1/2. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. And we really wanted to be at Sydney's wedding, so we toughed it out. And I don't talk about my poor hubby (who I really do adore) very much on my blog, but I have to say that he went above and beyond the call of "daddyhood" the whole time we were there and was SO great to keep the kids entertained and happy so much of the time so I could visit with my family that I don't get too see too often. I love you honey!!! (okay enough mushiness)

Here are some photos from the flight. More posts to come. If you get bored, feel free to stop reading at anytime. I won't be offended.

Not a great photo of me, but it's the only one I got.

See Paul up at the front, holding Brandon and trying to get him to sleep. Poor little guy was SO tired.

Luckily he did finally fall asleep for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, Paul didn't get to move for that long (trying to keep him asleep) and his poor back was killing him by the time Brandon finally woke up.

Cinderella

I took the girls to see a rendition of "Cinderella" at our local theater this afternoon. It was a cute little show. The girls thought it was the greatest thing ever. Ashlyn was at the edge of her seat the whole time (or maybe that was because she was trying to see between the seats in front of her). And Leah got to go up to the front and be on stage, before the show started, to sing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and "Row, Row your boat". She waltzed right up there like she owned the show. Ashlyn on the other hand, was "too shy" to go up. Does that surprise anyone about my little cuties?

I let them dress up to go to the show and they got to pick out their OWN candy bar. They were SO excited. It's nice that it's pretty easy to please little kids.

Leah is the second from the left if you can't tell. I took this before they turned the lights on the stage.

It was a fun mommy/daughter(s) date. I'm sure we'll do it again.