CAMPING!!!

Us and camping don't really go well together. Camping was so much more fun when I was a youth because I didn't actually have to worry about anybody else but myself:) It is a totally different story when you have kids.
We have been in our apartment for 2 months now and there are many things the kids can't do and we have so many boxes and stuff everywhere it feels really cramped. Things had happened and I just wanted to get out of town. Since we are cheap we decided we would try camping again.
Chris and I have only attempted camping twice since we have been married and one was successful and the other not at all.
When Matthew was 13 months old we bought a big bag that had a tent, sleeping bags, chairs and other things in it. We set it up and wanted to try it out. We thought about going to Galveston but decided to just got out of town about 15 minutes to Lake Bryan in case things didn't work out.
Since Chris doesn't like camping I tried to make sure everything was perfect.....but it wasn't. It was a terrible experience. It was June and really hot. We didn't know that people actually swam in the lake. Matthew was just barely, barely learning how to walk. We got our tent up and the playpen up, but we couldn't get a fire started to cook our hot dogs. We tried to keep Matthew on his regular schedule of going to bed at 7pm. It was still light out and lots of people talking and laughing.....the only thing that happened was that Matthew was in his playpen just crying. Finally at 9:30pm when it was dark and Matthew was still crying we decided to pack everything up in the dark and just go home. COMPLETE FAILURE.
Our second camping trip was last summer when we went to my family reunion in Utah. We didn't have room in our car to travel and bring a tent so Spence had a pop-up tent trailer there for us. The first night was terrible because I almost froze to death with my little girl. I ended up sleeping in our car where I could turn it on every once in awhile to heat it up again. Spence had a heater in there for us the next 2 nights which was so much better. WE SURVIVED
This trip was so spur of the moment but we went anyways to get away. We decided to go back to Lake Bryan since we knew what to expect there. We came a little more prepared and we actually set up camp at the exact same camping site. It was kind of fun actually to repeat that trip.
We set up our tent while the kids played. Once it was up they loved to play in the tentis as Allison called it. They were so happy to be out and they could jump and run and play and be as loud as they wanted.

It was pretty windy so we didn't think that the kids would really want to get into the water, but we still had to go see it at least.

When they took there sandals off and starting walking in and getting wet we figured we needed to put their swimming suits on before they fell in.

That was such a great idea, though I forgot towels and with how windy it was we thought we were going to have to run home but we found a blanket that I was willing to let get sandy and wet/muddy.
The kids started out just playing in the sand and would eventually slowly get a little bit wet. It was funny watching them in the water they would squat down like Matthew is here but in the water and they would be surprised when water hit their bum. They would just laugh and laugh. They played for a couple hours before the water and wind just became too cold for them. It was so nice just to be out of the apartment and I am sure the kids loved it even more.

Primary Spotlight Night 2011

Last year's spotlight night was pretty good and there wasn't really anything Matthew could do to top it. He had at the age of 3 ALL 13 Articles of Faith memorized and instead of him saying all of them I just had numbers 1-13 facing me and had him pick 3 and he said those three. Our bishop still talks about him knowing all of them. This year we decided to do a more low-key thing. He went on-stage and sang The Books in the Old Testament and then...

he sang skid-a-mirink a dink a dink... WITH the actions.

It was a crowd favorite especially because most people had never seen the actions before.

He did an EXCELLENT job up on stage and sang all his words very well.
We were very proud of him.

Easter Afternoon

When we came home from church I had the kids sit on the stairs outside our apartment door to take some pictures. There was some laughing and crying going on. Here are some of the pictures.

After church we were invited to go to our adopted parents house for dinner and fun. We got to eat some wonderful food and while the food was cooking the kids dyed eggs. They had fun doing it but I really should boil more eggs next year.

They were so anxious to go have an Easter Egg hunt, we finally got to it.

They had a great time.


We had just finished our Easter Egg hunt when their son, Jacob, came home. Chris told him that we couldn't find one (hehe) and so Jacob went out and started looking. I wasn't as mean as everybody else and went to tell them he was just kidding.
Matthew and I eventually went out and hid eggs so that Jacob to hunt for eggs. When he came out, Mike came out also and then during that time Steven came out and joined them. It was so funny watching them hunting for eggs and having a race to see who could find the most. They actually ended up finding the exact same amount. It was fun.

Then after that one there was another egg hunt that Jacob did for Matthew.


We had so much fun playing at their house. They kids got in the tree and of course I had to take pictures.

Thanks for inviting us over:)
Happy Easter!

Easter Morning

Matthew and Allison were super excited about the treasures from the Easter Bunny and Grandma and Grandpa.
(Click on the picture/collage to see it bigger)

I love Matthew's real genuine smiles in these pictures.

Texas A&M Baseball

Can you really believe that my honey and I went to a baseball game? Really? My honey? Yep, that is right and guess what the biggest shocker about this is? IT WAS HIS IDEA!!!!
My honey is not a sports person. We are completely opposite when it comes to sports:) Which is probably a good thing:)
Chris has heard that the Texas A&M Aggie Baseball games are fun to go to not necessarily for the game but for the fans. It is like a football game, you have to go to at least one before you leave.
We dropped the kids off with wonderful friends and off we went. It was super fun to be there with my honey. I was just thrilled the whole time being there with him.

My best friend and I:)



I really enjoyed having my camera and my new lens that I could zoom in even more. It is not super duper close but I had fun.

I don't think I had ever used my sports feature before but I really liked that I could capture the ball. I was loving it.

We had a fun time but after a couple hours it still wasn't over. We didn't know how long they lasted but it was the 7th inning and we were hungry. We went to grab a quick bite to eat, kidless, and then went and rescued our friends.
I was grinning from ear to ear the rest of the day.