Monday, April 14, 2014

Thanksgiving

We were so happy to spend Thanksgiving in MS this year. For the past three years, we were in Boston and not able to fly home. While we loved our Boston "Friendsgiving" traditions, we were excited to go home this year.
Chance and I flew home on the Sunday before and got some extra time in with our family while John drove on Wednesday just in time for all the festivities.
The VonEdwins crew came in from Little Rock early in the week so it was fun to visit and catch up with them and let Ryan and Chance play together.



Thursday morning we were busy cooking the dressing and sweet potato casserole at Marge and Big D's. The kitchen was full and lots was going on and it was so much fun! Big D was smoking his turkey on the Green Egg while Chris was frying a turkey and Mommo brought a turkey breast. We worked hard all morning and had beautiful spread for lunch.






 



The food was delicious and once we settled down a bit we took our annual family and group pics.




After the pictures John, Chance, and I loaded up and headed to the Kuevens house for Thanksgiving round 2. We had a non-traditional meal of buffalo wings made by Brad, along with his famous homemade fries (which are my favorite!). It was nice to hangout, watch the Egg Bowl, and eat more good food with family.


The following two days were divided between our families picking out Christmas trees, putting up lights, decorating, and enjoying time together.
Sunday came quickly and it was time to head back to Katy. We had a jam-packed few days and loved every second!

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Happy Halloween

We had lots of Halloween fun in the week leading up to the 31st.  The Saturday before Halloween our neighborhood had a breakfast/trunk or treat at the park. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a potluck breakfast with all of our friends. The kids played at the park for awhile then we lined up all the cars/wagons/etc. with candy and the kids did a little trick-or-treating.




We also carved our pumpkins. John proved to be the master pumpkin carver with his Mickey pumpkin for Chance!



On Tuesday Memorial Hermann had a carnival for employees and their families. So we met John late that afternoon and played games, ate some dinner, and even got to meet the Texans' mascot Toro! Chance loved the games and now thinks they will be there every time we visit Daddy at work! Ha!





Laura Anne came in town on Wednesday for a few days so she got to join in on the rest of our Halloween fun! Thursday was Halloween. Chance's music class was having a Halloween party on Thursday morning so once again we donned the Mickey costume (with a bit of bribery) and headed out to music. Mrs. Kathy had "spooky" music, pumpkin games, and  lots of fun. We all brought Halloween treats and passed them out to the class. Afterwards we did a fun craft.
 


The weather was not cooperating and we were worried trick-or-treating would not happen. Thankfully during the afternoon the sun came out so our evening could go on as planned. The only problem was, in true Texas fashion, it was quite hot for Chance's one-piece, long pants, long-sleeved Mickey costume. As it turns out our beloved Red Sox won the world series the night before so we all dressed up in our Red Sox gear and went as baseball players! Crisis averted! We went to a neighbors house for pizza, then headed out to trick-or-treat with our crew of strollers, wagons, parents, and kids. Our group slowly dwindled, including us as the sun started to go down. We sat on our front porch for the last few trick-or-treaters. Chance passed out some candy then went to bed. John and Laura Anne continued their tradition of watching scary movies together while I buried my nose in the ipad trying not to pay attention!





We had lots of fun at Halloween!

Mississippi

On the way home from the beach, Big D met us halfway and Chance and I went back to MS for several days. We had a great time seeing all of our family!




On Saturday we went to Lazy Acres Pumpkin Patch. Pops and CC joined us and we had so much fun! We saw farm animals, played outside, bounced, rode the wagon, and of course picked out some pumpkins!












We love spending time in Meridian. Marge took us to the airport on Monday afternoon. It's never fun saying goodbye, but at least this time we knew we would be back in a few short weeks for Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Gulf Shores Vacation

In October we went to Gulf Shores for a long weekend with two other families.  We had a house right across from the beach which was perfect! The weather couldn't have been nicer and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. 
 






The kids played, we sat around on the beach, and cooked out most nights. One night we went to dinner at Sea n Suds to get our seafood fix. It was delicious! We sat outside on the patio and had a great meal. After dinner we went to Scoops for a sweet treat!




We went to the Track another late afternoon/early evening. It was a week night so it was pretty empty which was nice. We let the kids (and dads!) play around in the arcade and then went to ride a few rides.  The older boys rode the go-carts (Chance wasn't quite tall enough) with the adults and then they all rode the bumper boats. It was hilarious watching them all get soaked, and Chance lost a shoe in the pool. Thankfully it was fished out, but he went around in his socks the rest of the night! The kids went on a couple other rides. Chance didn't care for them so he just ran around.




We had a great vacation...perfect weather and a great time with friends!