Our Trip to Austin

A month or so ago I got tickets for Jamie and I to see the musical "Wicked" in Austin, and this weekend the date finally came!

We started out on Friday morning with "Meet the Teacher" at Kaiya's new pre-school. She was so excited to go, and had so much fun. Here she is raring to go!



Kaiya and Daddy outside the school

We dropped Kaiya off at my mom & dad's and took off for Austin. That evening we went to see one of the coolest things I have ever seen. About 3 million Mexican Free Tail Bats live under the Congress Avenue Bridge and every day at sunset during the warm months the bats swarm out and fly over the river. It was seriously amazing, pictures cannot do it justice.

Do you see the black smudges in in the sky in these pictures? They are BATS!

The bats seriously kept pouring out from under the bridge for over 15 minutes, it was absolutely amazing.

A beautiful sunset from the Congress Avenue Bridge

I don't know exactly how this started, but whenever Jamie and I go places, one of our favorite things to do is to take pictures of ourselves pointing at/interacting with odd things. Here is Jamie pointing at a sign with a picture of Ann Richards on it that is on the bridge, and making a lovely face.

That night we had dinner at "Chuy's Hula Hut" which was very fun, and scrumptious. We ate on a giant pier over Lake Travis, with a lot of intoxicated people (including one lady who somehow dropped her credit card over the side into the lake, and had half the staff trying to fish it out with a seriously long net).

We definitely enjoyed the atmosphere, it was Tiki-riffic


The next day we slept in (ahh...the novelty!) and had lunch at Stubbs Bar-B-Que where we had a very unique experience...

There are a couple of rooms in the upstairs seating area, and when we were poking around for a place to sit, we stuck our heads into a side room, and there was a meeting of Texas Nationalists, which is apparently a group that thinks that Texas should secede from the United States. It was mostly older, very conservative looking people, and several of the men were wearing 10 gallon hats. Well, if that wasn't enough, then a couple of guys in their early twenties with tattoos and mohawks came in with their dad, and they were wearing shirts that had this on the back:
So, Jamie and I are sitting in the corner, and can see the whole restaurant, and as the Texas Nationalists walk out of their meeting they walk right past these guys, and I have to say, I was getting a little nervous. But as these old white guys in 10 gallon hats walked past the punks wearing gun shirts, the punks got a little nod or hat tip from most of the Texas Nationalist people. All I can say is that Texas is an odd place, and I love it. Then a few minutes later, some other very normal looking people got into a very boisterous discussion with the gun punks about secession. Seriously...only in Texas.

After our meeting of the minds at Stubbs, we went to the LBJ Presidential Library, which was pretty interesting. I have never been to a Presidential Library before, and I really enjoyed the display of gifts he received from diplomats from other countries, and all the things about Lady Bird Johnson. First Ladies are fascinating, don't you think?
Jamie enjoyed meeting the life-sized LBJ, and giving him the boyscout handshake

After the library, it was time to get ready for WICKED!!!! Yay!!! I was so nervous that something would happen and we wouldn't be able to see it (which is what happened when we had tickets in Dallas). But we made it! Yay Yay!
Then on our way back, in the parking garage, I had a reaffirmation of why I don't wear high heels...Yep, this is me, almost having to duck under the clearance sign in the garage...It wasn't just my cute new shoes though, I had Texas hair as well, that gave me another inch at least.

This was also our first trip with the new camera, so I did some experimenting, and came up with a few pictures I am actually kind of proud of:


Overall, this was a wonderful trip, and I really love Austin. It is a fascinating combination of uber-liberal college town, and very straight laced governmental city. I can't wait to go back again, girls weekend anyone???

First Day With My New Camera!

I have been having problems with my old point and click camera, because Kaiya is a pretty fast moving kid, and all my pictures seemed to turn out blurry. So for my birthday, I asked for an SLR camera. My dad, a photography buff from back in the day, and I narrowed it down and picked a great new Nikon, and I was so excited about it, that after the battery charged, I spent the whole next day taking pictures. Here are some of the highlights, and it probably represents a pretty average day for us!

So, I have had trouble getting Kaiya to pose for pictures lately, and someone suggested that I ask her if I can take a picture of her favorite stuffed animal, and boy did that help! I started out by just taking a picture of C.C.

I love this picture, because you can see her sweet little hand fixing C.C.'s flipper. She noticed it was tucked up under her, and wanted to fix it before I took her friend's picture.


Then I asked if I could take a picture of her and C.C. together, and she ran across the room and threw herself on the blue chair.


Of course Kaiya and Daddy had to do a little rough housing, Kaiya says "I wanna go upside-down!" and then she laughs almost manically.


Did I mention that C.C. is our favorite friend? She likes to keep her close by.

Of course, no day would be complete without harassing Pepper until she bears her teeth and growls menacingly.

Then it is time for a bath! Here is my little duck, cheesing it up for the camera!
Don't you think she looks like Jamie in this picture?

Last of all, it is time for stories before bed. Getting ready for bed is Daddy's special time to spend with Kaiya, and I think he enjoys reading stories with her as much as she does.
By the way, thanks to Megan for the tip on the "Baby Jaguar" jammies, they are her favorite, and I wish I would have followed her advice and bought a pair in the next size too. We both love them.

So there you are! A typical Sunday afternoon with our family! I am so excited to learn how to use my new camera really well, thanks Mom & Dad!

Princess Party

I am so sorry, I have been a terrible blogger for the past couple of months, but I am determined to start anew! So for the time being I will skip over the 4th of July, which has been my stumbling block/excuse for not blogging (Jen took the pictures & she has been out of town, so I don't have them yet); and go straight to what I do have pictures for... A Princess Party!

So Kaiya was invited to a princess birthday party, and the invitations said to wear your princess dresses, well, if you can believe it, Kaiya didn't have a princess dress. I know you are all shocked, but that is the way things are. She has a ton of dress up clothes, and when she wants to be a princes, she has this hand-me-down dance costume that she loves and she wears that and all her jewelry, and says that she is a princess and she is going to a party. In fact the other day she said "Look Mommy, I am glamorous!"

But I digress, so, I already knew I was going to have to buy her a real princess dress, because a few weeks ago our book club had a Harry Potter party, and I went dressed as the portrait that guards the Griffindor tower, and I wore an enormous pink prom dress that I got years ago at the Dillard's outlet for $25, and when I walked out Kaiya looked at me and said "Mommy is so pretty! I want one!"

So we went looking for a poufy princess dress for the party. I asked her which princess she wanted to dress up as, and she said Belle. Now she has never really seen any of the princess movies, except for "The Little Mermaid" but she has dress up shoes with princess pictures on them, and the yellow Belle ones are her favorite. So we went looking for a Belle dress. We went to the Disney store, and all they had were the ones that were off the shoulder, except for Cinderella, and Kaiya didn't really like the Cinderella one. Well, I really wanted a modest one; so I asked the manager if they had any Belle dresses that were modest, and she looked at me like I was crazy! And then she called over someone else, and they were really rude to me, and to make a long story even longer, I got mad, told them that the clothes the princesses wore in the movies were terrible examples for little girls & teaches them that they have to be sexy to be beautiful and walked out. So on principle, I wasn't going to buy one from there.

We had looked at Target several times, and the only ones they had there were Cinderella, which, of course, Kaiya didn't really like. So the night before the party, I went to Target after Kaiya went to bed, and found lo & behold....a Snow White Dress!!!! YAY!!! It was modest AND it has a poufy yellow skirt, so that is what we got & that is what Kaiya wore, and she LOVED it!!!

My friend at the party said she felt like she was taking prom pictures outside before they went to the party & it made me laugh, because that is exactly what it is like. I think I have a picture of Jamie & posing by a bush just like these...

Kaiya & her crazy smile...

Having Fun with Mimi and Papaw

Well, Mimi & Papaw (a.k.a Jamie's parents) came to visit us last week, and brought Aunt Jo (Carolyn's sister) with them. We had a wonderful time and Kaiya had so much fun spending time with Mimi & Papaw at their "house".

Can you see her perched in the front window, on the dashboad? The picture was kind of hard to take because of the glare on the windshield.

Mimi & Papaw were coming from a rally, and stayed in their coach which they parked at a beautiful spot on Grapevine Lake. Now, Kaiya being kind of an outdoor girl was in HEAVEN. There was a lake to wade in, ducks to chase, puppies to pet, and kids riding by on their bicycles. Every day she went out to the coach, even if it was just for a little while.

While they were here we also went to drive by the new Cowboy's Stadium, and man is that cool. They have tours available until the end of summer, and I think we are going to go back and take the real tour, even if it is just Kaiya and me on a weekday!


Here's Kaiya and Daddy standing on those things they put up so you can't crash your car into the building.

Kaiya, of course, found the only opportunity to get herself wet on the entire property.

And soon Daddy was getting into the act... helping her "fly like Super Grover"

Then the 3 generations of football lovers posed together:

And of course we needed one with just Mimi & Papaw and the kidlet, here they are in front of a ticket booth.

But for our last shot of the day, I convinced them to humor me in my quest to take more interesting photographs.
Can't you just see the thought bubble over the heads of Carolyn, Ron & JoAnn, going "What did this crazy California girl get me to do?" Kaiya and Jamie however know that if they just humor me a little, the faster I stop bugging them about "try this, try that, stand on top of this, kneel down over here"

They are just standing on top of a large black granite thingy, and I am laying on the sidewalk looking up at them. Just thought it would be different, that's all...

After the end of every day's excitement, we somehow ended up relaxing by the lake. Which was, I think, my favorite part of the visit. Best of all, I got to know JoAnn so much better, so often when we see each other, she is the hostess, and you never really get to know the hostess, because she is working like a house elf in the kitchen. But she is a fun lady with a great sense of humor, and JoAnn, I am so happy we got to know each other better. Thanks.

So here are the far away grandparents and little Kaiya bird, flying around in the evening down at the lake.


So thanks Mimi, Papaw & Aunt Jo for the wonderful visit, you all are welcome any time.

Pre- 4th of July Fun

So, we have a tradition of having a cook out & setting off our own fireworks on the 4th of July with our friends the Churchwells. But this year, I really thought Kaiya would like to see a big fireworks show, so a few weeks ago I saw that Grapevine was having fireworks at the lake all month long on Friday nights, so we went to go see them.

Kaiya has an "Olivia" book where they go see fireworks, so she got excited right away. We talked about how it would be really dark before they started and very loud while they were going off, but apparently we didn't really need to, because she had a ball and wasn't scared at all.

Here's Kaiya and Jamie laughing their heads off before the show started.

I love this picture, because Kaiya is still going through a phase where she refuses to look at the camera, but I guess it was dark enough that she couldn't tell what I was doing when I said "Hey Kaiya look over here!". I also think you can really see how much Kaiya and James look like each other.

After we took that picture, I guess she decided that she didn't mind getting her picture taken, and that perhaps we needed an extreme close up.
How blind do you think she was after we took this picture, with the flash, in the pitch dark?


Overall it was a super fun night, and worth the late late late bedtime.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!!!

Glamor Puss Girls

Okay, so 2 posts in one day, we're going crazy at our house! It was Clinique bonus time at Nordstroms a few weeks ago, so of course, Jen & I had to venture down to the Dallas Galleria to make a few purchases. We had a lovely time as always, and the lady who was helping us offered Haylee & Kaiya some lip gloss, there was some hesitancy at first on the part of the models, but after the first slick went on, they were sold!

What a pair of cuties! I think I should send this picture into Clinique for a new add campain. What do you think?

Gloves!

So Kaiya has a new favorite accessory...


Potholders! Apparently it wasn't enough that I find my shoes all over the house, now I have to go hunting for my potholders too! Actually, it is just these two that she likes, the one with the lovely map of NYC and the Ove Glove (which are fabulous by the way, this is our second one, we love it).

The other morning she put on her dress up shoes, the "gloves" (aka potholders), some necklaces and told me "I'm ready to go to the castle now!" She may not know who the Disney Princesses are yet, but she certainly likes their accessories!