Independence Day

Happy 4th of July (okay, well, happy 5th of July...)!!

This year we decided to stay close to home since Jason had to work the next day (yes, I know - how dumb! But at least he had Friday off). The rest of my family that is here in TX was at the Lake at my dad's place, so we decided to go to a friend of ours from church. She is a dear friend of ours and used to watch Joshie while I was working full-time at Schindewolf. Her little boy, Daniel, is a year older than Josh and the two of them are close friends. Daniel is also infatuated with Jenna at the present moment...we'll see how long that lasts..LOL..You'll be able to see that infatuation in a picture in the slideshow below.

We had a great time with friends and got to make some new friends too. The kids decorated their bikes, wagons and scooters and we all walked down the block saying "Happy 4th of July!". There was so much good food too! There was brisket, sausages, hamburgers, hot dogs, sno cones, you name it! The best thing about living in Texas for the 4th though is the fireworks. They're legal here! I think we set off fireworks for a good 4 hours straight! It was awesome! Jenna didn't really make a big deal out of them, but Joshie didn't like to big noises. He stayed close to my side the whole night. Hope you enjoy some of our pictures of the fun holiday!

Family Time

This year for vacation, we decided to take some time as a family and just see some of the Houston sights that we really haven't seen in the almost three years we've lived here. Plus with the rising cost to fly, California was out of the question this year... :( But I am saving up for us to go out there next summer - hopefully for the 4th of July! :)

Anyways, Jason took a week off of work and we were able to have some time together with the kids that we really haven't been able to have with him working and me tutoring in the evenings. It was nice just to take time and relax. To not worry about where to be, getting laundry done, or keeping up with the kids, but to enjoy every minute of every day. The week seemed so much longer too! It was so nice!

One of the places we visited was the Houston Aquarium. I wrote about it earlier - Jason and Joshua had a daddy-son day and I got to spend some time with Jenna. Another place we visited was the Houston Zoo. We never knew there was a zoo in downtown Houston!! Granted it didn't compare to the San Diego zoo, it was nice to take the kiddos and Joshie seemed to enjoy it. We did learn though not to go to the zoo in the summer - there were hardly any animals out, and I actually got heat stroke from being so dehydrated. I didn't think it was that hot, but when you need water, it doesn't matter how hot it is outside!

The cool this is that they had different animals from most zoos. We saw a HUGE monitor lizard and an albnio crocadile, and a cebu! There's a VeggieTales silly song that talks about a Cebu, but I thought it was a made-up animal....nope! And it really does look like a cow. LOL....

Here's a little slide show of some other sights we saw at the zoo: