HEB Museum

This little Museum is in Tyler, TX. There is a really cute playground outside where we had a picnic and let the kids play for a while. The inside has animals from all over the world and an old fashioned country store. Everything was set up in the store. It was amazing to see all the fruit bins full of plastic fruit. It really gives you a feeling for how things were.

Bradley outside the country store.
Calais and Guard about to go in.
The boys were checking out the food and trying to decide what they would have wanted. This is an old fashion fire engine. The kids loved playing on it.
Well...most of the kids liked playing on it!
Bradley had to try everything even though there are signs that say "Don't Touch!"
This was their best bear pose!
Bradley was trying to warn this poor deer, but it wouldn't listen!
This little monkeys playing monopoly were so cute. Daniel wanted to climb up and play with them.
Bradley thought it was pretty cool that some animals carry their babies in their teeth. I am glad I don't have to carry my babies in my teeth.

Daniel loved this turtle on the playground.
These boys take their swinging very seriously!
Daniel has decided that swings are one of his favorite things!!
This train car was pretty cool. You can walk through it and see what type of things were on the trains when people travelled by rail.

The boys also loved to drive this old tracker.

Visiting the facilities on the train.
"Wow! It is huge!" Bradley has always loved trains. He ran up and down the car many times and cried when we made him leave.

Thanks Aunt Melissa for taking us!

Grandma & Grandpa Shirley Visit: Part 3

Swimming, visiting & food...Not necessarily in that order.

We did have some fun while we stayed with Grandma Shirley. We went swimming a couple of times, visited with some family & friends, and ate some really good food!

Andy's buddy fro high school, Michael Ridder and his wife. They had dinner with us one night and then we all played "Ticket to Ride." It is a really fun game.
Uncle Matt and Aunt Lily moved in while we were there.
Aunt Lily and the Daniel Piggy!
Saying "goodnight" to Grandma.
Grandpa always laughs when you poke his belly!
This is some of the fun food we had. Aunt Melissa's family was trying to learn about a new country every week during the summer. They were doing Italy, so we decided to have Ratatouille for dinner. We served it with sausage and it was pretty good. These are the cute chefs! (Hunter, Atlas & Calias)
Eating and visiting was one of their favorite things to do!

Daniel loved this little sit'n spin thing. He would go around while we all visited.
We got to have our first watermelon of the reason while we were still in Texas.
Dinner at Grandma's is always good and entertaining!
Like father, like son!

The boys loved the pool! They would have swam everyday had we let them.



Swimming is always more fun when you have lots of people to splash! We are so glad we got to see all of our Texas family!

Shirley Visit: Part 2

Shingling...

It took nearly 4 weeks to re-shingle the roof at Grandpa's house. I didn't realize how big the roof really was until I climbed up there. Andy did a lot of the work since he didn't have to go to work everyday. Grandpa would race home everyday after work to help until it was dark. Uncle Buck helped Andy a lot during the day. He would run and get things for him and made sure he didn't fall off. ON the weekends Melissa and her family would come and help. They were life savers. They got a lot done in the short a mount of time they were there.

Here's Grandpa Shirley getting ready to move the tarp down so that they could keep cleaning off the old shingles.
Daniel and Andy cleaning off the back of the roof.
The roof in front of the dormers had some rot and they had to replace some of the boards.
Andy in his roof workin' clothes!
Andy replacing the boards!

This little frog was on the top of the roof when we went up to shingle on evening. It was really cute! The kids loved it.

This is the front side with the new shingles.
We finished the front of the house and the garage before we left. All they had to do was finish the cap shingles and clean up the LARGE mess we left on the front lawn!

The roof looks great and we hope it will last them for a very, very, very long time! :)

Grandma & Grandpa Shirley Visit: Part 1

We Have Arrived...

The boys did really well on the 6 hour drive to Grandma Shirley's house. We were a little bit nervous because that we the first long trip we made without our Dad. Since they were so good we had to have french fries!

We were only at Grandma S. house for one day without our Dad, but we were still really excited to see him when he came. This was the beginning of our month stay. During that time we re-shingled the roof, moved Lily from Ohio, and played with our cousins! I guess I should note that there were NO accidents during the roofing project that required stitching or splinting!! :)

Leaving San Antonio

It has been a long time since I have updated. Partly because I no longer have my computer and partly because I haven't had time yet. We have been visiting family since we moved and enjoying every minute!

Here are some pictures of the movers boxing and moving our things. They are currently waiting for us somewhere in California.

The boxes in our bedroom. They brought in trucks with crates to carry our stuff cross country.
They did a great job loading under Andy's supervision.Loading the last and moving it out!

We were going to stay with Andy to supervise the packing and moving, but we decided it would be more of a hassle than it was worth, so the boys and I drove up to our Grandma Shirley's on Monday, May 19th, and waited for our Dad to come find us.