Our Growing Family: Texas Trip

The week before Memorial Day, we headed down for a Texas visit. Matt was working from the office in The Woodlands all that week, so we decided to join him. But first we had to have a little more fun here...

Cam and I had our own girl's time (dropping Mario off at camp then having some Starbucks treats) while Matt and Cole both went for hair cuts.

Later that night, the night before we left not-so-bright and early the next morning, I got to go see Kristin Chenoweth in concert. Had a great time!

The plane flights this time around, while still not ideal, were a little bit better. Sitting in the premium seats more toward the front gave us more wiggle room, and having Matt as another lap the babies would sit in all made things not as crazy as they've been. I had to take a picture because only seeing is believing--Cam actually sat on Matt's lap for about 10 minutes and watched a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!!! There's hope! I can't wait for them to be entertained by shows/movies more. I'm still shocked they watched that movie in the planetarium. Still, at home, I'm doing good if they'll sit and watch something for 15 minutes tops. (And only still with those same 2 movies--Farm Video or Baby Noah.) But again, I think there's a light at the end of this tunnel?? Maybe, just maybe, there will be a day sooner than later when they'll be better occupied by good kid shows?!

We were so excited to get to attend our church we love so much from back home. This time they were in the Raccoon room. Even more exciting, there was a little outside play area connected to their room that they got to go out and play with. Once again, I loved hearing the beautiful music at our church and coming away feeling re-energized with fresh, positive vibes for the week.

Mimi had great reading books and coloring books to play with. Cam, of course, read every book 10+ times. Cole took to the coloring.

We already knew we liked to play with the Thomas the Train train tables, but we discovered how fun it is to play with in the kids area at Barnes and Noble. They really took to the whole children's' section, in general. I hadn't been brave enough to take them there on my own yet--so with back up, we had a great first experience--and we can't wait to go back and read/pick out more books and play with the train tables again on our own.

While working in Houston all week, a couple of Matt's days were spent down at Rice. He loved being on that campus again and seeing former professors and favorite buildings. I got to go down one of the nights and hang out too. He got to stay in the very cool Hotel Zaza. Ooh la la. Time for an appletini for ME.

The next day I got to go see Cheryl! Sorry Cheryl, I didn't get any pictures with you my first time seeing you that week. Instead I got some of Lucy. She's a good picture poser. This is what I got to look at for a while Thursday morning--can't beat starting out the day with a sweet puppy dog gazing up at you! While I'm a big fan of Kristin Chenoweth, I promise I'm not a stalker--despite the fact I saw her in concert again with Cheryl down in Houston during the week! The show was even better the second time.

We had a fun time going to the Zoo with Mimi and Brent. Since our elephant exhibit has been under construction here, we were so excited to finally see real, live elephants finally! Even better, we got to see 2 baby elephants too. So adorable.

Besides the elephants and giraffes, the other exciting highlight for us that day was the petting zoo. They had a blast in there! It's too bad our Denver zoo doesn't have a children's and petting zoo area :(
Camryn literally went around to every single goat in there, petted them sweetly then waved in their faces saying "hi". As for me, I'd like to have some of what all the goats are on. I know they are calm, gentle animals to start with, but these were some of the most out-of-it, dazed-out creatures I've ever witnessed! Nothing startled or bothered them. They were the perfect animals for all the kids to come pet and love on.

...More hanging out at Mimi's while I got to go out another evening and have more drinks. This time I had my MOST FAVORITE: The Key Lime Pie Martini from Uni Sushi. Yes, please.

Finally got to try out Mi Cocina while we were there. Sooooo good!

Somehow I ended up without any pictures of all the times spent in the pool at Grandpa and Grandma's??!! We got in lots of fun swim times. The babies loved it and Cam did NOT want to get out of the pool. Looks like I'll have to do swim lessons this summer. This time we'll try to schedule them for Saturday mornings so Matt can be the main parent in charge of it all with us! Other great times were spent hanging out--and watching and listening to animal sounds on the iPad...

We were so excited to finally meet Noah! And here's an actual picture of Cheryl, not just her adorable dog.

At the airport headed back. Thank goodness for raisins while Matt returned the rental car and we had too much time to spend strolling around outside of security until he met back up with us.

And an even more, HUGE thank goodness for the President's Club there. This one in Houston has a great family room too. There was a pretend airplane in there for them to fly, a fun kid's table to have snacks at (awesome snacks in the President's club suited just for us, of course: bananas, m&m's, raisins, cookies, cheese, crackers, A BAR!!), and a DVD player that they actually sat and watched about 5 minutes of Madagascar on. Oh! AND a changing table kind of area--all in the family room there. LOVE IT! The only thing they might want to (and probably will after us) add is some air freshener spray. The babies each had number 2 diapers while in there. I'd so much rather change those kinds of diapers in that wonderful room--NOT in an airplane bathroom. Been there, done that, no thank you.