Ryann's Birthday Party

Ella and I went to Austin for Ryann's 3rd birthday. It was at Kiddie Acres, an amusement park for little kids and it was awesome! Ella had so much fun and was able to ride the rides without an adult (definitely kid friendly) and would have spent all her tickets on the pony rides if I let her :)

Saturday at the Zoo

Well, it's beginning to feel a lot like summer here and we are in heaven! The temperatures have been in the mid 80's, low 90 and Ella and I are enjoying it as much as possible before the real heat of a Texas summer comes crashing in. Yesterday, we headed to the San Antonio Zoo and among crowds of school kids, we wandered the park aimlessly. It soon became a game of "spot the animal" as the heat and humidity of the day left the animals lethargic and hidden in some sort of shady area of their exhibit. Her favorite part of the zoo was the butterfly garden, an enclosed oasis with hundreds of butterflies openly flitting away. As we were wondering, we came across an animal with some kangaroos and Ella asked me what it was. Of course, I will premise this with the fact that there was a rowdy crowd of school kids in front of us and the animal was quite far away :) I said, "maybe an ostrich?" To which Ella responded, "No silly. It's an EMU!" Sure enough, when the school kids cleared and the sign was revealed, it was in fact an Emu. Nothing like being schooled by a 4-year-old...This was the entrance to a tot play area, these were "random" blocks that lined the entrance.

First Swim of Summer

We headed up to Sara's place to go swimming with her and Ryann. Looks like Ella will need a lot more practice as she seems to have lost a lot of her skills from last year. Good news, she still is completely unafraid of water and loves jumping, diving and swimming under it... now we just have to get her arms going so she'll stay on top of it :)

Sunday Drive Part Two

On the way home Sunday, we stopped at the nature reserve near the house....

Early Mother's Day

Ron has drill next weekend so we celebrated Mother's Day early. We decided to go for a Sunday drive and found a beautiful neighborhood that will soon begin building. It looks amazing, huge lots, hills overlooking sprawling valleys, I'm sure they will be custom built homes. The builder advertises : "Build your castle at Kings Gate". We took a ton of photos and Ella is becoming quite the little model :)

Sea World

Today we headed to Sea World to go to the water park... after a long prep of hair tying, sunscreening and swimsuiting, we got to Sea World only to find the water park area was closed due to the weather forecast. Yes, it was cloudy and it was definately sprinkling... but the forecast called for sunny and 92 degree weather by noon.

At least we have season passes and have plenty of time to enjoy them. In the meantime, Ella and her new friends found much to do at a water activity area, the orca show, a survivor challenge-looking cargo net playground and lots of other park attractions. We saw dolphins and belugas, and the new baby orca at the Shamu show - so cute! Ella and Kenzie even enjoyed the Shamu rollercoaster and we've learned that they are both tall enough to go on some of the rides with us. Here's some pictures from today... which was H-O-T and sunny by lunchtime :)

Austin Weekend

We went to Austin for the weekend and I have to say, it was about time! Yesterday we celebrated Ariah's 1st birthday, with an awesome BBQ spread at Josh and Jen's house. Then it was off to Georgetown, just north of Austin for the Poppy Festival and some live music. For you country fans, we saw Little Texas play, they were popular in the 90's and you may know their biggest hit, "God Bless Texas". It was so much fun! We brought our chairs and hung out with Cameron and Sara while Ryann and Ella danced the night away with their glow rings.
Georgetown is the quaintest little town, lots of cute stores, gorgeous old homes on tree lined boulevards, the exact look and feel of a small country town in every movie you've ever seen about quiet small town America. Cowboy hats, girls in sundresses, kids running around the festival grounds, families eating popcorn and cotton candy... I love Georgetown :)

Today, we met up with Cameron and Sara again, and they showed us around Austin. It is a fabulous city with a totally different vibe than San Antonio. It is very trendy, college town, lots to do, lots of culture and it reminded me of Victoria in so many ways. We believe the hype and yes, if you're going to live in Texas, Austin is the place to be... what a great city!! We had lunch at the Hula Hut, on the lake, complete with a boat dock...we drove, but many chose to come for lunch by boat - fabulous!

4 Years

Ella finally had her 4 -year well child check-up. We went last month but she was sick with the flu so they postponed it. She had an eye exam which she not only passed with 20/25 vision, but recognized almost all the letters on the chart, in random order and at random sizes. She's still in the 95th percentile for height, at almost 43 inches, and around the 75th for weight at 38.8 pounds.

This is Ella telling me her legs hurt and she wants to take a rest. She's somewhat limping around the house because she had 4 shots in the thighs, which the nurse said would hurt and the last one would sting... why she stated this out loud, I don't know. Ella said she didn't want the 'pokes' as she calls shots, but when she heard they would 'hurt' and 'sting', I had to hold her arms as she cried. Obviously the sign of a bad nurse if you can make the kid who usually cries because she DOESN'T get a shot, cry BEFORE you give it to her! It only lasted a few seconds, but her legs are stiff and sore so she's resting quietly in her room. Good news, no more shots until she's 11!

Canyon Lake Dam

We took a lazy Sunday drive north of San Antonio in hill country to Canyon Lake.

After the Rains

These are a couple of pics of the flooding that I took off my friend Laura's page who lives down the street:
It has been raining quite a bit, almost non-stop for the past 3-4 days. This morning, Ron woke up with Ella with the intention of letting me sleep in :) Sometime around 8:30 the skies opened up and the rain came in buckets, so much so that it woke me and I jumped out of bed... for those that know me, you KNOW I'm a slow and grumpy morning person. Our back yard looked like a swamp and no one has gutters so water was spilling and surging everywhere.
It finally stopped raining around noon so we decided to venture to the base pool for a swim at the rec center. The road out of our neighborhood was blocked due to flooding, and an atempt to exit via the back of the neighborhood proved unsuccessful as the usually dry riverbed was now a surging rapid, 15+ feet deep and had washed debris over the road. (It might look like a regular river, but this is a ranch and the "creek" is a dried up river bed - amazing to see it rushing with water!)

Instead of risking getting stuck, we came home and decided to take Ella out for a walk instead...This is the entrance into our neighborhood: