Chillin at the Beach!

We spent all last week in Galveston, and had a wonderful time! It was kind of a last minute planned trip since we had cancelled our trip to Destin because of the oil, but it all worked out great! We stayed in a beautiful condo on the far east end of the island called Palisade Palms. It sat right on the beach, and the kids loved the pools. We loved that it seemed like such a short drive (it only took 4 1/2 hours) verses a two day trip to FL. And plus it was oil free..yay! Here are way too many pics..sorry...I did narrow it down from over 200 pics though! I explain more details of the trip in the captions.

Ava loved finding sea shells!

Look how wild the waves were on this day! The Ziesemers joined us this day at our beach.
The beach in front of our condo was never crowded..it was so nice.

We went with the Ziesemers and each rented this funny bike to ride along the sea wall. It was an adventure!

Ava and Eriik about to hit the waves...she loved "surfing"!

We went with the Ziesemers to Schlitterbahn for a day and the kids (and dads) loved it! Since I'm prego, I didn't go on any of the really fun slides...just kind of hung out at the kiddy places. Even Ava went down some of the big slides with her daddy...and loved every minute of it.

Back at our condo pool.

That is our condo in the background.

Here we are with the Ziesemers at the Rainforest Cafe. We loved having them with us for a few of the days!

A view from the third floor central patio of our condo. This was actually the only day it was a little rainy, and it was the morning we left. Perfect timing!

On our way back home we stopped at NASA...it was a quick visit, and very crowded that day, but the kids still had a great time!

Fun on the Fourth!

I've gotta catch up my blog a little. We had a really fun fourth of July! The night before we did our annual trip out to our spot off of Hwy 80 to watch the Longview fireworks. The Ziesimers joined us just like last year. It sprinkled a little, but we still had a great time. The fourth started off with church of course and it just so happened that it was my month to teach Kinderville, so I missed the service, but Eriik said that it was really good. We had the Ziesimers over for dinner for some burgers and hotdogs. It's always so fun hanging out with them. Then we headed over to The Myers house for dessert and fireworks since we can't blow stuff up here in town. Good times with good friends!

Alec loved these crazy glasses that made all lights look like fireworks...the flash about blinded him when I took this picture!

Ava sure is going to miss the Deboer's...we all are! They moved to FL shortly after the fourth.

Helping Ava with a Roman candel.

Nanny,Poppy and Swim Lessons!

We got to have Eriik's parents in for a week (Poppy got to stay for 2 weeks because of a work schedule change) this month and it was great having them! They were with us the entire time the kids had their swim lessons, so it was nice to get to take just one kid to their lesson. Nanny came with us some of the days too. The kids loved having their Nanny and Poppy to play with! I described more in the captions below.

Poppy helped us redo our master bathroom...he helped strip the walpaper and stain the molding that framed in our mirrors.

This might not seem like much to you, but it took awhile for her to feel comfortable standing in the shallow end without holding on to the edge because she is such a short little thing and the water came almost to her mouth when she was on her tippy toes!

Ava and Audrey "swimming to Dallas" as Mrs. Phylis said.

Alec loved his swim lessons, and did great!

Alec swimming

This pic was taken on one of the earlier days before she was comfortable standing without at least touching something.

All smiles!

Poppy taught Alec how to play chess....they did alot of this during their visit! Alec loves to wear his spider man costume around the house :)

Rock Climbing and a Rodeo!

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged and my mom wanted to see more pics!! So, here is what we have been up to so far this summer. We had VBS for a week and I got to be the emcee of the "Floating Finale" each day (like last year) which was fun. Alec and Ava loved VBS...the theme was "High Seas Expedition"..lots of fun.



Alec and Ava also got to experience their first rodeo! We went with the Coleman's and tried to get in touch with our inner cowboy. The kids got free Frisbees and so Alec decided to start collecting bugs that he found around him and putting them in his Frisbee...well, of course Carson and Ava joined in too. That was much more interesting to them than the actual rodeo that was going on. Oh well...they had fun anyway, and they did say that they liked the bulls at the end.



Eriik had been wanting to take Alec rock climbing since the day he was born. He really got into rock climbing when he was in college and so this was something that he wanted to pass on to his son. I was a little unsure about the whole thing, but Eriik assured me that it would be safe and that he would bring our baby boy back in one piece. So, he and a couple other men with their sons took off for Lake Mineral Well State Park to do some climbing. Eriik said that Alec did pretty good for his first time climbing, and had fun camping too.

Ye Haw!

Checking out his bug collection.

Looking for more bugs to collect.

Best Buds!

Eriik and Christian

He's so cute :)

Matheus, Alec, and Nathan waiting for the big boys to give them a turn to climb.