Day 2

****scroll down for the first post of our trip******


On the next day, everyone was still pretty tired, so Vickie and I took the kids to the park. It was a gorgeous park with plenty of space to run around!



Brinley and Wyatt- scooters are the way for the kids to get around


Some beautiful flowers in the park

Loved the roots of this tree!

After lunch and naps, we headed down by Lake Geneva to eat pizza for dinner and see the sights. It was too cloudy to see the mountains, but the views were still pretty amazing!

Clayton and Liam chilling in their strollers

Down by Lake Geneva- I loved these knobby trees!

Lake Geneva with French Alps in background

Brinley and Jason by the lake

Switzerland

Now that things have settled down and we are FINALLY back on Texas time, I can write about and upload pictures from our Europe trip! Since we took over 600 pictures, I will do this in several posts over the next few days....hopefully :-)

We left Thursday afternoon. Our first flight was 10 hours into Amsterdam. The kids did really well (much to my surprise!) Clayton slept the first 2 hours since he missed his nap and Brinley was occupied by looking out the window of the plane. After a delicious dinner (plane food has really come a long way!), the kids were entertained by the portable DVD player and new toys I had packed their backpacks with. Around 10pm our time and four hours into the flight, we finally got them to go to sleep for about 5 hours. Of course Clayton slept on me the entire time which made it very hard for me to comfortable and I did not get any sleep :-(

We woke the kids up in time to get off the plane. We had about an hour before our flight to Geneva, Switzerland left, so we grabbed some breakfast and boarded for the the 1.5 hour flight. It was pretty uneventful. Jason and Clayton slept while Brinley and I played her new Leapster video game. We arrived at the airport at Noon and took the 1 hour train ride to Lausanne where Bill and Vickie live. By this time I had not slept in over 24 hours, I was EXHAUSTED!!

View from Bill and Vickie's balcony....normally you can see the mountains but it was too cloudy the whole time we were there :-(

After a quick nap, we took the kids to the park to burn off some energy.

We all went to bed early that night and caught up on some much needed sleep!

Easter 2010

We had a wonderful Easter this year. On Saturday, we spent the entire day at home playing outside, dying eggs and watching movies and eating chicken spaghetti!

Easter morning, we all slept in until 9am!! This is normally a great thing, but we had to leave to be at my brothers house for lunch at 11am!!!! So we got up, the kids went through their baskets, we hunted the eggs the Easter bunny hid and then ate breakfast, cleaned up and dressed. We were only 10 minutes late getting out the door, so pretty good.

Clayton really loved egg hunting. He was real excited for the first 3 or 4 eggs he got, then he was done! He spent the rest of the time running around throwing the eggs. Brinley was more than happy to pick up whatever eggs he left behind :-)

look how excited his face is...precious

look how many eggs I have

all dressed up in their Easter clothes (not Clayton, it was too warm for his long sleeve and sweater vest)

We headed to my brothers house to lunch. Ham, sweet potatoes, baked beans, deviled eggs and tea were on the menu. I may or may not have eaten my weight in deviled eggs, but those little suckers are soooo good and we only get them at Easter! After lunch, the kids had another egg hunt.

Brinley, Clayton and Reese
I am getting really good at this!!!

After all the fun at my brothers, we packed up and headed to Jason's aunt's house for Easter dinner. We did not make the mistake of leaving the candy in the car this year (last year we left it in the car and the Houston heat made it into mush). It was hard tearing Brinley and Clayton away from the trampoline to eat, but I finally got them to nibble here and there. Candy and sweets definitely ruled the day! We spent the entire, breezy evening outside while the kids jumped, swung and sweated! Then they had another egg hunt. Yes that is 3 egg hunts in one day! We came home with 2 gallon size zip lock bags of candy! One of those bags got sent to work with Jason for his coworkers to enjoy.

Brinley, Clayton and Hannah

He had the biggest smile the entire time on the trampoline

Brinley and Hannah's favorite game

Our Easter was filled with great food, family and lots of fun. We are recovering today and getting ready to take our trip to Switzerland on Wednesday to visit Jason's brother and his family. I will have lots to post in two weeks!

Houston Rodeo

We have spent quite a bit of our last two weeks at the rodeo. I had a girls night out to see Tim McGraw.

Then we took the kids one Friday to see the animals and ride the carnival rides. We spent 6 hours roaming the grounds and were very surprised the kids lasted that long! Brinley absolutely fell in love with riding the rides and we were shocked how much of a dare devil she was! She loved the roller coasters and rides that spun you around really fast. She was an inch short of the "adult rides" and was devastated when she couldn't ride them. Next year kiddo!

bumper cars with Daddy

I can't believe she loved this one, it went sooooo fast!

Roller coasters were definitely a favorite...she rode it 2 or 3 times!

"we're flying mommy!"

Clayton enjoyed his rodeo experience. He spent most of it people watching from his stroller and eating! He did love the pony rides. As soon as Jason put him on, he grabbed the reigns and started shaking them. He threw a fit when the ride was over and he had to get off! He also really enjoyed all the loud music at the carnival and was dancing so much!

Brinley holding the elephant her daddy won her and her new cowgirl hat she picked out!

We also went this past Thursday to see the Black Eyed Peas with friends. It was by far the best concert I have seen at the rodeo in the 15+ years I have been going!

Another rodeo season in the books, can't wait for next year!

awwwww.....spring

After what has been an unusually cold and wet winter, spring has been teasing us this past week with warmer temperatures and sunshine! I am so ready for green to enter our lives again because I am tired of looking at all the dead grass, trees and bushes!

This past Saturday was my mom's birthday and we took her out to eat at PF Changs...YUM! We drank some delicious Asian Pear mojitos and feasted on wayyyy to much fried rice, lettuce wraps, and fortune cookies!

After eating, we headed back to my brother's house so the girls could get some play time in. Dressing up is always a favorite for Brinley and she even talked Reese into doing it (since, according to her, she is now in 1st grade and it is no longer cool to be into princess stuff!)
Sunday, after Jason mowed the yard and trimmed our tree, we spent the afternoon outside enjoying the weather!
Please ignore the rain boots, which have become Brinley's favorite shoes and wears them every chance she can get!

Monday night I went to the Houston Livestock Show and rodeo with some friends to see Tim McGraw. I had to take a picture of the most delicious treat ever!!! Cheesecake, dipped in chocolate on a stick.....PERFECTION!!!!
We hope to take the kids to the rodeo sometime in the next week, but will have to coordinate weather, sick little boy and Jason's work schedule first!!

A gorgeous day at the zoo

We woke up Saturday morning to a gorgeous sunny day! It has been so gloomy around here lately, we were elated to see sun! Also, Jason has been working a lot this past month, so we decided to get out for some vitamin D and head to the zoo. This was Clayton's first time to the zoo and he really enjoyed it. We took the wagon but he quickly realized that he liked to see the animals from our level, so Jason ended up carrying him for most of the day! We took our lunch and had a great picnic while watching the life light helicopters take off and land from the roof of Memorial Herman Hospital. This happened about every 5 minutes! Poor zoo animals have to listen to that 24/7!

Brinley and Clayton on the seal at the entrance of the zoo
My little Eagle babies in their nest
Jason, Brinley and Clayton with Mr. Elephant
Brinley's favorite animal from the visit
This water fountain has been there 25 years! I have my picture with it when I was 5 years old!

Clayton's favorite place was the reptile building....such a boy!!

Hanging out watching the fish
Clayton loved his first time on the carousel
We got a laugh out of watching the lions play with each other!
Me and the kids by the elephants

After seeing all of the zoo, we rode the newly renovated train that takes you all around Herman Park. It was really neat to see the entire medical center and museums in one fail swoop. Brinley of course really wanted to play at the park but Clayton was ready for his nap and we had enough sun for the day. The kids passed out on the way home and took long naps that day!

It was a great family day!