There's a new store in town. And it's a good one! An entire store dedicated to LEGOS!!! Carter is Lego-obsessed lately, so of course we had to go and check it out. Right away both kids plunked themselves down at the bench where you could sit and play...
Finally Courtney pried herself away to check out the rest of the store. Here she is with the Wall of Legos...
And a huge Lego Woody!!
A great big, fun Lego...
"Mommy there are SO MANY people in there!"
Here's my happy boy. He loved this store. A lot.
Later, Carter sat with his great big new truck set and followed the directions step by step, putting together the back half of the truck all by himself. So proud of my big boy!
This past weekend the kids and I drove up to Dallas to spend the weekend with Daddy, who's up there on business. We packed in a few fun things, but for now I'm just going to show you one of them - because it was THE COOLEST THING EVER!!! We took the kids to the Dallas Zoo, where they got to feed a giraffe!! Some photos...
Here little giraffe, do you want some yummy lettuce?
Well hello there beautiful. Hungry?
Carter feeding the giraffe.
And Courtney.
He was so happy to be fed he even let Daddy pet him.
Thank you for a thrill today, gorgeous giraffe!
This was part of the newly-opened Giants of the Savanna exhibit. It's absolutely beautiful, you really must go see it!
Oh but maybe not in July - it was Africa HOT there in the African savanna! Ugh. But so worth sweating our way through to get to feed a giraffe!!
Courtney has started ballet classes! She's taking a Kindertots class down at the Lakeway community center. There are two other little girls in her class, and Miss Angela is her teacher.
Its officially the cutest thing in the history of Courtney. :-)
While Courtney is dancing, Carter and I wait out in the lobby area. Carter brings toys or crafts to do. And he acts generally silly.
Hi there! Yes, I've been terrible about updating this blog! We've done a lot over the past few months, so I'm going to work on getting it all updated here soon. At any rate - I hope you all had a great 4th of July! We had a nice day - a neighborhood kiddie parade in the morning, family over for a cookout in the afternoon and then fireworks in the evening. Here are some photos:
Our Yankee Doodle Cuties getting ready for the parade! Our friends Rachel & Derek (and parents Cindy & Brian) walked the parade with us.
Walking the parade route...
Our cake for the cookout. Carter did ALL of the cutting on the strawberries himself!
Uncle Brad, Aunt Laura & Morgan went with us to the fireworks in Cedar Park. It was really nice! The weather even cooperated, it was decent out and not boiling. Some more photos...
Joel is in Korea on business right now - and has apparently caught World Cup fever - but, is rooting for South Korea!! What?!? Actually this sounds like lots of fun - KS is one of his colleagues over in Korea. Here's Joel's email...
I met up with KS and his friend HH. It had been raining off and on all day. KS said they went back and forth 5 or 6 times whether to watch the game outside at City Hall or go to a pub. They finally decided we should just go to city hall and get rain slickers. We got there about 6pm for an 8:30pm game. The subway station was full of screaming people selling all kinds of Red Devil souvenirs (horns, thundersticks, etc.) and police were lined up to watch the hooligans.
Not sure exactly how many people were there but the next day they said about 70,000. We pushed our way in and found some space on the soggy grass. Before the game, it was like a concert and several popular bands played.
HH went to get some food and supplies. He came back with rain slickers and mat to put on the ground. I followed their lead as they took their shoes off and put them under the mat. After not too long I found myself standing in a puddle of water, and after another few minutes of getting jostled around I found myself standing in beer.. Later that evening KS would say to me “Oh, where are my socks?”. They are laying somewhere out near City Hall.
HH and KS. And HH and me.
I like this shot because you can see the glowing devil horns.
The atmosphere was really unbelievable, everyone was so excited. And the game started off great with Korea scoring just a few minutes in. I was high fiving KS when the guy in front of us, who we had made friends with, blindsided me with a bear hug that almost knocked me down. It was great game that Korea finished off with another goal in the 2nd half which led to a whole lot of screaming and singing. I found this youtube video showing the reaction to the first goal:
We walked down to a pub after the game and the streets were full of people singing, dancing, climbing up on sign posts, etc. I can’t image what it would be like if they won the world cup. Next game is Thursday night against Argentina, I can’t wait.
And finally, the last full day of our California vacation. We decided to spend our morning on a bit of an Ice Age adventure by visiting the Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits!
We began the visit by walking around the grounds and looking at all of the stinky tar! There are several spots where it has bubbled and oozed out of the ground. This next photo shows a pretty neat site - they've constructed a little viewing building over a large pit. There are still some bones down in the pit, so you can see how it looks to the paleontologists - and see how dirty they get when they are excavating the fossils!
There were also some statues of Ice Age animals that the kids loved.
In the museum, the kids immediately found books in the gift shop that interested them and plopped down to look.
Finally we convinced them to come inside the museum - and Carter was glad he did. There were so many animal fossils - mammoths, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, giant sloths - very cool!
When we finished at the museum it was time for lunch, so we tried California's popular In-n-Out Burger. We got to drive around Hollywood a little, and saw the famous sign. Then we headed back once more to the California Science Center. We explored their very cool new "ecosystems" exhibit, and spent time in the Discovery Zone there - an area specifically for preschoolers. It was decorated SO CUTE!
After this big day of museum adventures, Courtney needed to rest!
The next morning we spent a little more time at the beach, then boarded our plane back to Austin. Such a fun vacation!
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