Photos from a weekend of traveling...

This weekend we traveled to Northern Louisiana for a service on Sunday morning. It was a super quick trip because Ryan had to be back for a meeting in Beaumont this morning. So we left Saturday morning and got back Sunday night. We were all very ready to get out of the car. It took us 7 1/2 hours to get there...so 15 hours roundtrip in a matter of 2 days is plenty enough to make 2 adults go stir crazy...and for sure enough to make 2 kiddos just plain crazy ;) (just kidding...kind of)!!! Here are a few pics from the weekend (I think some setting was off on my camera b/c most of them came out fuzzy, but they're still sweet!)

The first four pics are at Mickey D's! We go there WAY more often than we want to while we're itinerating. The only reason we go there is if they have a playland, so that Lynzi can burn some energy...which is much needed after being strapped in her seat for hours! So, as you can see in the fourth picture...we're really tight with Ronald these days! :)

The next three pics are at the church playground on Saturday night. We stayed in a hotel right across the street from the church where our service was on Sunday, so we walked across and burnt some more energy playing!

The last one is just a silly shot at one of our numerous stops on our trip! We stopped for a potty break and to feed Asher. Then we spotted this swing and it looked so inviting...so the kids and I wandered over to try it out!




Oh, and another Asher update...he waves when he sees us now and he's started using some of his sign language also. We've been using signs for: eat, more, and all done. He's occasionally started using more and all done...it's cute. I'll try to get pics of all of that soon!

Asher Update...

Well, it's time for an Asher update (since he's already almost 7 1/2 months old!!!) He's such a joy and a sweet boy!

He started crawling about a month ago and he's EVERYWHERE! It's created a challenge when we're traveling (which we're ALWAYS doing) because he wants more than anything to crawl at the hotel...but the hotel floor, YUCK! So, needless to say...when I give in and let him crawl in the hotel room...he has some knees that are a nice shade of...dirt!!! Oh well, I guess that's what a good bath is for ;)! Then when we're home, our floors are all tile and the big area rug that we have is a berber/tweed type rug...kind of rough. Because of this, I don't think he'll be a conventional crawler. He does this scoot/pull thing. However, it doesn't slow him down any! This boy can get from one end of our house to the other in like 5 seconds flat..no exaggeration! Our new rule is to close a door when you come out of it because his favorite place to dart to when he finds an open door is in each of the bathrooms...that little cap under the toilet. He LOVES to get to that and pull it off and play with it. Even when I take them off...he still is very intrigued by that screw thing that sticks up. It's so gross, but it does keep me VERY motivated to make sure that it's spotless clean under there everyday...for when he does find an open door and slip past us!

And he’s been pulling up to standing for a couple of weeks now too (on everything)!!! Our house is so not conducive for that…the tile floor + his falling backwards from standing position, while holding on to our dining room chairs = one big loud thud, followed by a piercing scream (by all of us!!!) It's awful.

He’s also our little human vacuum cleaner…goes around inspecting my floor and picks up any little thing he finds and inspects it with his hands. For a while and he hadn’t been putting anything in his mouth. Maybe b/c I get to him too fast, I don’t know…that is, until this morning! He started hacking and drooling and gagging and I was patting his back like crazy…thinking he swallowed something. Then I stuck my finger around the roof of his mouth and this little plastic, tape-like piece of something was stuck to the roof of his mouth! Thank the Lord he didn’t swallow it!!! Just one more incentive to keep my house clean ;)!!!

He LOVES his big sister so much and cracks up at anything she says or does. She's so sweet with him and they entertain each other well!

Well, that's the Asher update for now. Here are some pics of my sweet boy!

~My Handsome Boy~

~Cutie Pie~

~Happy Boy~

~My 2 Lover Boys~

~Sweet Kiddos~

Big Boy...Pulling up...On everything!

P.S. I tried to post a video of him pulling up on the luggage cart in the hotel room, but it wouldn't let me...so I'll try again later.

Ike took a hike...

The sky...after Ike

Well, Ike has come and gone and chaos has taken his place!

We were very surprised to get our cable/internet/phone back last night. It was unexpected and exciting!

We are completely fine and the only damage to our house was a broken fence, but Ryan already fixed it...so no problems here. We were so fortunate throughout the storm. We had power the night of the storm until 2:00 am. So we were able to watch the news and see the latest on the location of the storm and what was going on in other areas. Once we lost power, we listened on the radio.

It was pretty crazy being in the house during the storm. At some times, I seriously thought the wind would pick the house up off the slab and take us to another town or something (I kept having visions of the Wizard of Oz twister scene!) The kids had no idea...they slept through the whole thing. We "hunkered down" in the hallway though! But they never batted an eye at why they were sleeping in the hall. I've posted a few pictures of what we saw the next morning when we went outside. I felt like we were going to open the door and see a bunch of munchkins, and maybe Dorothy and Toto! :)

We were without power that next day and night. It was SUPER HOT and HUMID and STILL that day. We all showered in the backyard with the hose that evening. It was great that God gave us a full moon for this time of no lights. It really made a bright sky. The first night was awful...I hardly slept at all. We all slept in our room...since we had windows open, I didn't feel completely safe. It was so quiet and all you could hear were sirens across town and tons of bugs. Asher was drenched in sweat, so I felt bad for him. Then about 3 a.m. a breeze blew through and it started raining so hard that we had to close some of the windows! We left our bedroom window open for the breeze and just put a towel on the window sill to soak it up.

We woke up to cool bliss. God sent His "air conditioner" in the form of an amazing cool front. We were so thankful for that. Then a few hours later...Ryan walked out into the garage and the light was on!!! So we officially had power...WOO!!! We were only like 3% out of MILLIONS who had power from Conroe to Orange! Even our neighbors didn't have it. 4 of us in our neighborhood did. I was so thankful, but I felt bad for those still without it. Even now...there are so many (including the rest of our neighborhood) still without electricity.

Now that stores and gas stations are finally opening up...the lines are INSANELY LONG! Like miles!!! People are running out of gas, just waiting to get gas! FEMA has had PODS (points of distribution) where the Texas National Guard is there to help give away 24 packs of bottled waters, 2 bags of ice and a box with 12 MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) to each family. They have spread out in different cities and people wait in their running cars in line for hours and almost run out of gas...then they go get in line for gas! Like I said before...chaos!!!

Anyways, just wanted to update everyone. Thank you so much for your prayers. We are so thankful for God's protection. The night of the storm, I found peace in Psalm 91. Take a look at it...great testament to finding refuge in God, our Fortress and Protector!!!

Here are some pics of what Hurricane Ike did to our area:

Our neigbor's tree. If it had fallen the other way...it would have been on our car!

Our street flooded (not during the hurricane, but during the torrential rain the next night!) It wasn't flooded at our end of the street, but you had to have an SUV to get out at the front of the neighborhood!

This is a video of us getting out of our neighborhood!

More street flooding



This is Ryan, Lynzi and Coy at the feed Store. They are standing behind the feed store, where the hay barn used to be. It was pretty much obliterated. The store itself is still there....some roof damage and water damage inside...lots of work to do!

This is the night sky, a few nights later!

P.S. Lynzi finally got to eat her "hurricane snacks"...YUM!!! :)

Hurricane Ike skies...

Here is a picture of the sky out our front door. This was taken when Ike was about 95 miles from Galveston. The wind is starting to pick up and it's starting to sprinkle. We still have power, so we'll update as we can. The city turned off the water at 2:30, so we'll have water until the water towers run out! We've got buckets, containers, tanks, tubs, sinks, pots, pitchers, etc filled with water...so we should have plenty. Thanks for your prayers.

Hurricane Ike...boarded up!

Well, we've boarded up and we're hunkered in! Where we live is high enough elevation that it won't be in the storm surge and our winds are supposed to be a max of 80 mph. So our part of the city is not evacuating...just "sheltering in place", so we should be fine! We were planning on leaving for the Dallas area (until yesterday afternoon) so we didn't go out and buy plywood and the clips to attach to the brick, so Ryan got really creative with boarding up our windows (as you'll see in the pics below)!!! Pray for this storm and for our safety. We'll updae after the storm (if and when we have electricity!)

boarding up the windows in the backyard!

Yep, that's a table screwed into our wall!!! Then just some random wood on the bottom. Notice the sign above the window..."Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!" That sign has always been above that window and I didn't even notice it until after I took the picture...what a great reminder of Who is in charge :)!!!

These boards used to be a book shelf that Ryan's dad made out of fence panel...it was really cute and I was planning on using it Lynzi's room in our next house. Oh well, I guess Ryan will have to make me a new one!


And then there's the giant rug. We were in my parents garage yesterday and she had this stored away. So we screwed it to the wall in our bedroom to cover the window! Like I said, we got super creative...whatever works :)!!!

This is how we parked our vehicles....trying to protect them as best we can.


P.S. My dad asked me what Lynzi thinks about all this boarding up and I told him she's just excited because she knows that we get to get out our "hurricane snack box"!!! Last night when I put her in bed, she said, "Mommy, what are we going to do when we wake up?" I told her we're just going to wait on the hurricane and she said, "...and eat snacks!!!" ;)

~Moody Gardens~

Last week, we were able to go on a wonderful (and much needed) getaway with our family! Mom and Dad took us to Moody Gardens for a few days. We met Coy, Krystal and the boys there. It was so much fun just to hang around the pool and play in the water...pretty much the whole time! We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and got checked in and Lynzi was immediately ready to get in her swim suit (we left right after her last swim lesson!) So we unloaded, changed into our suits and headed for the pool! If you saw a few posts back...you'll remember that I said Lynzi was really skittish of the water and getting her head wet or even if we let a pinky loose from her...she'd pretty much freak out (even though she LOVES being in the water, as long as you're 100% with her!) Well, she made a BREAKTHROUGH on the first day of vacation! YAY LYNZI! She was going underwater and loving it (the day before she didn't even like you to rinse her head in the bathtub!) So it was a great start to a vacation full of water fun.

The next day we went to the Palm Beach water park that is part of Moody Gardens. They have several pools and sandy beaches and a kiddy play land with 2 water slides and water buckets and squirters and a big water tank that dumps water every few minutes and they also have a sprinkler water spray area. So we hung out there for the afternoon...then back to the pool after lunch. The hotel had a kid's club and they gave each kid a goody bag at check in with cute little pirate themed toys in it. They had a pirate jumpy house and evening activities (smores by the fire pit, games, clowns, balloons, face paint, etc!)

The last day, we started by the pool. Then after checkout...we went over to the pyramids and ended up getting a great deal on day pass tickets. So even though we weren't even planning on going over there...we ended up spending half the day there and I'm glad we did.

Thanks Mom and Dad...FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

Creatures...locked up!

Mirror, Mirror....I'm ready to go swimming!

Building sand castles

Sand Castle fUn

Jaym and PawPaw swimming in the beautiful pool

Lynzi's crazy sunglasses

Argghhh, Matey!

Coy jr. and Laci jr. :)

Grammi and Asher...relaxin'

Laci, Grammi and Asher

Jimbo...aka Panama Jack (he didn't have his Panama Jack hat on here!)

Look who's sitting up now?!?! Yep, Asher!!! He start sitting up while we were there. I sat him up on the bed to see how he would do and he stayed sitting up (for a few seconds anyways)! So, he was right at 5 1/2 months when he began sitting up.
YAY ASHER!!! :)

Crashed out after a fun day of swimming!

Happy Asher

Daddy and Lynzi petting some creature in the water.

Pretty Flowers

Pretty bird that walked right out in front of us in the rainforest pyramid.

Then he hopped up in here.

Our best attempt at a group pic of all the cousins!

Daddy and Lynzi by the waterfall

Daddy and Lynzi by the birds

(the two outside birds were cleaning up the middle bird!)

Time to go home!

Lynzi getting off the bus at the parking garage. This bus ride was one of her favorite parts of vacation. Right before we left, we watched a ride film and after waiting in line...they told her she wasn't big enough to ride in the ride seats, so Ryan had to sit on the side with her and watch. Se was SOOO distraught (even though the ride part was really lame and there was no reason she shouldn't have been able to ride!) But besides being worn out...and not being able to ride....this devastated her! So when we got to "ride" the bus...she was pretty proud! The things that entertain kids :)!

Whew...a fun vacation will wear a girl out ;)!

THE END!!!