VACATION!

We went on vacation in June. We had planned to go to Destin, but with the oil spill we decided to go to Galveston, TX. It worked out well because it only took us 5 hours to get there! Much better than 12-13 to FL. There was a lot I missed about FL, but our condos were awesome! Here is the super fun slide. We found if you went down on a tube that you could fly! I loved that the most! It is so great because Olivia recently learned to swim and could swim all over the place.



The beach was really yucky because of all of the seaweed, but our condo had an area with white sand. It was great because the shower was right by it. We made sand castles and other funny sand things.



We also went to Moody Gardens Aquarium. It was really great. Annika loves sharks, so she had a great time. Here we are in a shark cage. This is as close as you will ever catch me to one of these!



Our condo had 4 pools that had waterfalls that led into the next one. They were so pretty. The girls had so much fun swimming all over. There was also an indoor heated pool we used to get out of the sun one day. Annika likes to pretend she can swim, so it is a little stressful to swim with her. It was a lot better when we could keep her floatie on her.



We ate at an awesome restaurant called Rudy and Paco's while we were there. I wish it was here! We also played putt putt and played down on the beach one afternoon. The girls didn't care about the seaweed like I did. I am not a fan! They loved finding shells.

Swim Lessons!

We've done nothing since New Years. Just been waitin' around for these swim lessons! :) Olivia had her first swim lesson last weekend. She LOVED it! Here she is with Ms. Katie.



Since we liked Ms. Katie so much, I decided to sign Annika up too! Here she is waiting for Olivia's lesson to be over and for her's to start.




She loved it too! She smiled the entire time!

I can't think of a title

Many exciting things have happened since my last post, but I have no time to write about them. I will just post some pics from Christmas time.Here we are after the Christmas Eve candlelight service. I am super happy to report we did not catch Annika's hair on fire this year.





Travis and I on New Year's Eve. This is the kind of joy that can only be brought by almost ten years of marriage (and a couple of glasses of champagne.) This year's party at my mom's was the best. The whole holiday season flew by too quickly for my liking! With the move, everything just snuck right up on us!




Olivia lost her first tooth. She was so excited! She had made a box for it at my mom's. She wanted to be sure the tooth fairy looked there! : ) Seriously, you can't imagine her joy and how proud she was. To be honest, it made me sad. The girls are growing up way too fast.

The other night while sitting at the computer I was thinking of all we've done since last summer. We've been through a lot.
Here is a portion of what I thought of-
*Travis moved to Ft. Worth by himself (starting a new job, living in a microapartment)- leaving the girls and I in OH (it was terrible really. Terrible doesn't describe it. I saw a picture of the girls and I during that time the other day and I felt sick)
*Packing up, cleaning up, and getting the girls and I out of our house by myself (I still think back and know God had to be there secretly feeding me energy bars) and to AR
*Moving away from friends that we had worked extremly hard to make in OH
*Getting our new house broken into less than a week after we moved in
*Finding all new dance, gymnastics, stores, and a place to get our car repaired
*Having all the normal stressors of moving in- extra expenses, exhaustion, the whole figuring out how to live together again thing, etc
*Packing up and traveling for three weeks during Christmas- I know we always do it, but it is crazy and tiring and a huge blessing all at the same time
*Getting back to TX after Christmas to us all being really sick- two weeks of sickness is not my idea of a good time
*Trying to get back to homeschooling Olivia so she doesn't miss kindergarten totally :)
*My dad having a major heart attack a couple of weeks ago
*Living with fire ants in our house- I grow more angry at them daily. I do not like having to keep the vacuum plugged up so I can vacuum everytime I take a shower-although, hopefully we are going to see the end of them soon- "They'll be gone in three weeks ma'am. If not, give me a call." And it's been three weeks now. Guess who is getting a call tomorrow?

And the list goes on, but while thinking about all of this- I see God smoothed over all of those things. Seriously- reading those things makes me feel overwhelmed, but I did not feel that way in the middle of them at all (well, maybe in the whole moving us out of our house in OH). Making them each doable and not overly stressful. I am grateful for how he has used the past few years to change us, make our marriage better, and to make us more like him- and open my eyes to still how crazy far we have to go. We are so blessed. Amazingly blessed. We just got to visit the apartment complex of some refugees last weekend (more to come on that!) and it was amazing to see how little they have and how much we have to be thankful for. I am pretty sure living in the desert for years and then traveling to a new continent is a little more difficult than anything I have or will ever face. They'd probably happily shake fire ants off of their towels and vacuum them up- if they had a vacuum. I am so grateful for God's abundant provision and regardless of the situation we are in- I am thankful that I know it won't last forever!

New Dance and It's almost Christmas!

Annika started taking ballet/tap/gymnastics at the Little Gym. She LOVES it! I haven't ever seen her smile so big! She was laughing and having the best time! This teacher is so great, but she is leaving in January, so we won't have her when we start. :(



Olivia is taking gym. at the Little Gym, but ballet at a more serious ballet place. She loves it. It is kind of strict, but she really enjoyed her time there and wants to be a real ballerina. They all certainly looked like real ballerinas!



We did Christmas early b/c of travel and Trav's work schedule. Here they are after setting out milk and cookies!



And here we all are. :)

Little Rock fun Part 2

Travis really should just sit at the kid's table! :) We had Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's really nice barn house. We had a great time as usual. The turkey was incredible and so was the blackberry apple pie my mom made.



Olivia wants to be a ballerina, so she was very happy to get to see and get her picture taken with two ballerinas (I don't know what you call them men ones-sorry). They performed part of the Nutcracker.



The girls were so excited and so thankful to get snow. I know God sent that for Olivia. He's good like that!



A picture of our door. Isn't it lovely? Now it is repaired. It took a week to get the new door in. We are good- except for caulking and painting. We've added other security measures to the doors too. My next step is to buy the pit bull I saw for sell at the mall pet shop.

Fun in Little Rock

This year was Annika's turn to put the star on mom's tree. She was so excited! Olivia got to help straighten it later on!



Olivia loves puzzles and has since she was small. This is a 500 piece puzzle she and my mom did together. Olivia did a good part of it by herself. She loved it!




This is the plush Santa and Mrs. Claus that we got to see in LR. We went b/c we had gotten to walk around on this Belgian horse farm and the owner told us they'd be bringing in Santa. It was a fun night. We got to see fireworks, part of the Nutcracker, hear Christmas music, eat cotton candy, ride a train (on wheels), and ride in the same carriage as Santa. I wish we'd known about them (the horse people, not Santa) when we got married. How fun would it be to ride off in that?



The girls wrote a letter to Santa and got to put it in his mailbox! We didn't wait in line to see them, but we did go stand on the other side and get a picture of the girls with Santa in the background. :)