Eli's 2nd Birthday

Elaiden (Eli's buddy and co-guest of honor) got wings and a wand and she flitted around the house like a fairy princess for the day. As you can see she was just too tickled! Eli isn't too sure about this photo is he?
I don't know who this is but isn't she just adorable! I didn't realize until now that I actually capture some of her spit-up on film...




Eli had Dump-Truck Cake. The gluten-free chocolate cake had TWO dump trucks loaded with cake crumbs on top with lots of yummy little candy bites. In the second photo you can see Eli almost not able to wait till the Duck cake candles were lit so we could sing to both him and Elaiden. He did a great job blowing out his candles.


I got to meet Darby's cousin Jaime, her little girl Payton and her baby Miles. The photo with Eli in the middle cracked me up because that would be Payton if she had three little ones! I got to hold Miles while Payton played on the play scape in Elaiden's backyard.

By the end of the party the clear favorite toy was a little firetruck that Eli got. He did such a great job of sharing with Elaiden. I had total camera envy at the birthday celebration as everyone there had fabulous cameras and were just snapping away. 8+ mega pixel cameras are getting more reasonable...hmmm

Inks Lake 04/08

Oh we had fun at Inks Lake and here are some photos that we want to share. Aren't our boys cute! We hiked, we swam, we lounged. What a wonderful weekend! We've got to book more weekends before they fill up!






We stopped at a BBQ place on our way into Burnet to pick up dinner. We stopped there because last year when we camped Inks Lake the BBQ place was OUT of food by the time we pulled out of town on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately the BBQ place had changed hands since then and well, the BBQ wasn't all that...






Our first night was really chilly so we drove to Marble Falls the next day to pick up some blankets and some other items we discovered we needed on night one...like starter logs to get the damp firewood started. I just loved this jumble of rocks topped with the gnarled tree. My picture just cannot do this view justice.




Check out this sleepy boy! The neighboring campsite couldn't get over how good Reese & AJ were because they didn't bark the entire weekend. They wanted to know our secret...exhaustion!




When I was broadcasting the dishwater I noticed this small herd of deer behind our campsite. Aren't they delicate? They weren't too sure of me and sprung away into the thick once I tried to get closer.







John, Darby & Eli were camping at Inks Lake the same weekend with their small prayer group from their church. Eli visited our campsite several times and liked visiting with the boys.







Eli took this photo of me. Isn't he a burgeoning little shutterbug!

Night two rocked out with bratwurst & sauerkraut with potato salad and Shiner Blond. One of the brats jumped into the coals but we rescued, rinsed and replaced on the grill top. It was a close one but all ended well.





Breakfast both days included scrambled eggs, hash, toast, OJ and coffee. Yum :) I don't know why I find the challenge of putting together a meal in the great outdoors such fun!

Connor's First Tri

Well, not actually...! Dan had a triathlon in Galveston and we drove down to Houston to visit Becca, Grant & Connor before the triathlon. Dan drove down to Galveston on Saturday to meet up with his friend Mace. Becca and I packed Connor up and drove to Galveston on Sunday morning to catch a glimpse of Dan running in the Tri. Well, we didn't see him running the Tri but we did see him walking up to the conference center after he walked six miles back from a double flat tire and had to drop out of the race.

It was a very nice weekend and we look forward to visiting Pearland again and again and again :)