Our trip to Houston

I could very easily turn this into a book but I will spare you. It was so nice to get out of Mattoon for a week. It's been a while since Baylee has flown commercially at least and didn't know how she'd do having to stay in one spot. Relief...she did great and even slept a little. We got to stay at a Crowne Plaza in Houston with views of sky scrapers and ...Chick-fil-a! Boy do I miss chicken biscuits and Polynesian sauce! We were the last ones flying in and so our whole family plus Grandma Burell and Mackenzie(our cousin) went to dinner that night.

The next day we spent hanging out at Cort's house by his pool and they cooked out for us. Sunday we spent a fabulous day at the beach. Cort took his jetski as well as the fishing supplies. Hagan took his kayak and his fishing supplies. Dad contributed a tube to pull behind the jetski. And they brought a feast. Mom got buckets for the little ones and we all supplied the fun. Everyone had a blast from fishing to eating to swimming to tubing.

We decided to take it indoors some and hit up Nasa/Space Center Houston with Tarrah, Rod and Savannah. And also the Natural Science Museum and the Aquarium. We had the opportunity to go to lunch out in our old neighborhood with Mom's best friend Debbi and were joined by our childhood friend Stacy and her adorable little boy. It was nice for a girls(and kids) only outing while the boys all slept after the overnight fishing excursion the night before. We also had an opportunity to get pics taken of Baylee, Savannah and Brayden together, thus the matching dresses.

Baylee and Brayden had a blast playing together and throroughly enjoyed chasing each other. Savannah is a doll and it was so nice to get to be around her some. All in all, it was a little overwhelming for Baylee and all she wanted was "mommy", cereal bars and fruit snacks, which made it stressful for me and I was ready to cash in on a real vacation when we got home. But I recovered as she returned to Baylee the day after we got back. We had a blast hanging out with the family and wish we could do it more often.

Water, Water and a little more water

Baylee is beginning to love the water and her pool. We have played in it quite a few times since I last wrote. And we have upgraded as well. She now has a cool zebra pool that has an inflatable slide and a sprinkler in the zebra's mouth. She doesn't love the slide completely everyday but I'm sure we will get there. I'm just glad she's doing as good as she is considering how much she dislikes a bath. I think it's helping with that too though.

We've been busy having fun, someone has to do it. One day this we went with our friends Kristen, Reagan and McKinley to the big city pool in the park. It has a playground in the water for the little kids and a big slide for big kids. It also has one of the raining mushrooms and is the zero depth pool so the water is very shallow to start and gets deeper. There's a tire swing in the water and Baylee loved that. She did amazingly well at the big pool and even cried when we left. This made me so happy. I love the water and she hasn't been a huge fan, tides are turning though. We've been able to talk a lot of walks in the evenings with Cody and Odin. Baylee's been walking like a big girl instead of riding in the wagon.

We have also taken time to play at the park a little, go out to play with Libby and Marley, went on a shopping adventure with Kristen and Reagan and had plenty of play time here at the house as well. We have been grilling out with Tyler and Amber some more. Last weekend we went on an exploration of two somewhat local state parks. One we will never return to, hopefully. The other will probably be our new favorite fishing spot. The enclosed on 3 sides dock with picnic table on it, bathroom close by and a wheelchair ramp and stairs to keep Baylee occupied, it was a blast. It was even nice down to the fact that the dock was half shaded and half in the sun all the time.

We have been without air conditioning and will be until Monday, not looking forward to the next two days in the mid- high 80's. I guess I'm just glad we had highs in the low 60s and 70s until today. It was actually cold enough to wear a jacket on Thursday....in JUNE!

Not too much to report. We are looking forward to vacation and the official countdown may now begin, as we have less than a week until departure. We are so excited to be escaping Mattoon for a week. Things are busy with us having fun and still trying to get things done around the house, but no super exciting news to report.