Off to Alaska!

We are leaving for Alaska this Friday! I probably won't be posting anything until we are back (after July 4th); however, there's a chance I could take a picture with my cell phone and send it to the blog.

James is already there and he says it's in the 60's most of the time it's almost always light outside! I don't know how many days in a row of 100+ temps we've had here, but I am definitely looking forward to some cooler weather.

The next post will probably be a picture of a moose! Bye!

Aaron's Last Day of Kindergarten

Now that we are almost a month into summer vacation I thought I'd post a couple of pictures from Aaron's last day of school! It was June 5th. School starts in the fall on August 25th and that is only two months away! It's so true how time flies. I always heard my parents say that and I thought they were making it up! But, truly the older the kids get the faster it goes.

Mia's First Dance Recital

Mia had her first dance recital last night. It was extremely cute! She was in the youngest class and they always get the "Awwwww!" from the audience. I'll try to post some better pictures later but here are a couple from after the show. The danced to "Polly Wolly Doodle"!

Spring Sing

Mia's last day of school was Friday and they had their end of the year "Spring Sing". It is super cute - James took some video. We had to break it up into four different videos to get it to upload onto Blogger. The first video is only the 18 months and 2 year old classes singing (Mia's class - the 2 year olds - is really mostly 3 year olds now because they turned three during the school year. Believe it or not, the kids standing next to Mia are all her age!):
It's funny to watch how Mia applauds for herself and jumps up and down at the end of each song!
Note the little boy next to her...he liked to make his arm movements "accidentally" run right into Mia's face (too funny!)
And finally! I think the last one might just be the best, if only because of Mia's grand bow to the audience at the end (she was the only one to take a bow)! Also, note how she walks down the aisle after coming down from the stage:

Crowe's Nest Farm (Field Trip!)

Aaron had his first real field trip today! (Mommy went along as a chaperone.) It turned out to be a very fun day. In addition to seeing longhorns, ostriches, pigs, goats, sheep, and all sorts of other animals, we went on a hayride and watched a cow hooked up to a milking machine. The farm is owned by a former teacher/principal and it is geared towards teaching kids about agriculture and wildlife. So, they have lots of wild animals that were rescued but can no longer live in the wild. We saw snakes, a bobcat, hawks and turtles (among other things).

It was very interesting being a chaperone for the trip. This was my first experience doing that. Luckily, I only had to keep track of four kids! There were 9 kindergarten classes on the trip (from our school alone!) and at least 5 or 6 parents for each class. (And by the way, I included the school bus picture on there because that might have been the highlight of the trip for Aaron. We ride our bike to school and he was pretty excited about that bus!)

This week is also teacher appreciation week at Aaron's school and after this field trip I REALLY appreciate all the hard work teachers do. (Not that I didn't already!)

Spring Break at Me-ma and Granddad's House

These are from way back in March! Aaron was sick but we still tried to have fun anyway....

Visit from Kansas!

Once again, it's been awhile since I've posted! Sorry 'bout that! But I'll try to post a few pictures to get you all caught up!

We were lucky to have my great uncle and aunt Doyle and Charlotte come and have dinner with us recently. They were taking a road trip all the way from Agra, Kansas and stopped by after visiting the LBJ library in Austin.

Explore UT!

Today was "Explore UT" day at the University of Texas and we brought the kids to check it out. The kids had a really good time - we made personalized buttons at the French department table, did a cookie walk, ate at the student union, saw the UT tower, listened to the Longhorn Singers and saw a gorilla skeleton (just to name a few of the things we did)! We also went to the Texas Capitol and walked up lots of flights of stairs to look down from near the top of the dome. We definitely got our exercise today. Hopefully, we can do this every year. (Considering that UT is where James and I met, I have my degree from UT, James has three degrees from UT and both of James' parents teach at UT we do have a connection to the place!)

Spring in Texas

We have had some lovely weather lately here in Austin. 60's and 70's during the day (some chillier than that but mostly not). We try to enjoy it as much as we can before the long days of 100 degree weather during the summer get here. It can be brutal in the summertime! A couple of weekends ago we went to a local park and rented a kayak and played at the park. The kayak was okay, but we did get a little water in the boat so we had to cut it short. Luckily, there was this playscape nearby that helped my pants dry off before we got back in the car!

Anybody see a resemblance?

We got a new scanner (finally) and I am playing around with it. I found an old picture of me (not sure how old I am in the picture) and thought it kind of looked like Mia. Of course, I know we don't look exactly alike or anything but I'd thought I would see if anybody agrees. (I'm on the left, Mia's on the right.)