Memorial Day Weekend at Lake Palestine

Still catching up from the last month...

For Memorial Day weekend, we packed up and headed to Lake Palestine for two days. Jarret's family has a group of friends that includes three other families. Luckily, two of those families own property in the same neighborhood at Lake Palestine and so we all got to hang out as a group. The ladies made it required attire for the girls to wear visors and the guys to wear hats with the weekend's theme: Lake-o-rama. Aren't we a classy looking bunch?

Julia had a wonderful time exploring her new castle. We stayed at the Douds' house, who also have grandchildren, and so Julia had no shortage of new toys to play with. Regardless, Elsie (her pink cow) always stays close at hand:



Wandering the deck, peering out, and clearly excited about something as dad caught her mid-clap:

One of the days we headed to the neighborhood pool, which was Julia's first trip to a "real" pool (outdoor, and not the indoor Emler swim school pool). She had fun hanging out in the kiddie pool and in her hippo float, while daddy had fun giving her a mohawk:

Julia's cousins hung out at the pool, too:

Jarret took some cool night shots from the deck:

And on our final day there, we took Julia out in the 3-seat tube for the first time. She seemed to enjoy being at the lake and in the tube, and didn't seem bothered by the tube one bit. That's a good sign!! (L to R: Katie, Kendall, Caden, Julia, Jarret):

Birthday Blog coming soon everyone. I know I'm not speedy Blogger...

Mother's Day

I haven't blogged in a month, so I'm finally going to catch up.

On Sunday evening of Mother's Day, we got together with the Eubanks clan for a Mother's Day celebration. We got a couple cute mommy-daughter and family shots. We also got some cute cousin pics. It's amazing how much Kendall, Caden and even 2-year-old Jacob love on their Jewels.

Above: Walking with Kendall and Caden

Below: With Caden and Jacob

Cousin Jacob loves holding Julia, feeding her, playing with her, and giving her hugs and kisses. Based on this photo alone, I'm not sure the feeling is mutual from Julia's perspective. In truth though, she loves being around her cousins. They keep her quite entertained!

4 generations! Julia with her Gran and Great Gran

To celebrate my mom, we went out just the two of us during the week for some shopping, lunch at Macaroni Grill, and Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D. Thank you so much dad for watching Julia so mom and I could have a truly wonderful celebration. I was in heaven to get out like that during the day!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

With Julia's new confidence in walking everywhere by herself, we thought it would be fun to see her use her skills while dressed in a tutu. A girl after mommy's own dancin' heart.

Enough with the bow, people!

Then today, I had the privilege of watching sweet Haley while her mommy went to a doctor's appointment. Although Julia was supposed to be settling in for a nap, I think she somehow knew her friend was downstairs and proceeded to cry until Haley and I finally got her. The two girls had lots of fun playing together. Just a few pics of how sweet they were together.

We love you Haley! Come back soon!

Community Group Family Cookout

On Saturday, we had a cookout at the Wood's house with our church community group , which includes the Garcias, the Selfs, and the Woods. And while us adults see each other regularly, and we see each other's kiddos often, the kiddos have NEVER all been together at one time...until this time. It was such a blast to have all four families together.

Travis and Aaron working hard at the grill...

...meanwhile, Jarret & Dustin kick around the soccer ball. :-)

Jewels

Jacob

Paige (in the highchair), Noah, Haley, and Jacob (from left to right at the table)

Julia walking around EVERYWHERE these days.

Haley having way too much fun driving without a license.

Andrea & Paige

Us!

Aaron, baby Caleb, and Jill

Andrea & Travis

Karla & Dustin

Paige, Haley, Caleb, Jacob, Noah, and Julia

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary!

Jarret and I celebrated 5 wonderful years of marrige last Friday. We took a mini-vacation to Possum Kingdom lake, with boat in tow. Each set of grandparents spent a day-and-a-half getting to love on little Julia so that we could have some time to ourselves just the two of us! Thank you SO much Grammy & Papa and Gran & Poppy...this was much needed and we had an amazing time.

Gorgeous panoramic view from our balcony

Enjoyed a leisure boat ride and visited Hell's Gate

We stayed out late to enjoy the sunset
and then sit under a blanket of stars






The next day we slept in (wonderful!), then spent the afternoon on the water. In about 5 hours time, we shared the water with one other boat for approximately 10 minutes. It was as if we had a private lake to ourselves! God kept painting the clouds with this gorgeous rainbow effect above our resort.



That night, we went to a nice anniversary dinner at the on-site restaurant, then later sat at the bar to watch the Mavs beat up on the Spurs.

When we returned home from the trip, we had the boat at the house for a couple of days before taking it back to the storage. Daddy thought Julia might enjoying hanging out on the back of the boat and also wanted pictures of their matching "Got Wake?" shirts. Julia had a blast hanging out on the platform and playing with Daddy's wakeboarding rope and handle.