Parent Visit

So this past week my parents have been visiting from Iowa, it has been really great to have them here! My mom had a nursing class in San Antonio so we spend alot of our time there. Callen and I got to hang out with my dad while my mom was in her class and then we did fun things at night all together. The first day in SA I FINALLY got my cell phone fixed too so that has been super nice! Neither of my parents had been to the Alamo so I took them there one of the nights. It was fun to walk around and see everything and let Callen explore.

My parents with Callen in front of the Alamo.

Callen just Loved having her Grandma and Grandpa's attention!

After the Alamo my dad was getting pretty tired since I had dragged him all over the Mall throughout the day, so he found a bench and my mom and I walked down the River Walk. She was facinated by all the architecture and the boats. We wanted to take a boat tour but it was getting late and Callen was getting pretty fussy.

On Friday Night Dan caught a ride up to San Antonio and he met up with us and we all went out to Red Robin (my favorite place!). My parents had never been there either, they really miss out on some good stuff living in the middle of nowhere!

Saturday after my mom was though with her classes we decided to tour some more of downtown. We went to the Guinness world records museum. It was actually really fun! There are alot of interesting records that have been made... and some gross ones too, did you know there is some guy who has been collecting his belly button lint for like 20 years! Yuck!

This largest man may not be that tall but he weighed over 1400 lbs!

The Tallest Man was 8ft 11.1 inches!

The Shortest Woman was from the Netherlands and was only 2ft. tall! Yay, i'm not the shortest woman!

I don't know if you can read this, but it is really really gross!

Callen Loved Crawling and walking around checking everything out!

Again, the largest man.

After the World Records museum we went through a haunted house...probably not a good idea with an 11 month old, but the tickets were included with the records museum. Callen did suprisingly good through the haunted house, she only cried once but she looked pretty bewildered the whole time. After the haunted house we went on this 3D ride where we had to try and shoot little lights to score points. Dan and I tied except I was shooting left handed so I think I won!

I know my head got cut off in the pic :) Poor Callen, she looks SO tired in this picture. She passed out in the car as soon as we put her in her car seat to head home. She is such a good sport about going places!

My parents enjoyed going on our traditional nightly walk with Callen before bath and bedtime!

It was so nice to have my parents here and Callen is so spoiled by her Grandparents! One of the best parts of the visit was Dan and I actually got a date night! We left Callen home with Grandma and Grandpa and since she had gotten to know them things went great! She didn't cry at all! That is Unbelieveable! Anyway, Dan and I saw a movie, it was nice to get out! Thanks for the great visit Mom and Dad, we miss you already!

Callens First Steps

Tonight Callen attempted her first steps!! It was super exciting. Dan and I were talking while callen was standing beside the couch next to me. Then without warning she just let go of the couch, took two steps and then fell down. She then tried several more times, one of which we got on video, sorry it is sideways.

Of course one of the times she fell she bumped her face on the floor and got a fat lip. Poor girl, however, it didn't slow her down. The video was actually taken after this! She's such a tough girl already!

Caverns of Sonora

On Saturday we decided to take a road trip and travel north about 90 miles to the Caverns of Sonora. We went with the Viccellio Family from church, it was SO much fun!! We decided to take this trip last week when we ran into them at Bracketville. I am really glad we did, I had been wanting to go to the caverns for a long time. I had no idea they were so awesome! The Caverns of Sonora are rated 4th in the U.S. for beauty and 10th in the world! The pictures really don't do it justice, but it really was beautiful.

We packed a picnic lunch and ate there at the caverns before our tour started.

Of course we had to take some pictures by the sign

We took a guided tour of the cave. The tour lasts 1 hr. 45 min., and you hike aproximately 2 miles and travel down a distance of 15 floors. The temperature of the cave is 71 degrees but it has 98% humidity so it feels like it is 85 degrees. The humidity is so high that the railings are constantly dripping with water and the path gets really slick. I wish Callen could have walked because I sure got a work out carrying her, but it was so much fun!

Our guide was really good to take pictures for us.

Outside the main building they had a little wooden canal with flowing water. It was there so you could mine for precious stones. Callen loved playing in the water she kept trying to sit in the canal!

Baby Shower

Last week Brandi Hunt and I threw a baby shower for Charis. It was a lot of fun, well Brandi really did all the work I just made a few refreshments and tried to clean up my house. We had lots of fun and lots of crazy conversations that just somehow happen when you get a group of girls together. Anyway, Congratulations of your upcoming baby boy!

Me, Charis, and Brandi
I was proud of myself for making some semi-fancy looking food!

This was Brandi's english trifle, it was Delicious!!

Here's some pictures of the girsl that came. Thanks for making it a great shower everyone!

Work

T-1s are fun, but it's getting tough to figure out what to do with all my free time!

First Tooth!

Sunday after church I was feeding Callen and noticed her bottom gums looked a little funny. Yep, she is finally getting her first little tooth! yay! She will be 11 months old in a week so I was beginning to wonder if she would ever get teeth! I guess if I was still nursing I would have been really glad she was a late teether though. Surprisingly she is handling it really well, she had a bit of a fever and that was about it, she hasn't been overly fussy so i'm crossing my fingers that this trend continues for all her teeth! I'm excited for her to be able to eat new foods but I think I will always miss her gummy smile! My little girl is growing up!

Texas Family Fun Days!

So For Labor Day I saw a flyer advertising Texas Family fun Days in Bracketville (actually at the Alamo movie set). I had never been to the set so I figured this would be a fun thing to do. The flyer said there was going to be gunfights, horse races, kids games, music, sheep shearing, and a horse for kids to ride along with a BBQ. It said admission was $11/person but if you brought a homeade apple pie you would get one free admission. So I got up in the morning and started to make a pie, we were short on time so Dan said he would add all the spices to the apples while I made the crust. I made the crust and for the first time it turned out alright and then asked dan to add the apples and i put on the top layer. It looked a little skimpy but I figured, hey I cut up all the apples we had so it has to be enough. AFTER I had put the top crust on and made the edges all pretty I looked in the bowl and realized Dan had only put in about 1/3 of the apples... by this time it was really too late to do anything so we ended up not having a pie and getting in a fight about it too.

We decided to go anyway and still have a fun day. We got there and looked around at all the neat little buildings and shops that were there. We watched one of the childrens footraces which sadly enough turned out to be the most exciting thing that happened! The flyer was misleading and the BBQ ended up being $7/person on top of the admission price. Only 2 horses were there for the scheduled 4 races. They decided to only do one race at the end of the day which we didn't stay for. The horse for the kids to ride didn't show up, I didn't see any sheep, and I couldn't hear anything during the gunshow (except the guns). However, we did still enjoy ourselves even though the celebration was pretty lame. We sat with this sweet older couple while eating and they told us all sorts of stories about Ft. Clark Springs, they were super nice to talk to. We saw some friends from Church so we were able to socialize and hang out with them a little bit which was fun to get to know them better, and we bought Callen this cute little indian girl neclace made out of beads and she played with it the whole day!

After driving home Callen took a long nap and Dan and I were able to watch a movie. Then we went to the gym and worked out, had dinner, and then we were able to go to the pool, yesterday was the last day the pool was open :( this is very sad as Callen absolutely LOVES the water, she will definitely miss going to the pool. Again we saw the Viccellio's at the pool, I think they were following us around! It was neat to hang out with them again!

all in all it was a really good day since I was able to spend it with my awesome family! Here are some pictures from the Labor day Celebration.

Gun show
They had some pretty funny signs in the cantina that I just couldnt' resist taking pictures of.


My little Davy Crockett!
Callen with her Indian Neclace, she wouldnt put it down!

We took some time to let her play in the shade since it was such a hot day!
I just love her in her little pigtails!