Summer Vacation 2007: Billy Bob's Honky Tonk

I know, I know, you are probably thinking what possessed us to go to a Honky Tonk?! I don't know, I guess we were just so happy to be back in Texas that we were relishing in all things Texas. Yes, we are both Texans at heart! Anyhow, we heard about this place on a Discovery Channel video online and just had to go there to see the bull riding. I had never been to any type of rodeo event, so this was a first for me.

In order to make sure that Jenna didn't get to concerned about the bull riders, Robby told her that the bulls were dancing. So on the way home she kept telling us, "Bulls dance, fall off!"

Aunt Wendy came along too with baby Will. I was happy because that meant I got some more snuggle time with him!

And here is one of the bulls. This one though was more interested in getting out of the ring than putting on any sort of show.

Jenna's favorite part of the place was this Texas light that danced around on the ground. She kept trying to stay on top of it as it moved around. She was pretty cute dancing around chasing it.

Summer Vacation 2007: Robby's Family's House

It was so good to be back in Texas and see our family! We really enjoyed seeing our family at and near Robby's parent's home. Here are some pics from us hanging out at the house.

Jenna made friends with Uncle Logan.

Cousin Eli came over to visit while we were there. Jenna liked following Eli up the stairs.

Here are all of the kids, spouses, and grandkids (Grandma and Grandpa were taking these pictures on a few different cameras.)

Jenna really like her new baby cousin, Will. He is a sweetie!

I guess this is Jenna's nun impersonation. We thought it was funny the way she grabbed the blanket and draped it on herself this way.

What a sweet face!

When we first arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's, Jenna was scared of Rocky, the family beagle. But, over the next few days she grew to love him. Here she is after she finally got brave enough to pet him. I'm not sure Rocky was to happy about his new little tag along friend. Especially since she decided to start smothering him with hugs and kisses. By the end, he was the one running away!

Summer and Logan were cracking me up the whole time we were there. Here they are sharing the Harry Potter book. Neither one could wait for the other to finish reading, so they read together. At some moments they would argue about whose lap the book was going to be in when they were sitting together on the couch. They are getting ready for the 7th book to come out soon!

It won't be much longer before Logan will have a hard time giving a piggy back ride to Little Robby.

It's a "Permer Plop" times two!

Love the hats!

Bonus Feature:

And finally, for your viewing pleasure... Permie and the Professor!

Summer Vacation 2007: Kemah, TX

Sorry, I got a day behind... We have had some computer problems and then Little Robby and I both have had the joy of the suffering through the stomach bug that Jenna shared with us. I keep trying to tell Robby that he is next, but he is certain he won't get sick. We shall see... (Not that I want him to suffer, too, I just can't imagine he could escape it after all the exposure he has had.)

Well here we have an evening trip to Kemah, a fun little area near Space Center Houston. They have restaurants, a boardwalk along the waterfront, and some amusement rides and games. We came here to go to the restaurant called "The Aquarium." It has a giant cylindrical aquarium tank in the middle of the dining area. The kids loved watching the fish, eel, and shark that were in the tank.

Here we have Little Robby and my dad in front of an old police car that was parked on display in Kemah.

They even had a splash pad with randomly shooting water spouts. Robby, being the daredevil that he is, took a risk and walked right through it with Jenna in the stroller. Did they make it out dry... watch and find out!

After dinner the kids were very enticed by the splash pad. At first they stood on the side watching the other children who were dressed to get wet. I wasn't totally up on them getting wet since we didn't have a change of clothes for them, and we had an hour long drive home. You could tell though that they really wanted to get wet since both of them inched closer and closer to the water spouts. Robby even took pleasure in standing on one. Luckily, neither one got wet.

It did remind me of our trip to Legoland with Andra and David and family last summer. There was one of these splash pads there, too, and Matthew was very interested in it. When we weren't quite paying attention he ran over to one of the water spouts that wasn't spraying at the time, and stood directly over it. Before we could say anything, Matthew got surprised by a jet of water in a very personal place! Poor kid.

Summer Vacation 2007: Space Center Houston

During our stay with my parents we had a great time going to NASA's Space Center Houston. Little Robby has always been fascinated with space travel so I have always wanted to take him here. I was glad to finally have that opportunity on this trip.

One thing we found out while there was that the Space Center is not the same Space Center I went to as a kid! They have "livened" it up a bit. Now they have dress up Looney Tunes characters that dance for the kids (on the stage seen behind us in the pic above) and some very "amusement park-ish" decorations.

Luckily, they still had the same things on exhibit. Here we see Robby in front of one of the Apollo capsules. As a kid, I don't think I fully appreciated the personal risk these early astronauts took. I can't imagine being sealed in a very confined capsule and attached to enormous rockets and blasted into space. Wow! I think they had a lot of courage. I realize people still travel into space today, but I don't think I would have wanted to be one of the first.

While at the museum, Jenna found her own ways of amusing herself by swinging like a little monkey.


Okay, so he's not looking at the camera, but I wanted to post this one because I think it is really cool that he has his hand on a piece of moon rock. Where else can you actually touch the moon?!

This picture and the next one are of all of us riding on the tram to go and see the Astronaut Training Facility and the Saturn V Rocket.

Jenna really like riding the tram and kept saying, "Weeeee!"

Little Robby, Grandma, and Grandpa are standing in front of the window overlooking the Astronaut Training Facility. Behind them you can see some of the life-sized models they use to practice their missions here on earth.

We are standing in front of the Saturn V Rocket. This was the biggest rocket that NASA has used up to this date. It was used to launch the Apollo and Skylab missions. How would you like to be strapped onto the top of that thing?!

I had to include this one... What better symbol of being home in Texas than longhorn cattle? We saw them on our tram tour at NASA.
I like this one of my mom and me. (Love you Mom! - I guess I need a good one with you, too, Dad!)

Summer Vacation 2007: Family Reunion (Sharon's side)

The first full day after we arrived at my parent's house we drove about an hour to my brother's house in the country for a family reunion. My aunt (my dad's sister), uncle, cousins, and their children came out too. I realized as I was compiling these pics that almost all of our pictures were just of my side of the family and we didn't get any group shots. Oh well, we will just have to remember for next time.

Aunt Charlene (my brother's wife) watches as Jenna discovers the fun of one of her cousin's toys.

Jenna's leading the way for my brother, David, and Robby.

This is my new nephew Hayden. Isn't he a cutie?! I say "new" because I hadn't had a chance to meet him until this trip. He is now 8 months, and he weighs a whopping 25lbs.! (Jenna, who's just over 2yrs, only weighs 23lbs.!)

At his weight, it is really tough on the arms to when he decides to try diving off your lap!

My Aunt Marcel, Charlene, and my mom chat together on the porch.

One thing was for sure, we weren't totally used to the humidity in Texas, especially after living in dry Arizona for the last three years. You can't tell completely from this picture, but Jenna's hair had a little bit of a wave in it while we were there.

Jenna was really fascinated with Uncle David and Aunt Charlene's horses. She was interested in seeing them up close until they moved in our direction, then she wanted to back up quickly.

Then when we got carrots to feed the horses she wanted to hold the carrot until the horse's giant lips reached out to grab it, at which point I had to take over.

Little Robby really enjoyed playing in Uncle David's playroom!

So did Dad! He's having flashbacks to his childhood playing Donky Kong.

My Uncle Richard and cousins enjoyed playing a game together on the game table.

Grandma cuddles with Hayden.

We really had a great time visiting David and Charlene!

One last cute pic, Jenna and Little Robby with their cousin Hayden!

Summer Vacation 2007 and Jenna last night

Okay, so here we go... I have queued all of the pictures for our trip to Texas and Oklahoma into a series of blogs, and I have 13 blogs in the queue! Wow! Anyhow, I know that many of you are anxious to see our blogs, but I also don't want to overwhelm you so I am going to post them 2 and 3 at a time over the next few days. That way I can pace myself, and I don't feel totally overwhelmed either. As it is, I haven't even started any of my video editing, and I have a lot of video footage to choose from. Well, let's begin one step at a time! Below are the first three installments. Start from the bottom to see them in chronological order.

Oh, I just remembered what else I was going to add... Jenna woke up at midnight last night and threw up. We were up with her for the next couple hours cleaning up several messes. I think she ended up having three baths. She finally slept the rest of the night after about 2 or 2:30am.

Well, this morning when she got up she told me she was hungry, but I explained to her that I wanted her to wait a while before eating food again so as to avoid another mess. She seemed to understand and went to her room to play for a little. A few minutes later she came back in the family room pushing her stroller which was loaded not with a baby doll, but with play food. She then sat there and proceeded to pretend to eat all of it. Poor kid!

Summer Vacation 2007: Nicest Rest Stop Ever

We stumbled onto this one... Somewhere just east of Seguin, Texas on I-10 Eastbound is the niced rest stop we have ever seen in our lives!

Here is a glimps of the inside. It had a museum (seen above), the cleanest indoor bathrooms (not pictured for obvious reasons),...

and a really nice playground that the kids didn't want to leave.

Jenna really enjoyed the tube slide.

If she could have she would have spent the rest of the day there. Instead she was faced with being crammed back into her car seat for another two hours to Grandma and Grandpa's house. All in all, she did fairly well on the trip, but I must say that she was definitely happy to be freed from the confines of her car seat when we arrived at our destination that night.