The trip back to Orlando is underway! We are all ready to get back home. Today we made the first leg back to Mobile, Alabama. Nothing eventful happened, just a lot of driving. We had dinner back at Chuck E. Cheese to kind of bookend the whole trip.
Today was the final stop on the Texas Trip 2006: Houston, Texas, Jennifer’s parents’ house. It was a tough ride. We left Lindale after lunch and hit Houston right at rush hour traffic. Isabelle and Emily slept for the first hour, but then Isabelle screamed for the last three hours of the trip. She’s just not used to be strapped down in the car for so long. We made it safely and everyone was glad to finally see us again.
Today’s picture is from the family reunion a few days ago. It’s my cousin Paul’s youngest: Hayden.
Today we packed up everything and finally headed into Texas: Lindale, Texas, to be exact. Where I went to high school and where my grandparents live. My Aunt Marci was there and my parents followed us in their car. Once there, we celebrated Isabelle’s first birthday. We had a big lunch, opened presents, and then dug into the bear cake.
One of the bonuses to a trip back to Texas is you get to go to all the restaurants that we miss now that we live in Florida. One of the places I was really looking forward to was Rudy’s Bar-B-Q. They have several of these back in Austin and they happen to have one in Tyler. However, fortune was not with us. A lightning strike closed down the restaurant, so we had to settle for another Bar-B-Q place.
After dinner we headed down to the park in Hide-a-Way Lake. The girls had fun on the merry-go-round and a big slide. We got a pretty good laugh because when Emily went down the slide, she would build up a lot of static electricity and all of her hair would stand straight up.
Happy Birthday to Isabelle. One year ago today, Isabelle was born. We are going to be having a party at MaMaw and PaPaw’s house tomorrow, but today was Isabelle’s official birthday. We spent the day baking the traditional one year old bear birthday cake. There was enough left over for cup cakes, so we had a “mini party” for Isabelle.
We didn’t realize it until this morning, but we were in a smoking room at the Horseshoe Casino. When we complained at the front desk, they just blew us off. Jennifer said that she’s going to write them an angry letter. We visited the floor below us and couldn’t believe the difference. When we first went to our floor, we figured the whole hotel smelled like cigarette smoke since people are allowed to smoke in the casino.
Today we took everyone out to buy Isabelle’s birthday gifts. We found the Toys R’ Us and allowed Abby and Emily to pick out a toy for Isabelle. We also gathered the ingredients for the bear cake which each girl has had for their first birthday.
Today’s picture is from a few days ago, Emily looking sadly outside the window at Nana and Poppy’s house.
Today was Jennifer’s 32nd birthday. I went out with the girls last weekend and got her presents and then we packed them with us for the trip. She received a diamond circle necklace that Abby picked out, a triple scoop ice cream maker, a cook book, and a plug for her portable CD player. We also went to Strawn’s here in Shreveport and picked up a banana cream pie for the occasion.
After the movie we went out to eat at Superior’s Steakhouse. It was really nice (which means expensive). It was nice to be able to order a Shiner Bock in a restaurant. One of the things I miss from leaving in Florida.
Now that Head Coach is done, we’ve moved our annual trip back to Texas to the summer instead of around Christmas, like it usually is. Currently, we are in “the most inconsiderate town in America“, Mobile, Alabama. This time it hasn’t been as bad. I think the key is not to travel on the weekend. There’s a lot less activity on a weekday.
The drive wasn’t all that fun. Isabelle just doesn’t understand what is going on. She’s cranky and it’s hard for her to fall asleep in her car seat. Abby asks every few minutes if “we are there yet” and Emily isn’t much better with “We at Poppies?” The best one on the trip was Austin. He just sat under Emily and got hit on top of the head with plastic horses, cups, and shoes.
For dinner we tried out the Chuck E. Cheese which was down the street. We went a little on the early side and missed the crowd. Once again, I think it helped traveling on a weekday. Today’s picture is Emily standing in front of Chuck E. Cheese taken with my mobile phone.
It’s been a busy last couple of weeks as we’ve been finishing up NFL Head Coach, but it’s out the door and I’m off of work for the next three weeks.
This past week was also that last week of school, which means that Abby has graduated from pre-school and is on her way to Kindergarten in a couple of months. Today’s picture is from Abby getting her pre-school diploma. They start the year pretty early: July 31st. Can’t believe she’s about to go to “big school” as we’ve been calling it.
This past week Isabelle has really started walking a lot more. She will randomly walk around the living room, but when she wants to really get around she still relies on the speed crawling.
One last thing I wanted to call out was my Xbox 360’s blog. While I was at work a lot, it got very lonely and started writing bad things about me in it’s blog. Now that I’m back, it’s pretty stoked that I’ve been playing a lot of NFS Most Wanted.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to write on Frenchville. We are still in our crunch time on NFL Head Coach and I haven’t even turned on my computer in 2 weeks. In an attempt to get something posted to Frenchville, I’m writing this at work, right before I leave.
Today Jennifer took all the girls down to the Outlet Mall in order to get out of the house and go do something. They also went to the giant McDonalds down on International Drive for lunch. Lately Abby has been noticing that some people smoke cigarettes. She asks us why and we tell her that it’s bad and we don’t know why people do it. Today Jennifer and the girls were getting ice cream and Jennifer told Abby to go outside while she paid. After a few seconds, Abby came back in holding her nose saying that people were outside smoking and that it stinks. Jennifer said it was pretty funny.
Isabelle is on the verge of walking. She can easily stand up in the middle of the room and take one step. Then, she switches to her preferred mode of transport: crawling. It probably doesn’t help that Abby picks her up and carries her around the house all the time. Why learn to walk when you have a big sister who can carry you around.
Since I’m still off from work I took Abby and Emily to pre-school this morning. I usually take Abby on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we talk about what she’s learning in school. This morning we talked about counting. I was surprised that they had been working on counting to one hundred. I asked Abby if she could and she took off counting. She did pretty well. She had trouble bridging between thirty and forty, however. She went, “38…39…80…81…82”. I didn’t correct her and she continued, “88…89…40…41…42” and then, “49…80…81”. I felt we were going to get into an endless loop, so when she got to “89” for the second time, I corrected her that the next one was “90”. Then it was smooth sailing to “100”.
One of the good things about staying home from work while the girls are in pre-school is that Jennifer and I can get out to a restaurant. Isabelle is so much easier to take out that Abby ever was. I remember us going to eat at Jason’s Deli in Round Rock because the place was so loud it would drown out her cries. Isabelle just sits there in her carrier and laughs and has a great time. Jennifer feeds her a jar of food and Isabelle feeds herself a bottle of formula while we eat. The real question is: was Abby bad at eating out or have we’ve gotten better at parenting? I’m leaning towards the former.
Frenchville 