It's already been 2 years!

Yesterday, May 23rd, marked 2 years since we made the big move from small town Illinois, to Houston, Texas.  This picture was taken shortly after we arrived at our new apartment.  I love it!  It says so much!

We had no idea what to expect when we arrived.  It was a bit of an adjustment at first, just starting over in a new place with new people, new jobs, new schools.  A lot changed for us in a short period of time.  But, looking back, it has been sooo worth it!! We absolutely love our new home.  Its going much better than I could have ever expected.  We are doing so many new and different things with the kids.  I never could have imagined that I would live so close to the beach.  Or that I would live in a town with a population greater than 4000 with more than one stop light.  Or that there would be more stores and restaurants nearby than I will ever have time to visit.  Or live in a building where we have to take the elevator up to our floor (which I'll admit can sometimes be a big pain in the rear! lol).  Or that I would live in a place wear you can almost wear shorts and t-shirts year round.  We have definately been blessed and I am so thankful for all that we have and all that we have been able to do. 

Theres still a lot that we would like to accomplish.  We eventually would like to live in a house or even a townhouse with at least 3 bedrooms and  a fenced in backyard (a pool would be great too) and get away from living in an apartment.  Danny would like to finish his associates degree and I need to figure out what I want to do with my future career path.  There's nothing wrong with banking, but I don't want to be a teller for the rest of my life. 

Most importantly, I'm so grateful for how well the kids have adjusted.  Aydan can't even remember living in Illinois so he was easy.  Kenzie, however, was 7 when we moved so she had to leave friends and family behind that she was close with.  That was definately the hardest part of the whole move.  But, that girl is so outgoing and friendly she has no problem meeting new people and making friends.  She's even had to change schools once already since we've lived here and she did great with the adjustment.  She met a girl that lives 2 doors down from us and they have become great friends too.  They go to each others houses a few times during the week and they spend a lot of time together on the weekends and have sleepovers if we don't have any plans.  Its really worked out pretty well.

So much has changed within the past 2 years; I look forward to see what changes come our way in the next 2 years!

Probably the biggest jerk ever!

So, if you read my previous post, you know that we went to San Luis Pass yesterday.  Its on Galveston Island and basically its the area near the bridge that connects the west end of the island to the mainland.  Anyway, thats really not important.  You have to drive off the main road and take sand paths/roads to get to the beach and to leave.  We drove Danny's truck there because its very handy when going to the beach.  When we were leaving, we decided to go a little bit of a different way to get back on the main road than when we arrived.  It looked like it would be much quicker.  So we are driving along and we can kind of tell that the sand seemed to be getting deeper and more hilly.  We were about ready to turn around when we realize that we are stuck.  Can't go backwards, can't go forwards, just spinning tires!  Great.  Wonderful.  Awesome.  Its a lot like being stuck in the snow.  The more you  try to get out, the deeper you get!  So Danny and his friend get out and start using Aydan's toy buckets to dig the sand out from behind the tires.  Just as they started, a dune-buggy jeep with big ol' tires pulled up to check on us.  There was a coule guys and a couple girls, all probably in their 30's I would guess, in the jeep.  Danny asked the driver if he had anything that he could hook up to our truck to tow us out. 

And you know what this jerk says? 

"Yeah I'll do it for 40 bucks."

Ummm.  No thanks dude.  We just need move like 10-15 feet and we'd be good to go.  Danny just told him he'd keep digging and save his $40.  Then, the guy proceeds to drive past us and turn around and parks.  Just parks.  And now, they are all sitting in their jeep dune-buggy thing just watching us.  Yeah thanks for the help %$@#* (pardon my language but he pissed me off)

Danny and his friend had us loose in just a few minutes, thank goodness, and we saved our 40 bucks, all while they sat in their jeep and watched.  Once we were loose and ready to go, they drove by and were waving and clapping. Grrrrrr!!!!!!!

Seriously.  I just could not believe they did not try to help us.  Not like it was a life or death serious situation but just the fact that he wouldn't help out unless he benefited from it is just wrong.  Here we are stranded with our 2 small kids in the back and he's just gonna cruise on by and watch us dig ourselves out.  Nice.  Real nice.  Thats ok.  Karma's bound to catch up with you sooner or later.

Just Beachy....

Danny and the kids have been doing a lot of fishing lately.  Aydan caught this fish (I think Danny said it was a croaker?) the other day off the dock behind our apartment.  He was so excited!  I love this picture so I had to post it :)

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Yesterday, we went to San Luis Pass, which is at the west end of Galveston.  Danny and a friend of his wanted to try salt water fishing and had heard that this was a good place to try it.  While they fished, the kids and I had fun wading in the water and relaxing on the beach. 

Here's Kenzie and Aydan playing in the water.  Kenzie mostly played in the sand on the beach making sand castles and shell-hunting, but Aydan couldn't stay out of the water.  The water was pretty shallow where they are playing and just a little further out was a sand bar where the water was only ankle deep.  In the background you can see Danny and his friend standing out in the water fishing.  They are just past the sand bar, where it did get much deeper so the kids weren't allowed to go that far.  The sand bar blocked all the waves though so the kids could play in calmer water, which was nice.



An ice cream truck went by and of course the kids were ready for a cold treat!  Yummy!



I was walking along the sand bar looking for shells for Kenzie and I saw this little hermit crab swimming along so I picked it up to take a look.  Kenzie loved it!!  She wanted to keep it but I told her if we kept it, it would likely die so I convinced her that we needed to release him.

We spent the entire afternoon at the beach and we took our grill so we made some hot dogs.  The guys didn't catch much but some people next to us caught a small hammer head shark!  Kinda scary to think that sharks could be swimming so close by.

I put sun screen on the kids a couple of times and somehow they still managed to get a little sunburnt.  Of course me trying to get some color did not put sun screen on so I ended up very burnt and I am very sore today!  Well, I guess I did put some on, after we were there for about 2 hours and I could already tell I was getting red.  I wanted some color but was hoping for a golden broze color, not bright red....Ugh!  I should know better!!  Aloe vera gel is my best friend right now!

Overall, we all had a great time at the beach!  I'm so glad summer is upon us!!

~Flashback Friday~

Awwww!! Aren't they so cute!  This was taken in our back yard in Illinois I believe the summer of 2008.  Kenzie would have been 6 and Aydan about 1 1/2.  I was showing Aydan some old pictures taken at our house in Illinois and was asking him if he remembered it.  I was a little surprised that he did not remember most of them.  One pic was him playing in his bedroom and he kind of remembered his room but thats about it.  It shouldn't surprise me considering he was only about 2 1/2 years old when we moved away.

I'll have to dig up some more old pics to post.  I just love looking at them and bringing back memories :)  The kids enjoy looking at them too and seeing how they looked as babies.

TGIF ya'll!!

hello again :)

Man, I'm running out of creative titles, lol!  (And, first sentences!)

Anyways, things are going just dandy down here in Houston.  I had a very nice Mother's Day.  Kenzie and Aydan both made me homemade cards and gifts, which I love!  They are so precious!  I also got a rose :)  Kenzie was such a helper, cleaning up the house for me and doing it all with a smile on her face.  She also made me breakfast in bed.  But speaking of homemade cards, I never know how long to keep them?  Or, where to put them if I do decide to keep them?  I just hate throwing them away, but if I kept every single piece of artwork I've ever recieved, we'd be buried in paper!  I've been keeping a few things from each of them and what I don't keep, I will throw away after a few weeks of it laying around.  I ready an article online about how you can take pictures of the items before throwing them away to at least be able to remember it later on.  I need to figure out something because both kids bring home lots of papers and artwork from school on a regular basis.  I think I'm just gonna get a small tote or box to store some of what I would like to keep.

I tried to organize the kids' closet over the weekend too.  They have so many toys with little pieces that end up everywhere and pieces go missing and it just drives me nuts!!  I bought some shoe box sized totes with lids and a few other baskets for them.  Kenzie put her Littlest Pest Shop and Zooble animals in them, along with Barbies and all her accessories (who by the way has a bigger wardrobe than I do!).  We put all of Aydan's Hot Wheels cars in another.  Now that their smaller toys have a place, there's no excuse for them not to be put away correctly (well, at least thats the goal).  Its just amazing how fast you can accumulate stuff!  Our apartment is quickly filling up, which actually can be a good thing, considering we moved here with only 2 carloads of stuff to our name.

Over the weekend, Kenzie and I had some mother-daughter time shopping at the mall.  She got a gift card to a store in the mall for her birthday and has been dying to go use it.  Actually, I think she was more excited about getting a root beer float at the food court than anything else! lol!  I love being able to spend one-on-one time with her.  We don't get to do it very often!  While we were gone, the boys (Danny and Aydan) went fishing off the dock behind our apartment.  Unfortunately, they didn't catch anything though.

On a different note, its hard to believe that there's only a little over 2 weeks left of school this year!  Kenzie is ready for summer break.  In fact, so am I.  It will make my mornings a little easier.  I will only have to make one stop in the morning instead of 2 ;)  Everythings just more relaxed during the summer, especially the evenings.  As of now, we don't have any summer vacations planned.  We're trying to save our money since we'll be going to Illinois next Spring for my brothers wedding, and all of us are in the wedding. It would be nice though to maybe do a short weekend trip somewhere.  I really would like to visit San Antonio sometime, which I think is like a 3 1/2 - 4 hour drive from us. 

Well, I guess thats all I can think of at the moment.  Have a  great week! :)