The Circus

Saturday we went to see the Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus!! It was a first for all of us! Hudson was so excited all day that he just couldn't settle himself to take a nap. He was very good and remained in bed and tried to nap though...so we thought! Actually, he must have gotten bored laying there and decided to go through his drawers until he found some rash cream. He put it on, "All myself!", as he told us very excitedly.

Here he is at the circus. I think this was when he was watching very intently to the motorcycle show.

Hudson got to eat cotton candy for the first time! He was a big fan! Jason and I had our share too. Who knows how long it has been since we last had cotton candy. It's so much fun being a kid again with Hudson! This must have been a pretty special bag of cotton candy because it cost us $12!! It was worth it though since we all got to experience the nastalgia of eating cotton candy at the circus...plus it came with a hat.

This is a picture of the tiger show, which I really enjoyed. Hudson, however, was a bit disappointed they were tigers and not lions. The tiger on the far left was being very stubborn and didn't do a thing the trainer told him! He just sat on his chair the whole time and Jason figured he was contemplating eating the trainer for lunch.

I scream, you scream...

...We all scream for ICE CREAM!!! On Friday, Jason decided to pick Hudson up from school a little bit early and they went to McDonald's for ice cream! They have a 3 story play area in there and it was the first time we've actually gone inside for Hudson to even see it or play with it. He was so excited to play that he could hardly concentrate on eating his ice cream. They had a great time playing together!

The next day, Saturday morning, the boys made their weekly trip to Lowes while I was getting my hair done. Later that afternoon we went to the CIRCUS!! (pictures to come soon!)

Boa Attack

This is a typical evening in our house...Daddy getting attacked by a boa in the jungle!

Brunch with the Moffitt's!

The Sunday after Luke's birthday party we met up with Terrie, Jeramy, and baby Eli for brunch at Landry's. I stole these pictures from Terrie's blog b/c I left my camera at home after uploading birthday party pictures. (incase they look familiar to some of you!) Brunch was super yummy and we had a great time hanging out with the Moffitt's! Eli is the sweetest little guy and will melt your heart with his big smile and dimples! Hudson had a great time feeding the ducks, turtles, and fish. Eventually the sun became too hot and we were all starting to melt so we had to say our goodbyes. Thanks for hanging out with us! We really enjoyed seeing you guys!

Me and Eli...I love his curly fauxhawk!

Hudson with his hot, rosey cheeks after playing with the ducks...

A baby update

I went to my Dr.'s appointment on June 25th. They are going to stick to October 17th (sweetest day!) as her due date. They said she is still measuring small, weight-wise, but development is on track so they think she is just going to be petite. I have to get another ultrasound on July 8th because she was moving around too much and couldn't get a couple of specific pictures of her stomach and spine. Plus, they want to check her weight gain since she was only weighing in at 9oz. this time.

Since I never posted the paragraph above until now, I already have the results back from the July 8th ultrasound: Again, they said her development looked good and results came back normal. She is still measuring very small though...only in the 30th percentile. So again, they told me they think she is just small like me but they want to follow up with another ultrasound in a few weeks to check her growth and weight gain.

We really enjoyed watching her on this last ultrasound. She was very busy trying to catch her toes and play with them. We also saw her try to suck her thumb, open her eyes, and let out a big yawn! Here she is crossing her legs and taking a short break from trying to catch those toes!

Luke's Birthday Party

We took Hudson to Luke's 4th birthday party Saturday. Luke's Daddy used to work with Jason at the law firm. The party was at Monkey Bizness and Hudson had so much fun that he asked to go back to Luke's party all day long.

12yr. Anniversary

We celebrated our 2nd 12th Anniversary on July 5th. We didn't really do much since we had just gotten back from our vacation and needed sometime to be at home relaxing before getting back into the ole work routine. Plus, we also celebrated on our March anniversary by going on a little date night and Jason got me a beautiful bunch of 12 roses!

Here are a few pics of us when we were dating and we were still a couple of hot tamales!

And here are a couple of our wedding pictures:

A Twice In a Life Time Event

Today, roughly four seconds before 12:35, the digital date will be 12:34:56 07/08/09. According to various social-networking sites and pseudo-news blogs, this is a momentous event that will come only once in human history. Well, only once unless one happened to be up at 12:35 AM this morning, in which case it will come twice.Other sites are pointing out that, at 4:56 this afternoon, the time will be 4:56 07/08/09. This, of course, will be another momentous, once-in-a-lifetime event that will only come once in human history and, much like December 31, 1999 or the famed "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," it is something that humanity must celebrate together.
Of course, these "once in a lifetime moments" aren't really all that uncommon. For example, at 1:23 AM on April 5, 2006, the sequence was 1:23 04/05/06. That is, of course, unless one lives in a country in which the year comes first, in which case it was 1:23 06/04/05. Then again, in Britain, one puts the day before the month, thus: 1:23 05/04/06.

Day 4: 4th of July in Fredricksburg

Happy 4th of July!!! We had breakfast at our hotel and met some people that told us there was going to be a parade on main street this morning! So after we filled our bellies we found a spot on main street to sit and watch the parade! It was a REALLY good parade. My camera battery was getting low so most of the parade pictures are on Jason's phone. They had some great tanks and jeeps from WWII since there is a museum there. Every single type of transportation that went by us Hudson wanted to ride on: firetrucks, trailers, bikes, motorcycles, tractors, tanks, army jeeps, a big rig, horses, and more!

After the parade, we walked around and went in and out of all the little shops. We came across some hermit crabs that Hudson was pretty facinated with. We got to get them out and play with them for a little while. Then Hudson and Jason discovered this horse ride! I made a pit stop to grab a shirt for my mom and when I came out I saw a nun talking to them and trying to help them figure out how to get it going! She was determined to make it work so Hudson could ride it so she went in the store to inquire about it for them (it didn't say if it needed tokens, or quarters, or how many). Hudson rode the horse until we ran out of quarters! I think it may have been the highlight of his day!

****I finally added the video...it is at the end of the post***

On our way out of Fredricksburg we stopped at Becker's Winery. Jason had a glass of Becker's wine when we were at Budros and loved it. We were excited to discover the winery was so close by. Unfortunately I couldn't really participate in the wine tasting so we'll have to go back another time!

We headed back home so we could buy some fireworks and watch a display at the golf course next to our house. When we got home we realized that so many people in our neighborhood had gone all out and purchased tons of big fireworks so we just hung out in the 'hood and watched the fireworks around us. We were able to stand in the cul-de-sac down the road and still see the display at the golf course. Hudson got to do his first sparkler! Last year he was really scared of the noise the fireworks made. He was much more excited this year until an ember from one of them landed on his face when he was looking up. He didn't get hurt or anything but it made him a little leary of them. We moved our chairs back and hung out until he was too tired to watch anymore. We had a fun-filled several days and a great, much needed vacation!

Day 3: The Alamo & Safari

Today we went to the Alamo, a drive-thru safari, and then on to Fredricksburg! Our hotel in San Antonio was in a great location. We were right on the riverwalk and directly across from the Alamo. We started off our day by having breakfast on the riverwalk. Then we walked over and did a tour of the Alamo.

After the Alamo tour, we loaded up the truck and checked out of our hotel. We made our way to Wildlife Ranch to check out all of the safari animals!

The giraffes and the rhinos are the only animals that were not free-roaming. All of the others came right up to the cars and we could feed them with food we got when we entered the park.

Hudson loves the story of The 3 Billy Goats Gruff so he was really excited when he saw this Billy Goat Gruff!
There were lots of cool animals like the one below. I have lots of pictures but didn't want to bore you with a million pictures of animals! We thought the antlers on this one were really neat.

Here are the rhinos:

Here is Hudson feeding an ostrich that came up to us:

There was a little petting zoo part with little goats and pigs. He thought these goats were hysterical because they kept eating the paper bag that the food was in!

After our trip through the safari, we continued our journey to Fredricksburg. On our way to Fredricksburg we stopped at Lueckenbach to grab some drinks and T-shirts. Lueckenback is a very small "spot" with a post office and music hall made famous by Willy Nelson. It is a big draw for motorcylce riders. After our visit to lueckenbach, we went to our hotel in Fredricksburg to check in. Then we went to main street to grab some dinner. We decided we had to have a genuine German meal since we were in a German town. We ate at Auslanders Beir Garten. www.theauslander.com I had jagerschnitzel, german potato salad, & green beans. Jason had Wienerschnitzel and the same sides. I realized that I must be a true German girl because it all tasted just like the food I grew up on! It was very good though! We walked around for a while but a lot of the shops had already closed up for the day. We decided to get up early the next day to walk around and explore the town some more so we made an ice cream stop and went back to the hotel and relaxed!

Day 2: Sea World!!

Sea World didn't open until 10am so we walked around outside our hotel around the riverwalk for a little while. We had a yummy breakfast so we would have lots of energy to start our day off with. The first picture I posted is of Hudson pouting. He was having a great time until he saw a boat go down the river. Then all he could think about was going on a boat ride and he got really upset because he couldn't go so he sat on the wall next to our breakfast table and pouted (he gets that from me...I'm a big pouter! But after I've pouted a little while, I get over it and that's how he is too.) We promised him we would take him on a boat ride down the river when we got back from Sea World. Our first stop at Sea World was to rent this little jewel. We had to carry Hudson a lot at the water park b/c there were a bizillion stairs, it was really hot, and he was getting worn out. We were worn out carry him though so we decided this was a must!
The first exhibit we came across was the bird exhibit. Hudson got to see pelicans, flamingos, and a few others.
Here we are in the Shamu Arena waiting for Shamu to come out!! Hudson kept say, "I want Shamu...I want Shamu!!". He was sooooo excited!!! Shamu was definitely his favorite part of Sea World...well, that and the roller coaster! He always asks me if he can watch the videos of Shamu. The title of this show was Believe...which is one of my favorite words!



We also went to the dolphin show. It was an extrememly hot day at Sea World and we were all getting a little bit of heat exhaustion. Hudson was to excited to drink much water so he was starting to get tired by this time so we made this show our last stop at Sea World. This was a really neat show though because they made it kind of like Cirque de Soleil and there were acrobats, drums, and people flying through the air! It was a good way to end the day.

I should have put the dolphin show at the end but now that I realize that it's really to much work to move it. So the next couple pictures will be a little out of order! We went to the Shark exhibit which Hudson loved! He thinks sharks are super cool and couldn't wait to see them. I think they had just about every shark that exists in the huge tank. Here is a picture of the guys checking out the jelly fish.After the shark exhibit, we went to the dolphin tank to feed the dolphins!! This was my first time to feed a dolphin too! It was really fun! We got to pet them too!
And now the roller coaster!!! Hudson got to ride his very first roller coaster at Sea World!! He LOVED it...again, he's our little adrenalin junkie! Jason said if I hadn't spiked his hair up that day he probably wouldn't have passed the height requirement but it was his lucky day! He and Jason rode the roller coaster over and over and over again! They had such a great time!! While I was watching them on the ride, I heard a Dad call his daughter over to look at their pictures and her name was London!! Maybe this is a "sign" we should go with London for the baby's name!! It did sound really good when I heard him call it out. : )

So back to my story about Hudson pouting about the boat ride this morning. When we got back to our hotel, Hudson and Jason went for a swim in the pool and I took a much needed nap! Then we all got cleaned up and went for dinner at Budros on the riverwalk:
www.boudros.com/boudros YUMMY!!! I ate here a couple years ago (when I was pregnant with Hudson) for Terrie's Bachelorette party and have been craving it ever since. It was just as good as I remembered it! After dinner, we kept our promise to Hudson and took him on a boat ride down the river. We had to wait in a long line but he was so excited that he was willing to wait. Here is a picture of us starting out down the river...

And here we are about mid-way....

The people sitting across from us thought it was so funny that Hudson crashed (he was snoring away) that they had to take a picture on their own camera! Hopefully, he had good dreams about floating down the river in the boat he wanted to ride all day!

Here are some videos from Sea World: