Our fun family day trip part I

 


My awesome and wonderful  husband (I have to let everyone know how cool he is) came up with this great idea for Saturday.  He has been so busy with school that we haven't had the opportunity to do fun things as a family.  I have been complaining enough that he got motivated to find something for us to do.  I am so grateful for the time he dedicated to us this past weekend because I know he has a hard time dealing with school and life but he does a great job.
He did a search on line for things to do in Houston and found the info for the George Ranch Historical Park, we got so excited just reading about it that we decided to go and check it out.  Dan was planning for an all day long thing but I kept telling him that 4 hours would be more than enough to spend at a place like that.  Boy was I wrong...  we got there around 10:30 am and left the place at 4:00 pm.  They have old houses and you can tour them, you walk the entire time and explore the place at your own pace.  It was so fun and we all want to go back again some day.  Pictures are better than words son enjoy!!!  

 Inside the first house we saw, they had all kind of artifacts to look at, it was very educational for the kids.  This was the 1830's  cabin.

 My cute boy look from outside the cabin.

 Being inside brought back so many memories for me since this is what the house I grew up in looked like, wooden floors just like those, the walls, the cracks, the ceiling.  I know what is like to sleep in a place like that.

 Love the fire place and the way they have everything set up.

 The outside of the cabin.

 This has to be my favorite picture of the day.

 We did a lot of walking under the sun.

 Tristan was so excited to get his boots dusty, it made him feel like a real cowboy.

 This is the mansion from the 1890's

 The furniture was beautiful and they even had the tour guy dressed as a butler. The house was moved about 3 miles from the original location and that is just amazing to me that they can move an entire house like that and for it to still be standing.

 This is our friend the alligator we found on the side of the road... nor my favorite thing for sure.  We also saw one swimming in the river.

 The lady that gave us the tour on this other house from the1890's.

 The kids thought it was really cool to see a real log cabin (this was actually the smoke house)

 We all got a lesson on how to do some roping and the fake cow... Victor did better than me.

 A tree house, not really.... it was basically more like a deck.

 Tristan spent a lot of time petting that horse, this was one of the most exciting things he did all day. 

 I just love this pic, my two cowboys enjoying the show.

 They did a little show to teach us how to rope the cows and how they treat them while they are down.

 This is the famous Texas Long Horn, kind of scary if you ask me.

 The share cropper farm, they had lots of interesting information.

 The inside of the little cabin, they had the walls covered with newspaper and Tristan said that they did it so when they got bored they could read the walls.

 My two little princesses.

 The cool mansion.

 Another picture I love, he was having a great time.

 Just enjoying the grass and the sun.

 Behind all these trees there is a cemetery, I just thought all the trees looked cool.

He did a search on line for things to do in Houston and found the info for the George Ranch Historical Park, we got so excited just reading about it that we decided to go and check it out.  Dan was planning for an all day long thing but I kept telling him that 4 hours would be more than enough to spend at a place like that.  Boy was I wrong...  we got there around 10:30 am and left the place at 4:00 pm.  They have old houses and you can tour them, you walk the entire time and explore the place at your own pace.  It was so fun and we all want to go back again some day.  Pictures are better than words son enjoy!!!

Victor is 9!!!

My super handsome boy Victor turned 9 on Monday!!!  He was so excited to be 9 this year and even though we did not have a party planned for him this year we managed to do some fun things.  As always we could not wait to give him his presents until Monday so he got them on Saturday.  Dan was in charge of getting presents and this year he wanted to go a different route, so he got all kinds of interesting stuff.  He got a cool building set, he loves it and has been enjoying building all kinds of vehicles.  The instructions are not that clear some times so we get to play I mean help some too.





He also got a necklace with an scorpion in it, a cool Castle Crashers T-shirt (his favorite video game at the moment) and some other things that I just can't remember at the moment. 















We went out to eat at Denny's after presents and had lots of  yummy food.  On Monday I was still feeling kind of sick so I did not have the energy to make him a cake and it was also a busy busy day so I just go him an ice cream cake.  Interesting fact that I learned about Victor this year is that he does not like chocolate cake and I always make him a chocolate cake for his birthdays, how could I not know this?  Shayna is the one that told me so no more chocolate cake for Victor.
He sure is growing fast and learning a lot, he is doing great on his Scout progress too and loves getting his badges and get the attention in front of everybody :)  Where did get that from?  He got two more arrow points on Monday night for doing 20 more activities from his scout book and now he is starting to work on getting his Bear badge, another fun year of fun activities.   I love Victor, love his crazy personality he is a great kid!!!





This is the birthday card Tristan made for Victor, isn't it sweet?

PS.  He has been taking the AR tests on line but when he first started he was just doing it for fun and his percentage was at 68% for accuracy.  I was kind of dissapointed by it since I know how smart  he is, I challenged him to get his score above 80% and guess what?  He did it yesterday, I was so happy for him and now challenged him to get it up to 90% , it only took him a month so we'll see what he can do this month.

What did I get myself into??

I think it was about a week ago that I received a phone call from the Bishop's wife (she is the first counselor in the Relief Society) and she asked if I could teach the lesson in two weeks.  I don't know what took over me but before I knew I had said yes.  I don't think I knew what I was accepting to do until I hanged up the phone and then went over the conversation in my head... yup I said yes.
The reason why I am freaking out is because it has been 12+ years since I taught a class in the RS and also that the last time I did it well it was in Spanish.  I get really nervous when in comes to talk in front of people and then to think that I will have to stand there for 35 minutes trying to teach a bunch of ladies that probably know a lot more than I do about the subject and are definitely more qualified to do it.  Why me????  Is it because I need to work on this subject in my life?  By the way the lesson is about Charity.
I am really tough on myself for having a horrible accent and not being able to pronounce the words correctly I mean when I am talking to friends or even my kids they always ask me to repeat what I say or have a really confused look in their faces, so I can just see myself that day talking and talking and wondering if they are being able to "understand the words that are coming out of my mouth".  On the bright side if I do a bad job they simply wont ask me again right? 
Funny thing is that today I got another phone call from the same sister and she wanted to remind me that the topic is the one from the manual and that it is this Sunday and here I was thinking I had an extra week, nope it is THIS Sunday, good thing I have been preparing myself since last week and to top it all off I have another breast infection and not feeling well at all. 

Kahlan's blessing

 



I am taking advantage of Shayna holding Kahlan for a few minutes to write a quick post.  Today we blessed Kahlan and it went well.  Dan was very nervous about it but I think he did a great job.  We invited Steven and family and also a couple of our friends from our old ward, the Lock and Washburn families.  I was so happy to see them all there and grateful for it since I know they have callings in their ward and took the time to come today and be part of it.
Dan got a little emotional while giving Kahlan the blessing and of course I got all teary, it was a very special moment.  Kahlan was as happy as she could be and did not cry at all and she looks so beautiful in her dress.  I made her dress months ago before she was born and a couple of days ago I finished it with a cute fabric flower to go in the front, I also made a matching flower to go with her head band.
After the blessing I wanted to get a picture taken with everybody but by then the Locks had already left (I knew they were leaving early) and Steven and Amber were gone too, we were able to get a picture of Dan and me with Kahlan and then with my friend Tifanny though, that was nice.
My kids kind of ran to the primary since Tristan and Aaron had the scripture and prayer assigned today.

After pictures we ran to the primary so I could see Aaron and Tristan.  Aaron did great with the help of a sister and Tristan did awesome all by himself, I tried to help him but he told me he could do it...  and he did, he did not stumble one bit.  He is turning out to be a good reader :)
All in all we had a good day with good food and a long nap,  sadly Dan is now doing homework and don't know if we will see him tonight at all but all is good.

It's all about Victor

Since I have been posting lots about Kahlan I thought it would be nice to brag about my awesome son Victor too.  Beware lots of pictures coming your way.
Victor has been enjoying Scouts a lot and I have to admit that it's been fun for me too.  Since Dan is always working and barely has any time free to work with him on his projects I have been the one most of the time helping him with them.  I used to be in Scouts when I was little and loved it so this is kind of like second nature to me. We had the Pinewood Derby at the beginning of the year and the rest of the kids decided to join in the fun. We were new at the car building techniques and made quite a few trips to Hobby Lobby to get the supplies that we needed, I wanted to go by the book so it turned out more expensive than anticipated and then we discovered that you can pretty much use any kind of paint (which was the most expensive part).






His car is the black one in the #1 spot.

Victor had a cool design for his car, it was the Batmobile, Shayna came up with her own, Tristan wanted a pick up truck and Aaron just made a simple race car. 

The main thing for me was to let Victor do as much of the work as possible, knowing that he has a hard time at failing to do something right the first time I kept encouraging him to keep going no matter what, he learned to used several tools and actually did a good job shaping his car.  We ended up buying a couple of tools we did not own and then replace the one that broke while working on the project (yay for that). I love power tools even if they are the little ones.



The annoying part of the whole process was the actual painting of the cars, waiting in between coats drove the kids crazy since they wanted to finish the cars in one day.  Once they were all done painting them we had Dan help us out with the positioning of the wheels, it seemed very confusing to me but I think Dan did a very good job with that.  The day of the competition Victor was super excited and us parents were concern with the actual racing since Victor LOVES to be #1 all the time.  We explained to him several times that it did not matter if he didn't win (which was what we expected) the races but the most important thing was to participate and to see his car that he worked so hard to to compete.  He did great and we were so proud of him the entire time.  He was just thrilled to be part of the whole thing, he ended up in 4th place and he came running to us with a big happy face and said "I got 4th place!!!"  that just made my day.  The other kids had the chance to race too and had lots of fun, they all won a certificate but Victor got a certificate for having "The most futuristic car" in the competition.

Recently Victor accomplished all the requirements to get his Wolf Badge and was super excited about it.  He also earned like 6 belt loops, one gold arrow and 2 silver arrows.  He is as happy as can be and so proud of himself.  I did not take a pic of his birdhouse that he built but he did a good job on that.  They had the Blue and Gold banquet last week and he was asked to bring a cake decorated by him.  He came up with his own design and I helped him a little bit.  He made a cowboy and a couple of cactus out of fondant then he decorated the cake with grass and did the writing on the cake, I think he did great.
It makes me so happy to see his progress and the things he is learning and accomplishing.  He will soon be 9 years old and more exciting things will come his way, I am just so glad to be there to help him out.

Dan giving him his Wolf Badge