Justin's New Helicopter

Pico de Gallo (the 2nd)

Sadly, our fish Pico de Gallo passed away today. Our newest addition to the family is a fancier fish named Pico de Gallo the second. Welcome new Pico, may you live a long (longer than the last fish) life!

Sun, Fun & A New Pirate's Ship Wheel

Summer is in full swing down here in South Texas. Our A/C went out again a few days ago, we had to spend a day and night without A/C and it was a little warm in the house to say the least! But we lived through it again and it probably won't be the last time we'll go without A/C! Justin installed a pirate's ship wheel on Annabelle's swing set, she's been having a great time "sailing" her ship, if only the mosquitos weren't so bad in the yard! We got a new pool with a slide and Annabelle has been having a great time going down the slide just like on "wipeout". There are lots of little lizards in the yard this year, I took a couple pics of them, they are almost invisible when they are in the palm trees. Not much else new going on down here, just trying to stay cool and relax for a while before school starts again and busy schedules begin!

4th of July Weekend

We survived our first hurricane (Alex) down here in the Valley. Last week was very busy, we had to shovel our own sand bags, issued by the city and place them in front of our doors. We had to bring in ABSOLUTELY everything that was outside including all Annabelle's toys, our lawn furniture and plants. I had to make a mad dash to the HEB to get "hurricane supplies" including bottled water, canned meats and canned foods. I've never seen so many crazy people grabbing absolutely everything off the store shelves, it was worse than my experiences in Oklahoma when a blizzard is coming! UTPA closed their campus for 3 days so Justin was home most of last week. Thank goodness the hurricane passed us by uneventfully, with just lots of rain and a little wind. Hopefully the rest of the hurricane season will be the same! Luckily, the hurricane didn't ruin too much of our holiday weekend. We were invited to a July 4th celebration that was canceled because the area where we were all supposed to park was under water. So, we decided to go to the city parade. Annabelle really liked it, it was a little hot and sunny out but what can you expect, we're in the Tropics! We had a big BBQ with fajitas and lots of good food last night and one of Justin's good friends spent the evening with us. We were able to see some of the city fireworks from our backyard. It's been a nice relaxing weekend, I'm thankful we're not spending it cleaning up storm damage!

Cookie Seeds

Here's something funny Annabelle has been saying lately: A couple weeks ago I was making some cookies and Annabelle asked me if she could have some "cookie seeds", I asked her "what are cookie seeds?" She said "You know, you keep them in the freezer, in the yellow little bag, cookie seeds!"...I finally figured out she meant chocolate chips!

Finger painting

Annabelle loves doing arts & crafts projects so last week we decided to do some finger painting. It was fun for a little while but didn't seem to hold her interest long because she really doesn't like getting messy. Lately we've been going to special programs at the library and hanging out with some new friends we've made. We went to the IMAS (science and art museum) with our friends one day last week, Annabelle had a great time. I took Annabelle to her first movie, Toy Story 3, last week & she totally loved it. I bought her a small popcorn and sprite and she just sat in her chair enjoying the movie the whole time. I was so proud that she could sit through an entire movie! She definitely wants to go back and see another movie again!