Videos

This video is funny.  Excuse the bad picture - I was focusing on driving so I didn't check to see where the camera was pointed.  I did a pretty good job of capturing Miss Chatterbox in action.  From gardens, to houses, to yollipops, and driving instructions, she covers it all.

Drake and his balloon.  

Chatterbox

Reese continues to crack me up on a daily basis.  She loves to point out every single red light, green light or yellow light when we are driving.  When Jill was visiting, she learned to sing about the color of the lights.  It sounds something like this - "Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeed liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight means stooooooooooooooooooooop.  Mommy stoooooooooooooooooop.  Green arroooooooooooooooooow.  GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Mommy, GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" This morning, we were driving to Kids Club and I was waiting to make a left turn across two lanes of traffic.   "Mommy, the light is green.  You need to go!"  "Yes, it is green, but I'm waiting on the cars on the other side of the road."  "But green means GO!"  "Well, I think I'm going to have to wait for a green arrow before I go."  "SIGH!!!!!!!!"   Later today, I was making a right turn at a red light.  "MOMMY, NOOOO!!  Red means stop!!"  I love having a new backseat driver.  At least she tells me to go fast instead of slow down!

Reese has a little virus.  She started with a runny nose yesterday and was coughing in her sleep last night.  At lunch today, she asked me to go to bed.  This coming from the girl who hasn't napped in 6 months.  I put her down at noon and had to wake her up at 3:30.  She has a low grade fever but seems to be feeling a little better after a good rest.  Drake woke up with a runny nose today so I'm guessing he will be feeling bad tomorrow if he follows in her footsteps.  Oh, one more thing about Reese.  As I'm sitting in bed typing this, I hear her coughing on the monitor.  I grabbed some water to take upstairs.  As soon as I opened her door, she popped up and said, "Thank you, Mommy.  Now go back to your bed."  I said, "But I just wanted to check on you because you're  coughing."  "Yeah, but it's dark outside so you have to go to your bed."  Alrighty, then!

Stella isn't feeling great, either.  Her meds are making her a bit irritable.  She is also very hyperactive.  She's had two rough nights since we started the steroids a week ago, but even those nights weren't terrible.  She had 2 or 3 wake-ups each night.  Hopefully, that's the worst of her symptoms.

So we are just trying to get healthy over here.  Fingers crossed this little virus is short lived.

catching up

I know, I know, I'm SO behind on blog posts.  Let's do a  quick catch-up.  Spain was awesome and I still need to sort through my pictures and post them.  A few days after we got home, Mom and Dad came in town.  It was the week of Georgetown convention so Mom watched the kids so I could attend some meetings in peace.  Glorious!  Reese and Drake made it to a few meetings, too.  As always, I had a honey-do list for Dad to keep him busy.  Here are his little helpers.

Taking a break after the hard work of playing with Grandpa's flashlight.

Stella relaxing with Grandma.

After my parents left, Michelle Erard and sweet Maggie came for a visit.  Reese loved playing with her, though she couldn't figure out if she was a boy or a girl.  "He a girl or he a boy?"  Guess that bald head had her confused, which is pretty ironic since she was a baldie too.  Michelle commented that she thinks Maggie looks like Reese did when she was a baby - both have porcelain skin, blue eyes and bald heads.  Maggie has some eyelashes that go on for miles.  She's a pretty little thing, and super petite!!

So Reese is obsessed with Christmas and Santa.  Seriously, OBSESSED!  Which is funny, because it's not something we talk about.  But she's learned a few songs about Santa from her nursery rhymes DVD and now she can't stop talking about him.  It doesn't help that we see him everywhere we go.  We went to Lowe's this week and Santa had his sleigh parked out front.  Reese walked over and had a conversation with him.  People were stopping and listening to her talk to him, it was so funny.  Wish I had it on video.  The conversation went something like this - "Hi Santa.  I Reese.  I 3 years cold.  And Santa is working.  And Santa is Christmas.  And I like Elsa.  And Santa bring me the Elsa doll.  And Santa is far, far away.  And I cannot drive to him.  Cuz Santa is far, far away.  OK?  Hi Santa.  I Reese.  And Mama and Drake.  And we shopping.  And Santa is working."  It went on and on.

After our trip to Lowes, we headed to the playground.

And here are some random pictures of my sweeties.  I think I've mentioned Reese's new friend in our Sunday morning meeting, Giada.  She asks me to do her hair like Giada every Sunday.

Drake sorting hair bows.

Stella playing the piano with her toes.

Stella can draw an awesome pig.

Here is one she drew on the Magna-Doodle.

She loves heights.

Videos!!!!

Reese loves to climb trees.

I've got some excellent cleaners:)

Stella is doing a mash-up of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Five Little Ducks."  

Jill sent this video of Drake "accidentally" dropping his apple.  "UH-OH!!!"

I don't remember if I shared my headbangers video.

All for now!!!  Looking forward to a gorgeous weekend filled with yard work:)

Spain - Part dos

Sunday - We slept in Sunday morning since we are still having trouble adjusting to the time difference.  Then we headed to a shopping mall situated on a harbor.  We bought some cute clothes for the kids and ate lunch overlooking the water.  Then we headed back to the hotel to relax on the roof-top terrace of our hotel.  For dinner, we decided to eat at the sister restaurant of an earlier favorite.  We weren't disappointed.  We sat at the seafood bar and picked our octopus, cockles, clams, shrimp, etc.  It was delicious!  On the way home, we walked past the Gaudi house (Antoni Gaudi is a famous Catalan architect) and decided to take a tour.  It was incredible!  Very whimsical and colorful, and I would never guess it was built in the late 1800's.

Monday - Up early to catch a train to Madrid.  We met Jake and Dana for lunch and tried a French restaurant for a change of pace.  Good move!!!  We enjoyed some amazing salads and some truffle oil ravioli.  Then the shopping began.  We basically shopped 'til we dropped this day.  We continued our date with Jake and Dana at dinner and had what might have been our best meal of the trip.  (Think the restaurant was Spanish for 5 Acorns.)  We had 3 different soups that were all divine (onion soup, a garlic soup, and a garbonzo bean soup), more Iberico ham, mushrooms, cheese, the list goes on and on.

Tuesday - Slept in, then enjoyed another shopping day.  Wes bought a beautiful suit and a sports coat from an Italian men's shop.  He had a blast joking with his tailor, Fabio.  And Fabio definitely enjoyed playing dress up.  For dinner, we took the recommendation of our concierge and headed to Alabaster.  More delicious food.  MUST.  STOP. EATING!!!!!!!

Wednesday - Relaxing day, met up with Jake and Dana again.  This tired lady went to bed early in preparation for our 7:00 am flight.  Thursday morning, our flight left at 7:00 am so we were up super early.  This time, we flew to London, before catching our connecting flight to Austin.  And of course, we can't manage a flight without some drama.  Ten minutes after taking off from London, the pilot came over the intercom.  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  You may have noticed a loud noise if you were sitting in the rear of the aircraft.  During our ascent, our aircraft was struck by lightning.  This is actually quite common, and it will probably just leave a mark on the paint.  So no problems and we will continue our flight."  There was a collective gasp the second he said "struck by lightning."  Glad I didn't hear that noise or see that flash of light.  Ten hours later, and we were on the ground.  It was 4:00 pm so we were excited to hurry home and see the kiddos before bedtime.  And boy, were they excited to see us!!!!!!  Reese was cheering, "Our family, our whole family!!!!" while they tackled us and gave hugs and kisses.

Our trip was absolutely amazing and the best part was knowing our kids were doing great so we could relax and enjoy ourselves.  Thanks again to Lynda, Steve, Jill and KK for making this possible. Hopefully, tomorrow I can post some pictures of the trip.

Welcome to Barcelona

Wednesday/Thursday


We boarded our flight at 5:30 pm, pulled away from the gate at 6:00 pm and returned to the gate at 6:01 pm.  Engine trouble.  Yeesh!!!!  We are having some serious bad luck with international travel.  (Remember that flight to Cabo where they evacuated the airport?)  Not cool.  So after sitting at the gate for 30 minutes, they asked us to grab our luggage and get off the plane.  There was chatter about fixing the problem or getting a new plane and 4 hours later, they announced the plane had been repaired and it was time to re-board.  So we re-boarded the plane and sat at the gate for 40 minutes.  Finally, they announced we were ready for push-back.  Kinda makes you a little nervous, flying on a plane that has just been repaired.  But 7 hours later, we landed safely in Barcelona.  And we were TIRED!!!  I took a sleeping pill on the plane and still couldn't sleep.  I just tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable position to take a nap.  We grabbed a cab, went straight to our hotel, and took a nap before we were supposed to meet up with Wes's coworkers at 5:00 pm.  Oh, how I wanted to keep on sleeping. But I'm glad we rallied and made it out....we took a wonderful sunset cruise, which eventually took us to the W hotel for dinner.  The weather here is PERFECT!  High of 75, low of 65 so it's great to be able to sit outside for our meals and enjoy the view.  There were approximately 50 people on the company trip, with folks coming from the UK, Germany, France, Holland and the US.  Everyone was super friendly and there were quite a few jokesters in the group, which made the evening quite entertaining.   After a loooooong night, we fell into bed knowing that we wouldn't make the 9:00 am bus tour.  It was time for us to catch up on some sleep.

Friday

We slept until 11:00 am but still felt quite jet-lagged.  The bus tour was meeting at a local tapas place for lunch so we headed that direction.  Most people were very tired from the night before or from jet lag so it was a quiet lunch. We enjoyed standard Spanish tapas, including goat cheese, green peppers and shrimp.  The we walked around the shops lining narrow cobblestone streets.  We ran across a Picasso museum and took an audio tour.  It was fascinating!!  I had no idea that Picasso was a child prodigy and did some of his finest work at the age of 13.  Imagine seeing a canvas, ten feet tall and 8 feet wide with 3 people painted in amazing detail and almost perfectly to scale.  And to complete that work by 13 years old?!?  Wow!  After our tour, we were feeling tired again so we took a quick nap before meeting downstairs for our next scheduled event.  Three pink limos were waiting outside the hotel to take us to dinner.  We headed to a ship that had been converted to a restaurant on the shore.  The had a cocktail hour first, while a saxophone player played and appetizers were served.  Then we headed inside for an amazing 6 course meal:  clams, mussels, steak tartare, fish, potatoes, and tiramisu for dessert.  There was also a flamenco performance with live music that words cannot describe.  The singers voice, the young man on the guitar, the dancers.....breathtaking!  After dinner, the CEO of the company congratulated everyone and announced if they reached their quota next year, he would see us in Jamaica!!  No pressure, Wesley:)   They did an amazing job of organizing a fantastic weekend in Barcelona while highlighting all the local traditions.

Saturday

We slept in again, switched hotels and then met Sean and Becca Hennigan to walk around town.  We went to La Boqueria, a large outdoor market with everything from meats and cheeses, fruits and vegetables, and every sea creature you can imagine.  It was beautiful!  We grabbed a spot at a booth inside the market and enjoyed a phenomenal lunch - more tapas.  The proscuitto, mushrooms and manchego cheese were the highlight of this meal.  Then we found a spot outside and enjoyed some sangria, people watching and excellent weather.  We ordered more food (when in Rome) trying some paella this time.  I wish I had my FitBit on as we walked around.  It felt like we walked ten miles.   Back to the hotel, a quick shower, then we headed out to meet Mike and Jessica, another couple on the company trip.  Several people had recommended ________________, another tapas restaurant nearby.  Judging by the line out the door, everyone heard the same thing we did.  Even though we waited for almost 2 hours, the meal didn't disappoint.  We picked about ten different tapas plates and they were all SO GOOD that we asked our waitress to repeat the same ten courses when we found ourselves still hungry.  We were SO FULL, I wanted someone to roll me home.  I'm not used to starting dinner at 10:00 pm and finishing around midnight but we are settling into this routine.  Thank goodness we can sleep in each morning to prepare for our late nights.

We are receiving daily updates from the home front and things are going well.  The kids are sleeping great, which is always my biggest concern.  I think Stella had one rough night, but that's because she developed a rash on her eyes.  Lynda took her to the doctor and they think it's allergies.  We talked to KK today and she says it gets better each day.  The weather is great at home so they are enjoying playing outside for the first time in a few months.  KK said Drake misses Dada and the girls are asking for Mama.  I miss them but I've got lots of kiddie pictures on my phone to ease my mind.  And KK sends me pictures daily so I know what they are up to, which is nice.

That's all for today.  Maybe I can upload some pictures on my next post.

SPAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wes and I are sitting on a plane bound for New York.  Then it’s across the pond to Barcelona.  We are super excited for our vacation and thankful to all our helpers at home for making this possible.  (Thank you Lynda, Steve, KK and Jill!!!!!!!)   I left a small novel (with photographs) detailing the ins and outs of our daily routine.   My OCD has been on over-drive as I prepared for this trip.  Time to turn it off and RELAX!!!!  I’m sure I’ll have access to wifi so I plan on updating the blog frequently to share our travels. 

XOXO!!!