Home Sweet Home

Has it seemed a little quiet around here lately?  There's a good reason for that.  We've been on vacation!  Well, not all of us - Daddy stayed home while the kids, my mom, and I flew to Texas to visit my cousin and his family.  We missed Daddy an awful lot, but he wasn't alone for long!  While we were gone, his parents arrived to help out with a BIG project around here (which they are still working on).  I'll recap the project in a later post, but for now - vacation photos!  (And these are the ones from my mom's camera - thanks, Mom!!!)

Let me start by saying that it was HOT here before we left, and Texas had a break in the heat there just as we arrived - which made the temp the same as what we'd just left.  Thankful for that little break in their weather!  And, thankful for plenty of opportunities to go swimming!

We picked up a set of 'floaties' for Miss M before we left, knowing they would help her feel a bit more at ease in the water.  No worries, there were still plenty of adults keeping an eye on the kiddos!  She was soon swimming from one end of the pool to the other!

And this guy, who has made great strides in his swimming lessons at school, also showed off a new talent.  He's floating on his back!  That's Lily checking him out.  She's a funny dog - loves to catch a ball, but she can't quite make herself drop it back off in your hand or lap.  Instead, she enlists the help of Minnie.  Lily will drop it a few feet away, then Minnie will pick it up and bring it back for you to throw again.

We took a trip to the local Hong Kong Market (So cool!  Lots of interesting fruits and veggies!) to pick up some veggies and these guys for dinner (two crab and one lobster).  Miss M was not quite convinced that these could possibly be tasty.

My cousin's home is totally kid-friendly.  You already know about the pool and the dogs, but there were also plenty of TOYS!  Miss M got to play with the doll house and Polly Pockets that you see below, and also some teeny-tiny Polly Pockets (which the three kids eventually turned into a Polly-meets-Monopoly kind of game).

 And they had a few Legos, too....

We also did some touristy stuff while we were there.

The Beer Can House

My sweet kiddos

My favorite feature of the Beer Can House

 The Children's Museum

Also (no photos yet, but hopefully soon)...

NASA (Johnson Space Center) - it rained while we were there, for the first time in several months.

Kemah Boardwalk - dinner outdoors at The Flying Dutchman, which would not have been quite so nice without the rain earlier in the day to cool things off

Whole Foods - this might seem an odd stop, but it was a new store (and I loooove grocery stores!) so it even had some draw for the "locals."  Also, we got to see an electric car out front - plugged in for a charge!  Mister J was fascinated!

As if all of this wasn't exciting enough, guess who lost a tooth while we were there?  He was quite confident that the tooth fairy could find him all the way out in Texas.  Sure enough, there was a dollar under his pillow the next morning!

Please excuse that piece of gum in his mouth.  Gum has become quite the favorite around here lately.

As for me, I had time for some reading, some swimming, lots of visiting and laughing, lots of talk about food/cooking/the amazing grocery prices (noticeably less than here), and way too much eating!  My mom cooked some of her favorite recipes, we enjoyed my cousin's grilling and juicing (a-ma-zing), and had some fantastic meals out, too.  (Pappasita's is on my must-do list for our next visit!)

I'm sure I've left some things out, and I know I have more cute photos to post (which I may get around to - or not), but I have to say that I came home so relaxed!  We had a pretty much non-schedule kind of vacation (not the kind where you come home and need a vacation to get over your vacation) and it was wonderful!  The kids really missed Daddy early on - and I was really anxious to get home to him towards the end of our trip!  But I have to say, he looked really well-rested when we got home!