Even though

Even though we didn't go on the cruise, we had a fun week having Iwalani, Bruce, and Grandma Nancy staying with us. I can't even say how much the boys enjoy having family around. They love all the extra attention. We didn't do a whole lot, it took us a couple of days just to catch up on sleep alone. We did see a couple of good movies though, Julie and Julia, the guys watched the newest Terminator, Harry Potter and the half blood prince, and we went to Planet 51 (which I was a little disappointed with). We also took everyone to the alamo and riverwalk. This was grandma Nancy's first trip to San Antonio, so it was fun to show her some of the sights. Here's a few pictures.

Cruise, what cruise?

So I should have been sitting on a beach in Mexico sipping on a bahama mama today, but instead I was napping and trying to recover from my 5 hour drive back to San Antonio last night (We pulled in at about 3:30 am). So what happened? Here's the story.

After Chad's work Christmas party (which was quite fun by the way, we rocked the night away listening to REO speedwagon live), we spent the night packing for the cruise. We had put it off until last minute and finished about at 3 in the morning. We then got a couple hours of sleep and were off by 9ish.

Once we got to the port we had to stand through a crazy line to get on the ship. We had loads of luggage and two crazy boys who were restless from a long drive. However, we finally got on and were able to get settled. All the craziness payed off when we were in our room and Devan said, "this was a wonderful day!"

Anyway, to get to the point of the story, the fog was horrible in Galveston so the port was closed. By the 2nd evening it was still not opened and we were told we would not be making our first stop because we still were unable to leave. We were given the option to leave that night by 11:00 pm and get full credit towards another cruise or to stay on the boat, but even if we weren't able to leave the port we would not be reimbursed for anything. We talked to the rest of the famliy and we were all in agreement that it would be best to take up the offer for a new cruise down the road.

So we all packed up and headed back to San Antonio. Chad still has the week off work and Iwalani, Bruoce, and Grandma Nancy were all able to make it down with us, so things ended up working out just fine. And now we get another cruise to look forward to!

A little drive

A couple weeks ago I took the boys on what I thought was going to be a little drive, but as I was driving I saw a sign for "Lake Medina" and thought we should go check it out. It was fun venturing out and finding something new. Once we got there I had no idea where to go or what to do, but it was a pretty drive out of the city. Here's a couple pictures from the trip.



I liked this one because you could see both the moon and sun.



I found these bottom two pictures interesting because I took them both on the same bridge. One side was bright and happy, and the other was dark and a little spooky looking.

Thought I better

Thought I better update our blog before we leave on the cruise. I have a feeling I'll have lots of pictures I'll want to be posting afterwards, and I just might not ever get back to posting our latest.

We got our poor little Charlie Brown tree up. I bought it last year for really cheap thinking I'd get a nicer one when they go on sale after Christmas and I never did. After Tristan and Devan pulled it down and made a mess of it this year, I'm thinking we might just have to stick with this one until they are a bit older. I figure if they ruin this tree I won't be to heart broken, but if I buy a $200 tree and they wreck it, I might be a little upset. We decorated it half way up because Tristan kept pulling off the ornaments and running off with them.

I took the boys to the park today and we had to bundle up because it was quite chilly. When we got home we made hot chocolate to warm up. After dinner Devan and I made gingerbread men and houses. I had never made them before and it was a lot of fun. Oh and parchment paper is a lifesaver for roll out cookies! Devan is so funny, he had ate way to many cookies, but still wanted more. I told him no, so he went up to Chad and said, "Dad, do you want to share with me? Would you LOVE to share with me?" The way he says it is so cute. How can you say no to that? Well, I guess we did say no, so it is possible, but it was tough! Oh and the gingerbread houses came from a halloween cookie cutter set from williams sonoma that I got for $1 (the set was originally $20!) They are actually haunted houses, but I thought they passed pretty good for gingerbrad houses. I'm hoping the Christmas cookie set goes on sale after the holidays :)

I almost forgot one last thing, the boys and I took all their old crayons, took the wrappers off, broke them up, put them in a silicone cupcake baking thing, and melted them down. Here's how they turned out.

Oh dear...

I just got back from a lunch with my visiting teaching group. The lady who held it has a room at the upstairs of her house filled with fun toys. She said it was child proof and they could just play up there while we visited. I took a look around to make sure there wasn't anything breakable and felt good about it, so I went downstairs to visit. Well, not to long after, Tristan came walking down the stairs with a sharpie marker in his hand, and his face was covered in marker. My stomach sank thinking the whole upstairs was probably covered in black. I went up to check the damage, and luckily it wasn't everywhere, but he did draw on her foosball table. I felt SOOOO bad! I've heard of kids doing this before, but somehow until now, it hadn't happened to me. I felt like such a bad mom and was so embarrassed, sigh*

2 things

1. Thanks for all the nice comments. I really enjoy taking pictures and your nice comments make me feel good.
2. I can't even remember what Devan and I were talking about at the time, but he used the phrase, "super dang cool" I thought it was pretty cute.