Happy Birthday Cody!!

It's hard to believe that our little Cody joined the family one year ago yesterday. It seems like only yesterday that Rachael woke me up at about 3 am and told me that her water broke (I honestly didn't believe her because we had been out dancing literally 2 or 3 hours before that to celebrate her dad's 50th birthday) and about 4 hours later, Cody was here. Since then he has grown into a happy, healthy little boy that has brought a lot of joy into our lives.

To celebrate his birthday, we went to the Grand Canyon! It is only about 4 hours from Las Vegas and Rachael had never been before so we decided to make a quick trip, leaving on Monday and returning yesterday. We all had fun playing in the snow (who knew the Grand Canyon was at like 6,500 feet!!) and admiring the beautiful scenery that surrounded us. We eventually made it home yesterday evening and had cake and ice cream, which Cody enjoyed.

Christmas in Vegas

We did Christmas in Vegas this year with my family, so we've been hanging out in the desert for the last week or so. Actually, we were supposed to be here last year, but Rachael was 8.9 months pregnant and the doctors frowned upon the idea of us traveling when we were so close to our due date. It has been a lot of fun thus far. Both my brother and sister and their families were here as well as my grandmother and uncle, so we had a full house for a few days. Connor is old enough now that he is starting to understand that Christmas time means opening lots of presents, so we had to constantly guard the chrstimas tree lest a brightly wrapped box became the casualty his eagerness. Cody was just happy to chew on the discarded paper! As you can see, Connor's favorite gift was the pirate set, complete with eye patch, so he was running around saying Argg and challenging everyone with his sword.

In Texas??

This has been a crazy year for Texas weather. We had the hurricane in September, then late last week, we had this! I don't know about the rest of the city, or even the rest of the family, but I was excited. I love the snow and, to me at least, it never really seems like Christmas without it. Unfortunately, the snow melted the next day, but it has been foggy, windy, and cold (well cold for Texas) this whole week and I've heard rumors that we might get some more. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Long Overdue...

Wow, it has been way too long since I wrote anything. Top ten things we've done this past month:

1. Connor turned 3, had a small get together and took him golfing

2. Nutcracker Market with my Mom, shopping galore and tasting good treats

3. Saw the Twilight Movie with a bunch of girls from my ward, liked it.. not loved it, would see it again. Need to finish reading the partial draft of Midnight Sun.

4. Took family pictures and LOVE them, thanks Kelsey!!

5. Thanksgiving with my family, brothers in town, trip to the Houston temple, lots of golf, football and food.

6. Our 6th year Anniversary was November 30 and Tyler surprised me with a trip to San Antonio. We had Mexican food at Mi Tierra, listened to a piano dual where I told the waitress I wanted water and she said "Oh, whiskey and water?", went Country dancing, walked along the Riverwalk, shopped at the Outlet Malls in San Marcos, ate at Heinze's BBQ, and enjoyed having no kids for a day. Thanks Mom for watching the boys for me. Thanks Tyler for planning a great rendevous and for taking me dancing :) I have such a great husband and I'm so lucky to have him.

7. Went to the Nativity Exhibit at our church.

8. Basically finished my Christmas shopping at Shanta's house :)

9. Tyler lost his last softball game, but we're not too sad b/c the season was suppose to be over Oct 24.

10. Put up all our Christmas decorations and got our Christmas Tree. Yeah for the holidays! Did I mention that my Christmas cards are ready to be put in the mail tomorrow? December is always busy, but you have to be on top of things. Now I just need to get through the Ward Christmas Party this Saturday :)

Check out our family pictures... the boys did so good and you can't even tell that Connor has a black eye. Thank goodness for cover up!

Boating in November

Believe it or not, we did go boating the 1st day of November in Lake Houston and it was a blast. The water was chili and we didn't come across any snakes or alligators. Cody could barely move in the lifejacket, but he slept most of the time. Connor loved riding in the boat and would say "Daddy, you fell off". We both water skiied and after many attempts Tyler finally got the hang of it. I guess we need to go boating more often.

Halloween!

What a fun holiday! We love getting dressed up and eating candy. Connor doesn't know that I sneak the good chocolate from his trick or treat stash. Tyler and I are the Activities Chairmen in our ward and we helped throw a GREAT party. With a spider web ceiling, homemade rootbeer, fog machine, lots of booths to check out and a trunk or treat, no wonder so many people came. Our X-Men family costumes were a hit too, Tyler really is a good Wolverine. I'm Storm in case anyone was wondering. We missed Cyclopes and Rogue from our original cast :)

B-Y-ZOO

So every two years, BYU comes to play its inter-conference rival, TCU, here in Texas. As both Rachael and I are BYU grads, and we both loved going to the games in Provo, we were not going to miss the opportunity to watch our team play when the game was only 3 hours away in Ft. Worth. So we found a few friends that wanted to go, we all loaded up our kids, and we made the short trip to watch the #8 ranked Cougars take on the Horned Frogs. We had a great time too. The weather was beautiful (in the mid 60's), we had a great time with our friends and even saw some friends from Provo that we hadn't seen or spoken with in a couple of years, and just enjoyed being in a college atmosphere again. The only thing that would have made the night complete was if BYU had won the game! For those of you that weren't paying attention, the Cougs got a good Texas whoopin', losing 32-7. But it was fun regardless.

As the game was an evening game, we spent the night in Ft. Worth and on Friday we went to the Ft. Worth Zoo, which is actually one of the best zoos in the country. It was a lot of fun, especially with Connor. He loves animals and was literally running from one exhibit to another. Connor really wanted to see the hippos, so we went and...they were asleep in the water and you couldn't really see much. My favorite part however was in the eagle pen. At one point as we were all walking underneath the chicken wire enclosure, this huge eagle soared down from its perch and landed right above us. With it's wings spread wide and while staring down directly at us, it let out a loud scream. It was really neat, but I actually think it was trying to get to Cody and the other little kids because it kept following us!