Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

Our first family vacation to New Orleans was a HUGE hit.  First we have the pets.  Pets that tolerated, played and I might go as far as to say enjoyed being around the girls. 

 If Ella could have a cat, this would be the one.  White, fluffy and she was super playful.  Here the girls are "cat fishing".

The star of this picture is supposed to be Hannah, but it is a super cute pic of everyone.  A fun post parade family pic!

 We went to the New Orleans aquarium and it is certainly one of the best.  An extra treat was the parakeet exhibit - a room full of parakeets that liked to eat off of food sticks you could buy.

We saw fish and sharks and even got to pet baby stingrays (they were slimy). We saw a super huge sea turtle, frogs, a sea otter, crawfish, shrimp, a white alligator, eel, penguins, birds and a whole lot more. 

After walking around the French Quarter and looking at art and listening to music in Jackson Square, we enjoyed a tasty meal at Acme Oyster House.  The girls even tolerated the long wait to get a table.  Yummy, yummy food!

And then there was the St. Patty's day parade on Sunday.  Wow, it was hard to believe we were at the small Metairie parade.  51 floats later we had a ridiculous amount of beads, stuffed animals, cabbage and other stew veggies (totally random twist for a St. Patty's Day parade), we had garters that ended up as headbands on the children (and Dave at one point), various sword type objects, a mermaid toy, other random food and snacks.  We may never be able to go back to Mardi Gras at the beach house...

 Ella started off on Michael's shoulders standing kind of in the back, not really wanting to participate much.  But once she got warmed up, she was in it 110%.  Uncle Dave put her on his shoulders once the big floats came to help catch the good stuff.  Like the big green toothbrush she is holding in this pic - just what we needed.  

 Here are both of the girls with hands in the air.  Notice Addy's head gear and Ella's wings and stuffed animal.  We did not bring any of this from home.  Seriously towards the end they would get beads and just drop them on the ground.  We had so much stuff, if it wasn't a huge stuffed animal or something unique it wasn't worthy!

 I like this pic of the parade mayhem, stuff all over the ground.  It was just incredible.

Fun times!!

The Great Remodel of 2013

Bit belated, but finally some before and after shots of the big remodel from last year.  Hopefully the last big remodel we have to live through!  I tried to take the pics in basically the same spot, although sometimes it might be hard to tell since there are walls missing in the after shots. 

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Livestock Show 2014

 Ella's first rodeo carnival ride!

 Fun on the Farm with the goats

 Addy found a new very soft fluffy friend at the petting zoo.

Standing and smiling with Ms. Moo all by herself this year!

Go Texan Day

Such a fun time to live in Houston!  We had a Go Texan filled morning with a pony ride for Ella at her school and then we found the trail riders and we followed them through the neighborhood and they led us to Kolter and we got to see Addison.

 Here is Ella and some of her cowgirl friends at school, ready to ride the ponies!

Very excited cowgirl Ella who woke up early this morning, carrying around her stuffed pony here at home. 

Happy Birthday!

Fun times celebrating Grandma and Granddad's birthday!

Vegas!

The girls got to vacation at Granddad and Meme's and Michael and I got to vacation in Vegas.  Our trip can be summed pretty easily - eating, drinking, sleeping, Pawn Stars and Britney!

Kolter Rocks

The theme of this year's spring fundraiser was "Kolter Rocks" and the girls got some rocker girl hair coloring to go with the theme.  There were major objections to hair washing once this was in, so we let it ride for a couple of days and then there was mandatory washing.  Fortunately for the girls, their light hair ended up tinted a bit pink for a few more days.

Artic Winter of 2014

It has been COLD this winter.  We've had two ice and snow days when school closed, yet there was minimal ice and snow.  In the city at least, maybe one pro to living in the burbs is a greater chance of frozen precipitation.  Whole bunch of hoopla and this is all we got at our house

 

Our science experiment was a success, the water froze into a block of ice and our marbles were trapped.  

Icicles were exciting for a minute or two.  Not really all that impressive, yet not something that happens regularly here!

Newest Addition to the Family

Introducing the newest addition to our family that we have high hopes for...it is the first addition in a long time that should result in a cleaner, not dirtier house!  Our new Roomba robot vacuum.  It spent an hour and 15 minutes cleaning this morning, going under furniture and cleaning parts of the floor that would never see a cleaning from me, unless we were moving the furniture.  It found a ballet slipper under a cabinet that we never would have found ourselves. 

I am excited that it is helping pick up dust and pet hair, but the biggest + to this thing is that we have told the kids that anything Roomba picks up will get thrown away, so if something is special, it better not be on the floor.  Not sure Ella cares so much, but Addy took this to heart.  We didn't clarify that it would only be cleaning the hardwood floor part of the house, so she disappeared in her room and a bit later I walked in to see this...

She was afraid the vacuum would get into to her pile of junk art supplies and crafts so she barricade it in a corner.  Now that she knows it isn't going into her room, I'm sure this stuff will be all spread out on her floor again in no time, but I am going to enjoy it while I can!

Happy New Year

We concluded 2013 with another family New Year's Eve celebration at the beach.  Was a bit chilly, but fun. 

Since it was cold, there was a lot of playing around in the house.  Girls got a bit goofy and Ella put a pull-up on her head.  She didn't realize I was taking a picture here...she is definitely our little entertainer!

We did venture down to the water to let Star run around and we did some running around ourselves.   Actually got them to pause for a second for a picture. 

Ella didn't even venture outside once the fireworks started...this is her firework watching spot in the house. 

Addy and Michael and their ammo.  Things were a bit slow at the fireworks stand so the lady hooked them up with some extra free stuff - lots of noise and lights.  

Zoo Lights

Zoo marketing definitely worked this year and we made the venture to Zoo Lights.  The marketing worked on the rest of Houston too because it was crazy crowded, we even went on a Sunday night, after Christmas, thinking the hype would have died down.  We also seemed to pick the prime arrival time so we spent some quality time finding a parking spot, but it was fun once we got in.  LOTS of lights!!

Berhow Visit

Rewind yet again to Thanksgiving week - we were excited to have the whole Berhow clan in town this year.  The girls had fun hanging out with Heidi and it was nice to catchup with Susan and Jon.  Stories from the farm will never cease to be entertaining for us city folk!  We made a trip to the zoo so that Addison and Ella could show Heidi some big animals.  Who would have guessed that Manhattan, Kansas had a zoo, but it isn't quite the size and scale of the Houston Zoo.

Here is a cute pic of the cousins.  We took probably 50 more, but this one is the only one where they are remotely close to all looking at the camera.