Mexico

We have had a busy little week with parks and playgroups and having fun. Monday alone we went to the gym, grocery store, to the park with MOPS, and then to the Children's Museum. Reese has quite the social calendar (of course driven by his mother who doesn't like to stay home too much). He is constantly saying "Austins house" since we have been there twice this week- (Ang- he actually cried it all the way home from church today). Most importantly he made it through the bday party at Ben and Jerry's with no allergic reactions- yeah!!! I have spent the last two nights volunteering at the Daddy Daughter Dance at the Children's Museum so he has had some good time with Daddy.

Finally about the trip to Mexico. I have the most amazing in laws who understand the need for a couple to get away and are so happy to watch Reese so that we can. I had decided we would stay local and go to the Hyatt Lost Pines and they actually encouraged us to have a real getaway and go to Mexico like we had been talking. Rusty was very non committal on planning the trip - my final suggestions were Cabo, Playa Del Carmen, Cayman Islands and Costa Rica. Rusty said Cabo since it was a fishing town- go figure.

We stayed at the Hilton and had a fantastic stay. We had a great suite and fantastic service. We had VIP treatment- starting with them checking us in, in our room rather than at the check in desk. While at the pool we had free 5 minute neck massages, free popsicles and a guy who came around and cleaned your sunglasses. It was a slow week at the hotel so we had people asking us how they could help right and left. We met 2 pilots who flew for a billionaire who were there 2 weeks before when it was packed. Listening to their stories made me so happy that we waited until school was back in and for a less busy time.

We went into the town of Cabo San Lucas one afternoon and evening. We took a boat ride out to the point and had a great lobster dinner. Rusty wanted to see the nightlife I had always told him about so we went to El Squid Roe. We walk in and its calm and everyone was eating dinner- we were there way too early. It started to pick up by the time we left at 9:30 but it was definitely not the young wild crowd that was there when I was there several years ago. I had been to Cabo with my cousins several years ago and was amazed how much it had changed-it has really grown.

We are people who hardly ever stay at our hotel and are always gone all day exploring the city/island where we are. Not this time. Except for the one trip into town we just hung out at the resort and had a blast. Rusty even stayed a whole day at the pool- shocking for him. I went to the spa, we slept alot, ate alot, and did a lost of star and ocean gazing. We went for daily walks on the beach after our daily breakfast buffet. Rusty really wants to go back and go fishing and I am sure will be scouting out a partner to do that in a few years.

I cant put into words how fantastic the trip was. It was just what I needed after a busy stressful year end at work. We went in January for 4 days and 3 nights- from Sat to Tues. The only bad thing about the trip was that I got sick on the flight from here to Houston- but I was not alone- everyone on the bus was talking about how rough of a ride it was. Luckily it only lasts 30 min.

Everyone knows what a traveler I am and I have the travel bug again - so it will be Disney World in March and NYC in April.

View from our room

Rusty thought all these beds by the pool were hysterical

Catch Up

Time passes before my eyes before I realize how long its been since I blogged and then I have friends who remind me. I am glad to know I have friends who do read and keep up with our life. Thanks Courtney for this months reminder. I have hardly been blogging or on facebook lately-I think when you are on the computer all day for a living that getting back on at night is almost torture. After all- I did finally send out 2 months worth of pictures of Reese this week so I feel atleast a little since of accomplishment.

I have been terribly sick with a massive cold all week and on top of it I must have pulled a muscle from coughing so hard. Rusty assures me every day that I didn't break a rib and puncture my lung as I feel I have. It has been very painful and it takes everything in me to lift Reese into the high chair or car seat. I am finally feeling like it might be getting better and I might actually be able to have a real cough without holding my side in gripping pain so that I can get over this cold!

Yesterday I went my my mom, Reese and my cousins out to my brothers house. We drove around the back part of their neighborhood to see the 42 houses that were condemned from the hurricane and it was surreal- some houses were just slabs, some you could see straight through and some were being remodeled. I could even see the clothes hanging in the closet in one house. All 4 of the cousins played in the yard at their house and had a great afternoon. I will post some pictures once I download them. Oh I should mention while I was on my day trip, Rusty was on one of his own. He was working the parking for the monster truck show at Reliant. PV ROTC got the money from working the parking as a fundraiser. I just think its funny that out of all of the events at the stadium that PV gets the monster truck show.

On a Reese note he is talking more all the time. I really think he was singing happy birthday in the car the other day. He is obsessed with chapstick and today he even said - "help mommy" to get it open. I also love when he says "hug mommy". He still wakes up and the first word out of his mouth is "Daddy" (and then I proceed to tell him daddy and truck are at work or daddy is asleep) and that his vocabulary has expanded past truck and boat. I think Rusty is thrilled to not hear those 2 words 10000 times a day.

An area everyone can be praying about is for daycare. Reese's MDO is going full time so I have to look at other options. This has been keeping me awake at night as I find new places to put him on the waitlist and try to decide if I work 3,4,5 days depending on where I put him- and possibly even putting him at 2 different places.

I am trying to not have such long posts so tomorrow I will work on posting pictures from Mexico.

New Years

It has been nice to have a somewhat slow week after last week. Reese did great in the car to and from Oklahoma and was pretty good- most of the time we were there. He decided while there that he would have his first no nap day- what a nightmare. Since we got home, we have been taking his pacifier away this week and it has been rough at nap time but I think in Oklahoma it was just that he wanted to party. We travelled in groups of 20 pretty much everywhere we went there. It was good to see our family and to get to visit.

I took Reese to the indoor bounce house for the first time today and he loved it. He has no fear and loved going through the maze, up the tall ladder and down the huge slide. That's my little climber. I am grateful for the recent weather because he has been able to play outside with his new toys and continue to show me that he is all boy.

Christmas and his bday went really well. His party went really well- just the right number of adults and kids. Its too bad it was 40 degrees since I had a bounce house (and 70 degrees 2 days before and after) but everyone still had a good time. His Christmas can pretty much be summed up in the word tractor. He got a john deer lawnmower he calls tractor as well as a tractor book, toy tractor, dump truck and a John Deere Gator. My sister gave us the gator (yeah for being the last of 4 boys in the family) and it doesn't have a battery so I feel ok with him playing in it. Problem is my nephew Conner got one with a battery a few days before for Christmas so now Reese is asking why his doesn't go and where is the key:) We will eventually buy a battery for it, but for now I am happy he cant drive it.

Reese is starting to talk up a storm and really but recognizable sentences together.

Rusty has been busy fishing with all of this time off. I think he is working like 4 days in a month- nice! He is off for the weekend hunting with my family. Its been a hard month for him:)

My mom came up yesterday to show us her new car and spend New Years together. I think this is our 3rd or 4th New Years to spend at the local Cotton Patch (so that we can eat our black eyed peas). For New Years Eve I went to our friends house to celebrate with our bible study group and then spend the night and New Years day watching my job run for work- gotta love 1/1 in the pension world. We successfully processed about 32,000 accounts and I am glad to have that over with.

Rusty has finally broken down and bought a new computer so I will be posting new pictures as soon as it arrives. It takes forever to do anything on the current one and I was pretty close to throwing it in the trash the other day!

Holiday Fun

So I have been hearing from you how long its been since I blogged and I couldn't believe it- Oct. I guess that's what happens when its year end and you are in the pension world! Just 2 more days and life will be good again. Whats so hard is this is my super busy season (50 hrs last week and I am scheduled for 24!) and Rusty is working 2 days in the next 2 weeks. Must be nice to be on an academic calendar!

The big news in our world is that after much talk and back and forth we are going on a vacation. I booked it this week so its for sure now. We will spend 4 days in Cabo San Lucas. We threw alot of ideas around but that's the one that seems to have stuck.

We are getting ready for a busy holiday season.
Sat we have family at our house for Christmas with Dad
Sunday we are off to celebrate with the Clarks
Monday we have Reese's bday party and Rusty is off to fish with Brad for 2 days
Wednesday we are off to Christmas with Mom
Thursday we are celebrating Santa and Reese's bday with my Mom and the Clarks
Friday Reese and I are headed out with my mom and sister to Oklahoma to visit family
We of course said as we do every year that we wont tour Texas during the holiday and of course we are! Now if I could just get some time to get a few toys for Reese

Reese is talking more and more everyday. Its often a challenge to understand what he is saying but "boat" ,"truck", "milk" and "juice" are by far the most frequent. He loves to look at Bass Pro catalogs and anything that involves the boat. He adores his father and all the cool toys he has:)

We are doing well and loving life more everyday.

Update

I cant believe how long it has been since I last blogged. It has been a busy month visiting friends and family. We have made several trips out of town and even a day at the farm.

I have been down with shingles for the past week. I almost feel like when I had mono- where you cant even move. I have been so lucky though that my in laws and my father were able to come and help out a few days. I did make it to Micah's baptism, but otherwise I was pretty much in bed for 4 days.

Reese is so unbelievably perfect for his grandparents- go figure. He is acting more like a 2 year old every day with his stubbornness and tantrums but we are making it just fine. He amazes me more every day. He is talking more and more and is my little buddy. His favorite words are boat and daddy of course. He talks non stop about the boat all day. He only wishes it was uncovered so it would be his own personal playground.

I will post more pictures soon.

Catch Up

Dressed up for church. Taking advantage of my ability to dress him cute until he is 2!

I love the way they are looking at each other. Good cousins!

I apologize that its been 2 weeks since the last posting. I will follow up from the prior posting and say that as hard as it is to mentally keep Reese up later, I have been doing that and he is back to a 2-3 hr nap. Who knew 12:30 vs 1:00 would make so much difference.

The highlight of my week was the return of Friday Night Lights. I was a bit disappointed in the episode, but so happy to have my favorite show back.

Last week Rusty was in Virginia all week for training. I was so lucky that it was coincidental that was the week my friend Stephanie was coming for a visit. She stayed for 3 days and then my dad made an impromptu stop on Thursday. On Friday night I went to a Junior League preview party at a local jewelry store with Amy and Angela. I didn't think it would be as much fun as it was. It was fun to dress up and go out for an adults only night. It took me a while but eventually I did get into the spirit of trying on $12,000 necklaces like it was no big deal. I think the best moment was the 40+ caret blue topaz ring that Amy tried on. I cant imagine who can wear a ring that big. The week flew by. Rusty returned home in the middle of the night on Friday. Sunday he spent the day at the lake, but Saturday he played with Reese all day and we had a great family day. I also had a chance to relax a bit and let the daddy son bonding occur around the boat outside.

Reese is OBSESSED with the boat. We nearly couldn't get him out the door to go to church on Sunday with it parked in the driveway. When we went outside he just stood on the slab screaming for the boat. It gets better because he saw a boat in someone elses driveway the other day and cried all the way home. I think he might be a boater one day- what do you think? We met my brother down at Bass Pro a few weeks ago and I think he was a little shocked how Reese got in the boat and acted like he knew what he was doing- opening compartments and all.

On a side note regarding my brother. After living with each sets of parents they did return home about a week and a half after the storm. A tree fell on the house but didn't cause major damage. They were very lucky because they had to condemn 43 houses in their neighborhood. I am very lucky that no one in my family had major damage- not to say that I don't have friends who do.

This past week has been a whirlwind. We have gone to the Children's Museum, played outside every day and had 2 dinner parties. Reese is such a good little boy and he is doing very well with his manners and learning to put things back where they go. It amazes me everyday how much he can do and how much he understands what I say. He doesn't speak a lot (at least that I can understand) but his favorite phrase right now is saying stuck. "I'm Stuck" is a common term in the house referring to him, food, toys etc that he cant get.

Reese and I are headed to the outlet mall on Monday and then on to see Grandma and Grandpa for a few days.

Why no nap?

I promise to post pictures very soon.

We have had another busy week. I was one of the few people who could actually work at my job last week so I was super stressed and busy holding down the fort for many others. I am glad the office is back up and running. In the meantime I had an impromptu dinner party and playgroup.

Angela offered me a ticket to the game this weekend and I had a blast. I hadn't been in many many years and definitely didn't have great seats the past few times I went. I felt like I was back as a band date at the 30 yard line. Rusty happened to be at the game because his cadets were doing the march in and the band performed at half time.

Yesterday Reese and I attended a church picnic with our Sunday school class. It was nice to see alot of my friends from the other campus. This is my 3rd picnic to go to solo- maybe one of these days Rusty can come and help me chase Reese all over the park!

Reese is really starting to act like a 2 year old. The tantrums are starting to really come out. He has not taken a real nap in 2 days so its been fun times around here. Exhausting! We had a great morning with a trip to the park and MOPS but a cranky afternoon. Poor little guy was scaling his crib at 6:45 tonight because he was so tired!

My friend Stephanie , her husband, and their 6 month old are coming for the next 3 days. Perfect timing since Rusty is gone all week to Virgina.