End of September & Houston Trip...Oh MY!

So, mid September we were blessed with some beautiful weather.  Too bad it's super hot again. Come on weather!  Quit being bipolar.  It's October 14th and the high today is 98!  But, we took advantage of the pretty weather whilst it lasted.

We were silly and ate cookies when Momma wasn't looking.

ETMC had a Health Fair at our Church one Friday.  Brayden got to enjoy seeing the helicopter land right next to the Lighthouse.  He was super excited about it.

We were lucky enough to get to go visit our friends, Jess & Larry, in Houston towards the end of September.  We had an absolute blast!  We didn't get there till super late on Friday, but we made the most of our weekend.

We woke up Saturday morning and Larry got us all collates from the Kolache Factory.  It was delicious!  We went to the Houston Zoo on Saturday.  We got a blessing while standing in line.  A lady walked up to me after we'd been in line for about 15 minutes.  She said, "Excuse me, how many people do you have in your group?"  I told her, "Four and a baby."  She said, "Here have these!"  She handed me four park passes.  She must have purchased the season tickets and had guest passes that expired that day.  We were so excited and blessed by her!  We had lunch there, got to pet goats, and had lots of fun looking at all the different animals.  Brayden was well taken care of with all four of our attention on him, and he crashed as we walked out of the park.

After the zoo, we headed to Camping World to go dream about campers we would all one day own. The sales man asked Nick and I if he could talk numbers with us.  We said we were just dreaming, and his response was, "I make dreams happen."  Nick said, "Not today."  I don't think they would have taken an even trade for our pop-up for that Jayco Seneca we liked.  Ha!

After Camping World, we went shopping at the outlet mall close to Jess & Larry's house.  Our kid LOVES the Disney store, but I wouldn't expect anything less.  There was lots of "DUST!!" going on (translation: Dusty from Planes).  We shopped till we dropped then headed for sushi!  Nick & Larry went to get us Blue Bell, and we vegged out the house the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning, we all went to church.  Then we left from church to head straight to the Houston Astros game.  Let me tell you...game changer.  I never want to go to another baseball game without an air conditioned stadium!  It was heaven at 1:00pm!  Brayden LOVED the train that moved every time the Astros scored a run.  I felt sorry for Jess because he kept bouncing around in her lap.

Love our sweet friends!

AND, the most exciting thing happened while we were there.  Nick & I went to the concession stand to get lunch.  Brayden stayed behind with Jess & Larry.  As we were climbing the stairs, I did a double take.  I said, "That was Josh Lovelace!"  For those of you who don't know, Josh Lovelace plays piano for needtobreathe, my favorite band.  As we stood in line, I checked needtobreathe's tour schedule to see where they were that night.  They happened to be playing at the House of Blues in Houston.  I told Nick, "That was him!  Would it be weird for me to ask for a picture with him?!"  So, needless to say, I got a picture with him.  I walked up and said, "Excuse me, but are you Josh Lovelace?"  He responded (after swallowing the pretzel he was eating), "Yes, I am!" I said, "Oh, I knew it was you!  Y'all are my favorite band!  Would you mind taking a picture with me?"  He obliged most kindly.  I was rude and forgot to ask Nick if he wanted a picture, so we went back later for a family pic.  We had other Astros fans in the stand stop us and ask who he was.  Amazingly, none of them have heard of needtobreathe.  I do believe they've been living under a rock!  He was so kind and even talked with me on Instagram.  I had such a fan girl moment.  I think he thought it was cool too because I'm guessing not a lot of people recognize him without the rest of the band there.  He's not a front man.  The rest of the guys were staying at the hotel next to the stadium (I shamelessly asked), and they didn't join him.

After the game, Nick & Larry went to see where Larry worked while Jess, Brayden, & I headed to the restaurant to get ready for dinner.  We ate at Saltgrass, and it was scrumptious!

It was so weird to see coolers full of Blue Bell.  We brought two half gallons home with us.  We demolished the first one with in a week.  We're trying to make the last one last until this precious commodity is back in East Texas.

We headed back home on Monday morning.  The weekend was amazingly fun.  We can't wait to do it again!

Beginning of September...Oh My!

This month is just flying by!

On September 1st, Nick started going to the new men's Bible study at our church.  For years now, a lot of the women have met every other Tuesday for Bible study.  Now, the husband's will be doing the opposite Tuesdays.  That means I get date nights with Brayden every other week.  The first week, we wen to the fish place in Ore City.  One of Brayden's favorties!

Sadly, on the second, Brayden got sent home from school with pink eye.  No fun.  But it's all cleared up now!

We had another GREAT night at Zip!  And I got sweet baby cuddles from Berkley Rae while she slept.

So, I mentioned in my last post that Brayden is now in a toddler bed.  He had done so well, then on September 4th, I woke up at 12:30am with him standing next to the bed inches from my face.  I nearly punched my child in the face.  It didn't help matters that his baby monitor gives off a blue hue to the room, so he looked like a tiny alien hovering over me.  After my heart calmed down, I took him back to his own bed.

I signed Brayden up for a Book Chain at the beginning of the month.  I've already received one book.  I'm so excited to expand his collection!

This was after the second football game.  He was worn out!  We left the game early that night because it was so hot.  Brayden was using us as jungle gyms, and I couldn't handle it any more.  We left halfway through the third quarter.  I so wish we would have stayed.  We were playing Gladewater, and our boys did an awesome job and won!  We were told we missed the best quarter of Pirate football in the last ten years.  Whoops.

This kid loves this little wagon that his Oma go him.  He always sits in it.  I think it's so funny because you can see the little wheels kicking out underneath him.  It will break one day, I'm sure.

We got to go with our church to a Frisco Rough Riders game on September 5th.  It was rather warm, but we had a lot of fun.  It's the first Rough Riders game I've ever gone too.  We sat in the All You Can Eat section, and Adam got to come hang out too!  So we were all very excited.

The Sunday before Labor Day, we went out to Dangerfield State Park to have dinner with the Robertsons.  Brayden loves playing in Oma and Joepa's camper.

On Labor Day, we headed to New Boston to hang out with my family.

Bray was having a hard time falling asleep Labor Day evening.  Daddy ended up going in and laying down with him.  How sweet is that?!

Bray was being cute grocery shopping one day.  He kept saying "Cheese!" because I had my phone out.  It was adorable.

We had an impromptu camping trip this weekend.  Read about that here!

Camping Trip to Walleye...Oh My!

Last week, Nick and I were talking as we got ready for the day.  Nick said, "Did you see the Mays were camping at Walleye?"  I said, "Yes I did!  Are we going to go visit while they're there?"  He said, "How crazy of an idea is this, what if we took the camper out and spent the weekend out there?"  I decided that that sounded like a marvelous idea!  I took Brayden to school, and then I returned home to hurriedly pack up all that we'd need and put clothes on to wash.  Nick and I took the camper out after lunch and got it set up and we returned for dinner.

We spent Friday through Sunday out there.  We did go into town Friday night for the football game and Sunday morning for church, but we had a blast while we were out there.  We were able to have a lot of fun with Greg, Meagan, and Kaylee.  We cooked breakfast for all of us Saturday morning, and Gregg cooked dinner for all of us on Saturday evening.

Umm...who gave him permission to grow up?

Sweet friends!

This sweet boy didn't sleep well Friday night.  I had to drive around Saturday to get him to fall asleep for a nap.  I took him into the camper and laid down with him because I didn't want him to wake up when I laid him down.  We slept for two hours and fifteen minutes!

Bath time with a wonderful view of the lake!

Patiently waiting for lunch to be served on Sunday after church.  Hallelujah for crock pot meals that he didn't have too long to wait.

Nick, Bray, and I enjoyed a swim Sunday afternoon in the cove.  Brayden loved wearing his life jacket and "swimming" back and forth between Nick and I.

And, I can't get these to be in the correct order...

Little man "climbing" the tree next to the camper.

I texted this to my sister and said, "This is not camping."  Oh well, it's fun!

I told Nick we needed to do impromptu camping trips more often!