Dinner with The Wagner Family

We were able to have dinner with one of our travel families from China--The Wagners--while we were in Dallas for the weekend. Stephanie & I emailed like crazy before we actually met in China. Love how you can be friends with people before you even meet them! We miss all of our travel group & talk about them constantly. We need to plan a reunion sometime.
Stephanie & Jeremy have adopted two precious children from China. The dinner & conversation was wonderful & LOUD!! The loudness was not from the 5 children at our table. Thank you guys so much for meeting us. It is amazing to see how much Sydney & Noah have changed in 6 months. We enjoyed it! And can not wait til the next visit.

Sydney & Noah

American Girl

Does anybody else have a daughter that loves American Girls?! Ashlyn loves American Girl. She can look at the magazines for hours picking out what she wants. For her birthday (back in March), she received a couple of gift cards for American Girl and wanted to shop with them at the actual American Girl store. This is a big deal because there are only like 8 stores in the whole world! So, Ashlyn & I spent mom & daughter time at the store in Dallas on our way back home. It was fun! I'm wishing that I was a 7 year old again.
Ashlyn brought Lanie (not to be confused with Lainey--which is her grandmom/PJ's mom). Ashlyn & Lanie got right in line for the hair salon. Yes--the dolls get "up-dos"! Ashlyn picked out a hairstyle for Lanie & then she wisked off for her new look. The hairstylists are really talented! We got pointers on how to do the dolls hair!
All 3 of us had lunch at the Bistro. Well actually I let Ashlyn decide what we were having & she ordered us dessert! Not surprising because Ashlyn loves sweets! After that we shopped & shopped for American Girl things. Ashlyn picked out new outfits & earrings for Lanie, a chair, tea set & some other fun things.

Excitement before we go!
Lanie (after her updo) & Ashlyn

Lanie surfing the net while Ashlyn & I ate dessert!

We had so much fun! Can not wait to do it again girls!!

Reunion Trip (part 2)

PJ & I took our kids and our two older nieces (Kaitlyn & Meagan) to the University of Texas to just hang out & soak the orange all in! We LOVED it! And so did all of the kids (even though one of our nieces is NOT a UT fan. I know what is wrong with her!! Just kidding Meagers.)
It was great to back in Austin for awhile. We shopped for a super long time at the co-op, walked around campus & then had a late lunch at one of our favs--Chuys!
We miss UT & Austin. Hook'em Horns!

A really big Bevo!

5 grandkids (the newest one had stay back at the cabin with her mom)

This is where we stayed. It was beautiful!

Ashlyn & Allie waiting for the fishing poles.

Family Reunion Trip (part 1)

We packed up the kids last week & headed south to the Austin area for a family reunion. For some reason, I'm still shocked at how much a family of 5 brings on a trip. This was the longest car ride for Sydney so we broke it up into two sections. Overall, she did great in the car (those first 6 hours had us a little worried!). The kids enjoyed hanging out with all of their cousins! They were always doing something while we there--swimming, playing nerf wars, walking around in the woods, fishing, playing twister & so much more!

Philip & Meagan
Ashlyn & Allie

Sydney loved this rockin' chicken!

The girls hanging out in the pool--Reese, Ash, Allie & Meagan

Kaitlyn, Philip & Guy

Fun at the Lake

We went to the Vinyards lake house over the weekend. This was Sydney's first experience with a lake. She loved it! Her favorite was playing in the sand. I forgot to mention in the previous post that Philip broke his arm a little over a week ago. He has a buckle fracture & will wear a cast for 3 weeks :(. He was the designated boat driver for the weekend! This was Ashlyn's first year of really experiencing the lake. We could not get her out of the water! She loved everything about the lake--tubing, playing on the beach, jumping off the boat, etc. We can not wait to go back!

Friend of ours wake-boarding.
Sydney just playing in the water.

PJ & Ashlyn just having fun!

End of the School Year

OK--So I'm a little behind with blogging. I'm hoping to catch up with everything in the next couple of weeks. The kids had a great last week of school. Philip was chosen out of 52 kids to share his experience of his six years at our school. It was a wonderful little speech--he did awesome!! Philip was also given the President's Award. The award is based on academics & citizenship for 5th graders. We are so proud of you Philip!

Philip with his President's pin.
Family picture!

This is Philip's teacher! We will miss her next year. Feel like she is part of our family now.

Miss Ashlyn Grace at her school celebration! We are so proud of you Ashlyn!