The Vinyards

Lily Pad Vinyard. Ashlyn has saved her money since our sweet Stella-Girl passed away for a new lab puppy. Finally, she had enough saved & we were able to find a chocolate girl pup. Lily is adorable & becoming very chunky!

Lily has grown so much that Ashlyn can not carry her like this anymore!

Beach Photos

I was really hoping to get a wonderful picture of the kids all together in one picture with cute picture perfect smiles, eyes open & no hair in the face. Well it did not happen :(. Oh well. The ones below are still great!

Philip being handsome!

Kids in their sunglasses.

Philly & Ashers--love this picture of them.

Poor Sydney. The sun was so bright it hurt her eyes. We tried to move her around but she could not keep her eye open.

Goodbye beach! Hope to see you soon!

Philip turns 12

Happy 12th Birthday Philip! We are so proud of you & the young man you are becoming!

Our summer beach trip

After the Space Center, we headed to the beach. It was a nice relief from our 100+ degree drought weather. We had no plans for the week except building sandcastles, hanging out at the pool & eating snack food! Our resort had two pools that we could hang out & easy beach access. The kids saw "real" dolphins (I guess the ones at Sea World are not real??!!) a couple of times. We all wanted to stay longer but we needed to get back to reality. Looking forward to going back next summer!

Sydney hanging out in the lazy river pool.

My guys.

Philip could of stayed at the beach all day building stuff.

After dinner beach walk

Ashlyn's goal of the trip--being buried under the sand!

Being lazy at the pool.

Our usual vacation picture--the only one of us together!

The girls fell asleep on our harbor tour.

Awesome sand castle guys!

Love Sydney's expression in this picture.

Sydney "surfin" with Philip!

NASA Space Center

The big kids LOVE anything having to do with space. We have watched the movie Apollo 13 too many times to count. All of us enjoyed the Space Center. Inside it had activities for all ages geared around space & then outside you could see first hand space shuttle, rockets, etc. I recommend this space center for a day trip if you are in their area.

Love this picture because Sydney is trying to figure out how to get her fingers underneath the plexi glass so she can push all of those buttons!

Kinda makes you feel very small! This area was just awesome.

Mission Control Center!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

19 months home

Sydney has been home for 19 months now. Finally Sydney has been with us longer than any other foster family or her orphanage. Sydney still asks us about 20 times a day where she is going. Kinda makes my heart sad for her. We have noticed a change in Sydney's behavior in a good way. She wants hugs & kisses, tells knock-knock jokes, loves her brother & sister, talks all of the time, etc. Our family is truly blessed by this little beauty.

We LoVe the lake!

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is go to the lake! Texas panhandle is in a severe drought so our local lakes are drying up. Praying we receive rain very soon!

Sydney floating in the lake.

Syd playing in the sand.

Philly! FYI--this is not his normal life jacket.

PJ wake boarding.

My boys--love them!

Ashlyn Grace soaking up the sun.

Ashlyn working on wake boarding. Love that PJ is in the background.

PJ & his wife (that would be me!)

What have we been doing the last 6 months

Obviously I have not been blogging! Can not believe how long it has been since my last post. "Vinyard Five" is doing great & enjoying the summer. Posting a few pictures from the last couple of months.