Spring Break Cruisin and a Trip to Grandma's

March 13-20th, 2010 - We drove the girls up to Grandma Linda's for a week of fun time while Dave and I flew to Ft Lauderdale to board the Celebrity Solstice for a week. Amazingly refined decor and restaurants. No Carnival crowd here. Glass blowing demo off the back of the sun deck, the aqua spa, and we stayed in the Aqua Class rooms. This meant we got to eat at Blue, the special Aqua class restaurant. It was a great experience but a bit too euro for our tastes after a while. We stopped in Puerto Rico, Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Gorda BVI, and Haiti at Royal Carribean/Celebrity's private island pit-stop. The huge earthquake hit Haiti just a few months before and we wanted to go and try to help the economy. We bought some things from a canoeing salesguy during our waverunner excursion but weren't able to see much else of the island. They kept us pretty isolated (on purpose, I think - Haiti is a very poor country and even more so since the devastating earthquake). This is the last picture we took the whole trip since I put our camera in my pocket and then got hit by a huge wave at the Baths at Virgin Gorda. We met Jim and Sarah Mather there who we ended up hanging out with the rest of the cruise. Really nice couple who live in Daytona Beach now. Wish I had a picture of them, sigh...

Chocolate Pizza Mondays

Madison started her first ballet/tap class this year (09-10) at the MA Dance Studio on 1431. We go on Monday mornings at 10:45. Afterwards we always go to Double Dave's pizza buffet for the pizza and salad and (most importantly) 'chocolate pizza' afterwards. It is this amazing confection of chocolate-chip cookie dough baked over a thin pizza crust. It is sooooo good, it's gotta be really bad for you. But I figure if a 4 year old with her perfectly unclogged liver can't enjoy it, then who can? Sometimes you just have to embrace life. :) One Monday, her classmates came along. Aren't they so cute? Madison, Addy Fort, Grace, and Avery Bates

Snow and a Lost Tooth

Feb 23, 2010 - It surprised us all and actually snowed in Austin. Miracles do happen. And Grandma Linda was still visiting and got to witness it. I have a lot of childhood memories of the rare snows we had in Huntsville, Alabama. It made it all the more special that it was so unusual. The girls had a great snow-flinging fight and got mostly soaked. Aaahhh, wintertime. And on February 28th, Mackenzie finally lost her first front tooth. It had been barely hanging on for over a week.

Mackenzie's 7th Birthday Party

Feb. 20th, 2010 - Mackenzie wanted her party at Build-a-Bear this year. She had a big bunch of friends build bears together and then we all had pizza and cake in the food court. No clean up, yay for Mom!!! Sophia Tenrreiro, Jharna Kamath, Madison Elena Venincasa, Kaitlyn Genzer, Emma Stallings, Bella Ousterhout Avery Pratt, Meredith Lannan, Kenzie, Hannah Soechting Emma, Kenzie, and Meredith

Madison's 4th Birthday

Saturday, January 16th - Yes, we have 2 birthdays in our family within 2 weeks in January. So now it's Madison's turn to Celebrate!!! She wanted her party at the bouncy place and wanted a princess cake - so there you go. Check out the pictures for yourself. She had a great time with her friends: Adelyn Fort, Linley Pittman, Emma Johnson from church, Ezra Brough (family friend), Sophia, James, Tate, Ty, and Landon from school. It was a great party and on the way home Madison said, "I had fun at my party, mama." Mission accomplished.

Madison and Ezra

Madison and her teachers Ms. Olga and Ms. Melissa at Canyon Creek Preschool on her actual birthday, January 19th.

Madison and her daddy celebrating her big day at home that night with cupcakes.

Madison wearing the Mickey Mouse birthday hat. Happy 4th Birthday, sweetie!

Mackenzie's Birthday

Feb 18th, 2010 - We all went to Cheesecake Factory where Kenzie got her favorite, Crusted Romano Chicken (split with Dad). Grandma Linda was there and Wendy flew in and met us at the restaurant. So fun to get everyone together for her birthday!

Valentine's Day Parties

Feb 12, 2010 - Yes, the tradition continues... multiple children's Valentine's Day parties on the same day for moms to juggle. But we do it - because we are superwomen! And on the actual day of Valentine's what do Dave and I do? Yup, run the Austin half-marathon. Isn't that romantic? Luckily for us, Brady and Nat took the girls and we got to stay downtown at the Hyatt. I had been sick all week and didn't think I was going to run but I got up with Dave to support him and walked him to the start line. Then since I was there, I decided I could at least run a few miles with him. After 8 miles I realized I bet I can finish this thing... To Dave's credit he stayed by my side in my snails pace so we could run together. He is the best husband ever. We did not make a great time, but we did finish!!! And eating brunch at Moonshine afterwards was divine. No worries about calories or not eating this or that. We earned it!