Well,I guess the beach updates got lost in the shuffle of life, but that is okay. We had a grand time and are already planning for next year. Here are couple of photos:

Man it is hot outside! Kinda makes you just want to stay indoors and veg out. We had Brent's b-day this weekend. Wade grilled trout and we had lots of food! It must have been good, because there wasn't really anything leftover. When we started lighting the candles on the cake, Tyler started singing happy birthday, so about the time he finished the song, the neighbor boy who was here just blew out the candles! LOL It was too funny, we had to light them again and sing for Brent to blow them out. ( You may of had to be here to understand how funny this was?)

I Love you Girls

I am home! Yea. I was in Dallas for 6 days and then Atlanta for 5 more. It feels good to be home. We learned some new strategies to use in the classroom and explored in the evenings. Dallas, well it is just Dallas. We did get some shopping in, stores that we don't have here at home and that was fun. We went to various restaurants, but did not really eat anything that was wonderful which was sort of disappointing, as we went to places like P.F. Chang's and pappadeaux, but the food was just so-so.

Our hotel was kind of cool. We stayed at the Hotel Lawrence in downtown Dallas. http://www.hotellawrencedallas.com/ It was built in 1925 and has been "restored" (lots of it is still old). The elevator (yes just one) was iffy, but staying on the 8th floor it was my friend as the stairwell was skinny and not air conditioned. The reviews for the most part are not good and most of them are true, the photos for the hotel are a bit misleading, so when you arrive you are a bit shell shocked. However, the shower was amazing. It has a shower head and the a shower bar that goes across the middle.

Next off to Atlanta. We stayed a the Hyatt Regency Peachtree,

http://atlantaregency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp

It was okay.....not that it was not nice, but not as "nice" as we expected it to be. And on top of that at the cheap hotels you get free Internet, not here! $12.95 a day. Yikes. So much for getting on the computer, so I have not checked my mail for a week. (still haven't, doing that next). Anyway in Atlanta we worked all day, but then we had dinner and we went to the attractions. The Atlanta Aquarium is worth your money, it would be an amazing place for kids, lots of hands on stuff, even touching animals in the water. http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

Then there is the World of Coca Cola. That was a visit worth the money! http://www.worldofcoca-cola.com/ Besides regular museum stuff, they also have an interactive 4d movie and a tasting room with all 64 varieties of drinks they make around the world. ( I can not imagine tasting all 64 of them).

But of course there is the food. The food in Dallas was just okay, the food we had here was amazing. The first night was Benihanas, it was wonderful, we looked at each other and all said oh yea! good food. We also ate at Rays In The City. It is a seafood place and the fried green tomato's were fab! I had Parmesan crusted scallops with risotto. Yummy. If you are ever in Atlanta you should go. http://www.raysrestaurants.com/ We also ate at Mary Macs Tea Room. It is an out of the way local place that we learned about from our Taxi driver. It was one of those places that you are glad you discovered. http://www.marymacs.com/ It is great food, black eye peas, turnip greens, catfish, fried chicken etc. etc. etc. all made fresh.

More beach tomorrow........ ( I know I am slow).....

I love you girls.

In Memory

I cannot figure out how to make this larger, sorry. This is a copy of what will run in tomorrow's paper.
I love you girls.
It is still so hard for me to believe
that you are gone.

More Beach

We arrived on Saturday night, after 8 and we did not have the condo until the next day so we stayed at Days Inn. Which was an experience. Make yourself a note not to stay at the Days Inn in South Padre. Since it was past dinner time we walked down the street to The Big Donkey. Yes that really is the name of the Mexican restaurant we ate at. The calamari was nasty, but the grilled fish and shrimp was outta this world. yummy. We went back to the hotel and did not get much sleep what with the party in the next room, but that was okay after all we were on the island, right?

So Sunday morning we went with Christopher and family to Denny's, we did not even have to wait for a table. Tyler took a couple of photos of mom and dad and I took a couple of the kids. Breakfast was good.

It was only 9:30 in the morning now and check in for the house was not until 3pm. We needed to go into Port Isabel to get groceries so that was the plan, but first we headed to the beach to check out the house from the sand. Tyler and Madison had to have dry clothes after that stop. :) Here we are on the beach outside before we headed off to the store.

To be continued.....

I love you girls

The Beach!

We had a wonderful time at the beach. There is something about just sitting by the ocean that is so carefree. Of course I have photos! Only about 150 ....maybe more?? So you won't see them all here, but I will post many over the next few days.

This is Tyler, the first day we arrived, he could not wait to jump in. And Madison loved the beach. She would run into the water just up to her knees and then run out. I bet she ran in circles for an hour or more. It was too cute.

For Megan's birthday we had sandcastle lessons. It was too cool. We all made castles and people kept stopping to look at them. Then we released balloons with messages. We all went out to dinner and had a great time. Our waiter was a goofy "dude". As in he was kinda outta here. But the food was good. Here are a couple of castle photos:

More later...

I Love You Girls

We are making beach plans! The kids are excited! I bought the helium tank today so we can release balloons on the beach for Megan's birthday. We have plans to take sand castle lessons that day and then have a dinner out. Here are some photos from last year at the beach. I love the beach.

I Love you Girls

We are the Champions!

My grandson and his baseball team are the champions! Woo Hoo. After a hard fought final game they won the 1st place trophy for the mid-cities season. We had so very much fun!

Oh and the Mother's Day gifts! I had each of the kids make a garden stone for their moms. We took photos as they did them and put them in frames to go along with the stones. They were a hit. The boys were so very excited to give their mom a handmade gift. I guess I am going to have to start thinking about next year. We did manage to get a Madison print, oops but no photo since it took both of us to hold her. Here are the photos:

What is funny is that the night before we went over to Christopher's house and Tyler took me by the hand and said come see Nana, and he showed me a handprint stone he and Madison had made, and he said it's for you. :) Guess he didn't get the surprise thing huh?

I love you girls.