Let the Summer Begin!

Last weekend marked the unofficial beginning of the Summer of Norah, as she let us tag along with her down to Port Aransas, where Josh (and his generous parents) invited us to stay with the Browns and the Basdens over Memorial Day weekend.

Norah and I began the weekend by heading to San Antonio (in record time, I must add) on Thursday afternoon where we stayed with our friends the Cliftons. They were nice enough to take us out to a fun dinner at a great burger place, where Norah and her pal Henry enjoyed a nice dinner of french fries and, well, french fries. The following morning, the two of them enjoyed a romantic breakfast while being chaperoned by Piggy.

We then headed to Port Aransas (where we also arrived in record time), joining up with the Browns and Basdens for a weekend of beach- and toddler-inspired fun. In fact, this was pretty much the only picture of Katie, Josh and Norah staying relatively still long enough for a picture.

Unfortunately, Karen wasn't able to join us until Saturday morning, but Norah was sweet and refrained from showing off her most entertaining antics until after Karen arrived. Honestly, the weekend was a complete blur. Mornings were spent at the beach and/or pool, where the kids gradually grew more bold as the weekend went on. This was unfortunate for Karen and Alison, as Chris and I golfed on Sunday morning, and the ladies expected a laid back day under the beach canopy watching the kids shoveling sand. That actually failed on two fronts, as the canopy was gone when the girls arrived at the beach in the morning and the kids decided to get aggressive after recognizing the defense was playing man-on-man, and not zone. Thus, most of the pictures you will see below are from Sunday afternoon, not Sunday morning's crazy time. Thanks girls! And yes, that is a picture of Norah falling asleep while eating her lunch after Sunday morning's beach session. Perhaps that is the best evidence of just how much energy was expended while Chris and I were scouting out Newport Dunes Golf Club (which is spectacular, by the way).

Norah couldn't be happier than she is in this moment, stomping in the waves behind her man.

My favorite "How you doin'" picture ever.

Pure happiness.

Sunday night, we joined Mimi and Papa for dinner at the Olive Garden (which was lovely) while the Browns and Basdens ate at a fun restaurant on the water. Norah thoroughly enjoyed saying Mimi and Papa over and over. She enjoyed smelling the flowers outside of the Olive Garden with Mimi even more. I hope she never stops finding joy in everything around her.

After Alison generously prepared a wonderful pancake breakfast on Memorial Day, we all cleaned up and headed out. The 7.5 hour drive home wasn't too bad, though some traffic in Temple pushed us to take an alternate route. Happily for me, the alternate route took us through Crawford, Texas, where I got a massively dorky smile on my face when we passed the billboard with a picture of W. and Laura outside of town. Miss you Georgie!

The beach was a fabulous time. The schedules of the kids were almost perfectly in sync, the adults enjoyed playing Seinfeld Scene It and Wii Tennis, watching movies and opining on the major events going on in the world. Like, you know, celebrity gossip and stuff. And Norah loved the never-ending playtime with Josh and Katie, not to mention her favorite game of saying everyone's name over and over by the end of the trip (Owwwwlll = Alison; Kiss = Chris, JJJJooossss = Josh, Karen = Erin, Bint = Brent, Ka-gy = Katie). Thank you so very much, Browns, for making this weekend possible.

We have been catching our breath this week in anticipation of the summer ahead. Norah's last day of Mother's Day Out was Thursday, and I think everyone involved was sad to see that day come. Below are pictures of Norah from her first and last days of school. It just amazes me how much she has grown up in that time, both from a physical standpoint and in the way she behaves (and misbehaves), interacts with people, and seemingly wants to spread joy to everyone around her (unless you are another toddler competing with her for a go on the slide).

I look forward to updating you on our Summer adventures soon. Our first stop will be a family vacation in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina with the Tennessee Denneys next week.

Have a great weekend!

A Weekend with Mimi

Norah's Mimi paid us a visit last weekend, and it was a great treat for Norah, who simply can't get enough of her when she is around.

Thanks to a three and a half hour nap on Friday (and similar naps on Monday and Wednesday...ahhh), Norah had more than enough energy to welcome Mimi to our house after I picked her up at the airport on Friday night. Saturday morning began with Norah and Mimi watching Diego in their colorful pajamas. I am pretty sure the coffee belonged to Mimi, but given the energy Norah had all day, I could be wrong.




We met David and Kaelyn (still "Gah-Gee" according to Norah) at Crystal's Pizza in Irving for a great lunch (Why Crystal's and not Chuck E. Cheese's? Because we are from Irving and have been there 1000 times, and we still love the place. Haven't been there before? It's probably better to stick to something else lest you will be mad at me for mentioning/recommending it). Norah did enjoy her piece of pizza, wolfing this one down in about 2 minutes. For some reason, this is one of my favorite pictures of her ever. So lady-like in her pigtails, but so Daddy-like in her eating.




After lunch, the girls had a great time playing skeeball (Norah did a good job of throwing the ball, as she's still just a bit too short to roll it) and riding on token-powered cars and horses. I was excited at the prospect of getting a picture with Mimi, her boys and our girls. Well, we got a picture, though Norah wasn't happy that Karen was taking it and not in it. Thus the crying. Still, it's a keeper.

Mimi was a sport that night, babysitting Norah while we attended our babysitter's wedding (here's to hoping she'll really want to continue babysitting now that she's married...). Norah ate peas for Mimi AND let Mimi rock her to sleep. I simply cannot picture Norah ever being rocked to sleep, but you can't argue with results.

We took Mimi to the airport Sunday morning, but Norah will see her soon enough. We are headed her way tomorrow for a beach weekend with Norah's friends Josh and Katie (and their awesome parents) at the Browns' condo in Port Aransas (thanks Browns!), which is just a ferry ride away from Mimi in Rockport. Which means there will be lots of cute beach pictures next week. Have a great weekend everybody!

An Early Taste of Summer

So, yesterday was Norah's first day back at Mother's Day Out for two weeks because our church follows the Fort Worth ISD's schedule...and Fort Worth decided to go all trailblazer on us and be the first and largest school district in the country to cancel all classes for swine flu. While this cost Norah some fun times with her school friends, it also cost her Daddy several tee times, much to his chagrin (cut me some slack! She only has 5 more days at school until the long, hot summer). But all was well yesterday. Norah saw everyone she missed and I broke 100, so we were both happy.



And it was good to see that frequent trips to parks and friends' houses made the days go by just as quickly. Norah still sprints to the camera once she sees you pull it out, so it's nearly impossible to get any good pictures, let alone good sequences of pictures, but there are a few good ones worth sharing.




Norah took advantage of her time off of school to visit her friend Jackson (who, as an aside, became a big brother today. Congratulations Williams family!). She very much enjoyed playing outside with Jackson, and their games included golf, tossing bean bags, basket ball and sliding down Jackson's (AWESOME) new playset.









We also went to a couple of great parks last week, betting with the odds that she would not catch swine flu. She did not. Mosquito bites, yes. Swine flu, no. It turns out that Norah's short attention span when it comes to playing with her toys at home has carried over to parks. She will happily slide for 5 minutes, climb for 5 minutes, swing for 5 minutes, and chase birds and squirrels for 5 minutes. The cycle then repeats. This has resulted in many good naps recently. Unfortunately, she has developed what we call the "teradactyl" scream, which involves her making a scary noise with her throat that is simultaneously high-pitched and deep. At parks, she directs the teradactyl scream to any nearby strange toddlers (Jackson and Josh were spared her wrath last week) that come within about 5 feet of her and whatever she is doing. I must say, it does a good job of stopping kids in their tracks. Hopefully this will pass soon.


Overall, however, I'd say we spent about 50% of our free time the past two weeks trying to get Norah acclimated to having her hair in pigtails. Our success was mixed. On the one hand, she looked absolutely adorable in pigtails. On the other hand, she very much enjoys taking her hair out of pigtails quickly and decisively.

Karen was out of town seeing a friend this weekend, so Norah only got to see her for a little bit on Mother's Day, but she did buy Karen a nice tweety bird card for the occasion. Norah insisted on buying a Spanish card because she has learned so much of the language from her animated friend Diego the Animal Rescuer (to be fair, she actually did say "arbol" today, which means tree. I think). Nice, yes?



See you soon everybody! And just think, pictures of fun times at the beach and pool are only weeks away.