Cruisin'

You can still see Galveston in the background as we are on our way. To celebrate my 40th, I was somehow whisked away on a week long cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel Islands with my hubby, two nieces, Makana and Tia and their hubbies, McKay and Matt.

We left on Halloween and I found Batman, but don't tell Chris!

And Pirate Mckay and Matt as Antoine Johnson posing with a "Mormon Missionary" holding a beer--nice!

And following are a few pics of our first excursion in Jamaica as we took the tranopy tour through the trees with a little 'bobsled' ride and a zipline back down.

Yesh, I went as fast as that thing would go!

And the gang on the 2nd formal night

And later the girls tried karaoke, and once is enough for me!

Next, our day on Grand Cayman was a blast

Though I didn't care much for swimming with stingrays, the water was beautiful -- doesn't it look like a pool?

And Matt won the opportunity to perform as Elton John, though he danced multiple times throughout the cruise during karaoke, with Jamaicans, and even with the waiters.

Volleyball, on a cruiseship? Yep

Okay, there are hundreds more pics, lots of stories to tell and memories to last a lifetime, I'm so grateful for the good times!

A Master Visit

I've known the Masters family since before they were a family, meeting Paul when I was about 18 and Tara a year later when they started dating -- so over 20 years -- yikes! They moved to Houston about two years after we did and have been our local "family" ever since, though now they live two hours away, outside of Austin. They are farm people now with chickens and horses on about 5 acres so it is nice to get out of suburbia.

Here's our Olivia getting a ride with Lydia.



And Caleb took a turn, but thought it was too bumpy!



When we first began hanging out in TX together, our kids immediately hit off and always came up with the most imaginative, detailed games and scenarios. As Lord of the Rings fans, after the movie came out, they have an ongoing game as the heroes vs. the orcs, with weapons in hand and dressing the part as best they could. So everytime we gather, the game must go on. Tara wanted it safe, so their boys came up with new weapons from swim noodles, pvc pipe and duct tape and the battle was on!



Caleb dressed for the part



And Olivia play too!



Jake's ready for battle!



Colton under attack from 3-year old George!



And he's a fallen soldier now, George got him!



The youngest kids didn't play long, but it was great they were included for awhile.



And the battle will continue, past missions, college, etc., we'll see, but the awesome memories definitely!

The Dream comes true!

I had spring dreams of getting a pool which this summer became a reality.



How did it happen so fast you may ask? After interviewing, getting bids and ideas from several pool companies, we chose Supreme Pools of Spring TX. One week after signing our contract, the digging began -- June 14th to be exact. Here's some picts from that day:





Yes, that was all in one day. The second day, the rebar was laid and the concrete poured.




And ya just never knew who would show up to start tearing apart more of yard or hauling in rocks. It was a mess!





And we had to take our one of my precious flowerbeds for lots of concrete/decking, but it was worth it!



And these next guys were the ultimate professionals, they had quite the system for spraying on the pebblesheen coating.



And finally time to fill the pool and Caleb can't wait.



How many days did this all take? I should do a contest and someone could win a prize because you'll never guess. Answer: from the first day of digging to filling the pool was a grand total of 15 days, so, it's being filled on June 29th and the next Monday we were able to have a pool party for Olivia and friends to celebrate her birthday and another for Colton recently. (most of those pics are posted on facebook)



So come on over and enjoy with us sometime!

My Swimmers - 2010

Another summer swim team season is O-Va! It seemed long and hot but looking at all these pictures almost makes me forget, and I realize it was all worth it. And probably next year Caleb will be on team---holy cow!

Here's Colton, probably doing breaststroke.


And Olivia, ready for her relay.



It's Jake, probably in transition between strokes for the IM.



And it's Eli, our most happy kid!



Colton, powering through butterfly!


Olivia on backstroke


Breastroke is Jake's favorite















Great pictures, huh? We're lucky to have professional with a girl on the team and yes, I think she likes to take lots of pictures of Jake, but he rocks and actually they all do as I hope they are lifetime swimmers.