Melanie's 3rd Birthday

Happy Birthday Melanie!!!

We had the party at Amanda & Greg's house in Pflugerville. It was very nice and a lot of family attended.

It was Pima's (Melanie's maternal great-grandmother) 95th birthday as well.

Everyone loved eating the Elmo cupcakes.

She got a lot of gifts, including her very neat Dora bicycle.

After the party, Dad, Jessica, Harrison, Madeline, Mom, Aunt Missy, Uncle Trey, Chandler, Andrew and Josie all went to Waterloo for dinner. The have a really nice playground outside for all of the kids to enjoy.

Austin Children's Museum

We headed downtown to the Austin Children's Museum to get out of the house and celebrate St. Patrick's Day. There was much to see and do inside, with activities focused on counting and categorizing.




The most fun exhibit was the dairy cow and milk interactive display.
Much time was spent "recycling" bottles through a compressed air tube - like the one at the bank drive-thru.

Later we made crafts in the creation station.


Austin was fun and crowded and we walked around the area for a while after playing at the ACM.

Kemah Boardwalk

After visiting Space Center Houston on Tuesday, March 6, we went to dinner at the Kemah Boardwalk. We looked around, played a bit, and ate at The Aquarium restaurant. The pictures I took aren't too good, but everyone thought the restaurant was really cool, the fish were amazing to watch during dinner. There was a lot of laughing and silliness as we wound down a nice day together with my sister and your cousins.

Space Center Houston

M'mom and Papa lived in Houston during the time of the Apollo 11 space mission when U.S. astronauts first landed on the moon. Papa was in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Ellington Air Field where the astronauts were flown after landing from the moon. President Nixon flew into town to meet the astronauts and Papa got a pen from Air Force One when he landed.

In fact, I was born in Houston on about a year and half after the Apollo 11 mission.

We had a good time visiting the center. We played on the "Martian Matrix" which was a very cool playscape with lots of levels, slides, and cool air powered ball tubes and guns that shot foam balls everywhere.

We looked at the Bones exhibits, the different space suits of the mission eras, saw the Saturn V rocket that was scheduled for Apollo 18 and looked

at the hisoric "Mission Control" center that communicated with the astronauts for the Apollo missions. It was a really fun day.

Texas Visitor Center

We visited the Texas information center on the border of Texas and Louisiana off IH-10 near Orange, TX. We learned about the Blue Elbow Swamp and walked through part of it on a boardwalk behind the visitor's center.

We found lots of information about fun stuff to do this summer from all the brochures we took home with us. Here is a picture from the center showing off the 6 flags over Texas.

March Madness visit to Beaumont

First day of fun. The cousins (Chandler, Andrew, Josie) got to Beaumont on Sunday. Here we are on Monday on the back porch playing together.

I found an old skeleton so we had to pose for pictures - of course.

If you look close between M'mom's elbow and Andrew you can see Josie.

Melanie had her tonsils out on February 21, so she was still feeling a bit slowed down. She is inside the house watching Shrek, again.