Chariot Races

I caught the boys doing chariot races around the house yesterday morning.

This is an actual exercise that we do at boot camp, but we use resistance tubing instead of big purple snakes.
The boys came up with it all on their own and, believe me, they had way more fun with it than my boot campers do! These little boys have so much energy!

The Letter V

V is for violins and vases and vegetables! The boys enjoyed reading Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss and playing some new games on the New York Philharmonic's website.

Henry colored his lowercase v many colors

and turned it into a beautiful vase!
He insisted on holding his vase upside down.

Goofball!

Will and Grampa unloaded our weekly veggie share from the CSA.

Will counted 17 carrots!

But his new favorite veggies is cauliflower (and he prefers to eat it raw!).

Gene turned a ton of those veggies into a gorgeous salad for lunch Sunday.

Later, Will covered his capital V with veggies. We are working on pronouncing vegetable correctly; Will insists it is "begetable!"

And we've read Lois Ehlert's Eating the Alphabet over and over again!We had another great week learning about the letter V!

Seven Years

Gene and I celebrated seven years of marriage yesterday! My parents were kind enough to come down and babysit the boys so we could go out for drinks at the Queen Vic (Gene's fave) and dinner at Sorrento (my fave). It was a perfect evening. Gene said it was our best anniversary to date and I think he might be right! We enjoyed a lovely evening together with some great conversation and delicious food. My favorite dish at Sorrento is the mushroom risotto. It is finished in this huge wheel of Parmesan, and it is absolutely amazing. Yum!!
Gene made his annual "State of the Marriage" address, and we are both happy to report that the state of our marriage is strong!

And here's a look back on how it all started, with the proposal, almost eight years ago. Gene had tricked me into thinking we were having a recruiting dinner at Mark's, but he ended up proposing on July 25, 2003. The couples at the next table were celebrating a birthday or anniversary and had a camera. Once they realized a proposal was happening nearby, they started snapping photos, so we have pictures of Gene's actual proposal!


And here's one photo from the wedding. Our wedding pics are on old-fashioned film, but this is one my mother-in-law took. Our reception was at La Colombe d'Or. I don't have photos from every anniversary, but we always do dinner out. Year one: Bank. Year two: Sorrento. Years three and four: Chez Nous. Year five: Pesce. Year six: RDG + Bar Annie. Year seven: Sorrento again.

This photo is from our fourth anniversary. Henry was two months old and not happy!And our fifth!Once again, Henry didn't want me to leave! Seven years, three houses, and two little boys later, I am so happy and thankful to have married my best friend and soulmate. We are the perfect team and I am looking forward to many many more years of marriage with my sweetie!

My Favorite Three Boys

I snapped this picture of my favorite three boys last Sunday before church.

Tadpole Troopers: Snakes

I took the boys to their very last Tadpole Troopers class of the season. This class was all about snakes and the boys loved it! When we got to class, we read some books about snakes and learned some new facts and then we got to touch Fred, the Arboretum's very own corn snake! Fred was very slithery but Will discovered that snakes are not slimy at all. Then we went on our nature walk. We didn't see any snakes at the first pond, but we did see a turtle and an opossum skeleton! The second pond was full of wildlife! We saw a water snake, two turtles, lots and lots of mosquito fish, and a beautiful blue dragonfly.

After our nature walk, it was back inside for craft time. The boys made snakes out of clay and placed them in leaves. After class, Will insisted on visiting the discovery room, even though it was already lunchtime. The boys played and explored and spend lots of time reading books in the Arboretum's library. The boys enjoyed learning about snakes so much that we now have a huge pile of snake books from the public library and I caught Will sleeping with his great big purple and black stuffed snake last night! What a great day!

A New Grill and Some Old Friends

Last Sunday, Gene decided it was finally time to retire our old, tiny charcoal grill that we've had for about 10 years. He was burning through the bottom of it and it just honestly isn't big enough for us anymore. So, Gene took the boys out Sunday afternoon while I napped and he bought us a new grill!The instructions said 30 minutes for set up, so he and Will got right to work.
Henry wasn't at all interested in helping put together the grill, but he did do some serious running around the backyard!
About two hours later Gene and Will were done -- just in time for friends to show up! Our new grill needs to "cure" first, so Gene grilled one last meal on our trusty old grill. It was yummy, though! We all sat outside and enjoyed one of the last beautiful nights before the summer heat invades Houston. Heather and Joel were there. And Katy watched patiently as Will flew around her with crazy pteranadon wings.We had a amazing night, eating yummy food off our good old grill and hanging out with some great old friends!

Gone Fishin'

I picked the boys up a little early from school last Thursday and caught Will's lunch bunch class right at snack time. They were fishing! The big pretzel sticks were their fishing rods, the white icing was the bait, and they scooped up lots and lots of goldfish and chomped down! What a fun snack!