Happy 6th Birthday!

Where have the last six years gone??? It seems like yesterday that we were celebrating Rylan and Jacob's first birthday and now they are six!!!  I miss those chubby cheeks and thighs... I miss all the bedtime rocking and singing... I miss all the firsts (first words, first steps, etc).

 But I love who the boys are today!  I love their laughter.  I love the way they love each other.  I love their love of the Bible.  I love their tender-hearts.  I love that they still snuggle and sit in my lap to read books.  I love their innocence.   I love Rylan and Jacob!!!

Happy birthday to the greatest blessings in our lives!

OKC Trip

Our dear friends the P's moved to OKC in June.  It has been a very sad transition... especially for the boys!  Lyndsey and I chatted and decided that a trip north was in order!  So we were home 2 days after the workshop and then hit the road 9 hours north to OKC.  I wish words could describe the anticipation and joy on those 3 little boys faces... it was priceless!  We told the boys on Wednesday afternoon that we were going to go see Blaine.  We gave them some clues.  Jacob got it on clue #1, Rylan on clue #2. Lyndsey did not tell Blaine until about 2 hours of our arrival.  It was awesome to see their faces light up at each other!

Thursday we stayed up til about 11 and the kids ran and played like crazy!  Friday we had a lazy morning.  After lunch, we went to the National Cowboy Museum.  It was really neat!  Most of it was geared towards adults, like the beautiful statue...

and Indian artifacts.  BUt our boys really loved the artifacts!  It was hard to slow them down and savor them!

We could not get them out of the barbed wire room!  There were thousands of samples!

The two kid parts were really great!  There was a night-time old west town.  Here is Rylan preaching!

The boys at school...

and then in jail!!!

My sweetie!

The whole crew!  This garden area was so beautiful!  They had flags from the "old west" states and many beautiful statues and ponds.  If it had not been 108 degrees, then we would have stayed outside longed!

The other kid part was very hands-on.  Here is the campfire!  This was a hit with all 4 kids!

The only momma pic of the whole weekend!  I sure do miss this friend!

Notice the coyote?!?!?

The biggest hit was the dress-up area!  They had dozens of chaps, vests and boots for kids to try on and play.  Our 3 cowboys and 1 cowgirl were adorable!

Rylan found Moo-er!

The saddles were their other favorite part!  They rode them for a long time, then went a dress-ed up again and rode them again!

This cowboy has the weirdest expression on his face.  The two dads thought it was hilarious!!

Poor Rylan was so pooped that he fell asleep at the table at Toby Keith's restaurant. Poor guy!

 Rylan, Jacob and I split this AWESOME chicken fried steak.  There were still leftovers!  It rivals T-Bones...

 Then we went to the RedHawks minor league game.  It was a cool evening and we had fun people watching and doing a little baseball watching, too!

 The boys sat on the row behind us.  They thought they were hot stuff! haha

On Saturday we went to Frontier City.  It is walking distance from their house and it turned out to be our favorite day of the summer!  Except for Disneyland when the boys were 3, they have never been to a theme park or water park.  It was perfect for little kids!!!  Since we did the water part twice, we locked up the phone and only got this one photo. 

We all loved the slides.  Jacob's fave was the one tube slide. Rylan liked the green and purple slide.  We also rode all the roller coasters.  The SIlver BUllet was the only one the boys were too short to ride, but Kyle stayed with them and Lauren and let the rest of us ride it.  It was SO fun!  The boys LOVED the roller coasters, especially The Wildcat.  We also liked the big tube ride.  We were SO tired at the end of our day!  We stayed for 8 hours!!!  We went to Humble Pie, a local pizza joint, for the best pizza I've ever eaten.  

Sunday we went to worship then Tex-Mex, just like normal!  It was so sad to drive off.  There may have been tears from multiple people... maybe even a little bit of an ugly cry once we got on the Interstate.  It is such a blessing to have friends so dear that you miss so much.  So far two Birds have flown north and I've declared that no one else can move!  However, we are so grateful to be blessed with Godly friends, no matter where they live! 

The BEST Ice Cream in the Country!

We have been promising the boys to go to Gonzales, TX for months.  It is kind of near Austin, so we decided to go on the way home from the workshop.  I looked at that website a zillion times and never noticed a critical piece of information... So Sunday night as Jason and I were planning on trip home, I saw it.  The Gonzales Museum is not open on Mondays!!!  So at 11PM we are trying to figure out something else neat for the kids on the trip home because they were going to be SAD about Gonzales.  And Jason remembered Blue Bell is on the way home... so that's what we did... we toured Blue Bell!

 You can't take photos inside the Factory, but it was SO neat!  We got to see Homemade Vanilla, Cookies-n-Cream, Southern Blackberry Cobbler and Orange Creamsicle ice cream flavors being made.  We also saw Rainbow Pops and ice cream sandwiches.  If a sandwich wrapper goes on crooked, they unwrap it and throw the sandwich into a vat.  That vat of ice cream sandwiches is given to Chappell Hill sausage company for their pigs to eat... no wonder their sausage is SO good! hahaha

At the end of the tour, we all got a "free" scoop of ice cream.  Of course, Rylan picked Lime Sherbert.

 Jacob got Cookie Dough and loved it!

 Dad and I both got Southern Blackberry Cobbler.  It was fabulous!!! He bought a tub when we got home!

 Jason got Cookies-n-Cream... the #2 seller!

 Look at all those flavors!

 Rylan HAD to milk the cow...

Even though there were MANY tears about missing Gonzales, Blue Bell made up for the disappointment.  Now to pick our Gonzales date... NOT a Monday!

Fredricksburg and the WW2 Museum

Saturday night after the workshop we went to one of our favorite Austin restaurants...

 where we all shared 2 pizzas and zupcotto...

 It was divine!!! The boys wanted to swim, so Jason got in the pool with them.  Rylan is fearless and such a fish!!! Jacob was afraid that Jason would not be able to get to him if he had a problem, so he stayed on the stairs a lot.

 This was my view... tired feet up and sitting down!!

 The next morning we got up early and drove to Fredricksburg.  After attending worship services, we went for lunch at another favorite place...

 Rylan got their AWESOME Quiche Lorraine, Jacob got sliders with the best and juiciest canteloupe of his whole entire life,  Jason got an angus burger, I got a ham and cheese crossiant panini and Dad got quiche too.  It was a delightful treat!

After lunch we went to the WW2 Pacific Front Museum.  It was INCREDIBLE! Totally worth the time and money!  Dad is a supporter, so we all got to go in for free.  We spent 3 hours and they had to kick us out!  It is definitely a 2 day affair, since they have 3 campuses to tour.

 We did not listen to every stop on the free audio tour, but the ones we took the time to listen to were wonderful.

 The museum begins with a stirring scene of Pearl Harbor.  It brought chills to my arms and tears to my eyes.  This is one of the most interactive museums we've ever been to.

 Jacob by the submarine.

 There were several models throughout the museum.  This is of the USS Oklahoma.  The boys LOVED the models!!!

 The quanity of memorablia was overwhelming.

 A real plane from the Doolittle Raid.  Rylan's favorite part of the whole museum!

 And his other fave part... the real tank!

 They had video and oral histories of precious veterans  all throughout the museum.

 They also had interactive computer screens where you could look at dozens of photos and clips from each battle.

 This was the China-India-Burma area... the place where Popa was.  It was neat to see a jacket like Popa's in a museum!

 These huge TV screens were throughout the museum.  There were over a dozen total!  They continually showed 6-8 minutes movies of each battle with veterans and historians talking.  They really added a lot to the learning experience.

 I love this man!

 Inside a sub!  This was a HUGE hit with our two boys!

 After visiting the museum and buying far too much in the gift shop, we drove over the Kerrville to see Grandad and Grandmama's graves.  It was bittersweet... I wish so badly that they could have been here to know my boys.  I know that Grandmama would have gotten such a kick out of another set of twins.  I would LOVE to have her wisdom on raising twins.  Then we ate Tex-Mex and headed back to our hotel for a good night's rest!