May storms and floods

The first couple days of May we got 15.75 inches of rain. It lead to a huge flood. Good thing we live high enough we didn't get any water in our house. The standing water by the boys window made their room smell really musty for a few days. We slept them in the guest room and ran a fan for 4 days. Dave dug up the mud around their window and let it dry until the smell went away. We think we are good now. Here are a few pictures and movies we took over the 2 days of storms.Springbrook Dam.

This is the water treatment plant by our house. The 'lake' you see in front of it is a mini airfield. People are here most every weekend flying their mini airplanes.

The bridge on Passmore. The fields on both sides we full of water. this road closed soon after Dave left to help with CERT. The water went down just enough so he was able to get home Saturday night.

The field on the other side of Passmore.

Christmasville Road, if you look close you can see a can that tried to get through.

Our culdesac

Front side of our house. You can see our garden running out the fence and down to the drain. There was a good 5 inches standing there.

2 blocks away at the bottom of our neighborhood. There is a tiny little stream the flows through here, but I've never been able to see the water before.

The water is all the way up to their house.

Someones corn field. When all the water drained away most of the corn looked just fine but all the cotton was ruined.

Pudding Party

Sam and Logan LOVE pudding, but they aren't very good about getting in their mouths. They manage to get in on the floor and walls and anything they are even remotely near. So we decided we would start having pudding parties. Judge if you want, but cleanup is a breeze! Or a shower if you will. Logan loves his pudding party.

Their 2nd bite! You can't see it dripping down Logan's front, but it is! They are so cute, I just love them!

The Ferry

The drive from Beaumont to Galveston was amazing. I was about 80 mile but 45 miles of it was a thin strip with the ocean in both sides the last 30 minutes were on a ferry. It was so cool. I realize I am an adult but I love riding on a boat.(as long as I don't think about the sharks!) Cassidy told us to watch for dolphins so we were super excited to see those. We were disappointed when we didn't see any on our way over, but we saw them on the way back.

I know you can't see anything, but DOLPHINS!!

Sam really didn't like the wind but he was excited to see the submarine and the wrecked ship.

Logan however wanted to swim with the fishes! Good thing for the monkey!

On the road leading to the ferry is row after row of beach houses. There were quite a few but loads looked like this. It was sad to see peoples homes just left like this. They are still rebuilding after Hurricane Ike hit, some of the homes and so huge and beautiful. It was such a cool drive.

Seriously, we are on the road and that is the ocean! It was so cool!

Texas- Bo & Cassidy

From Lumberton we headed south for Galveston and the Beus'. We had so much fun. I wish we could have stayed longer there was so much to do. We got there Sunday afternoon and had to leave early Tuesday morning so we really only had one day to take it in. Sunday we just hung out at the house and the kids played in the backyard. They loved it. Sam has been talking about his friend Carter since Christmas
so he was really glad to see him at his house. Although, Cass, he thinks
you all are coming here very soon.

They look all relaxed but when we got the cards out, that went away.
Just for the record, the girls won the first game and just barely lost the second!

This picture looks deceiving they really did get along well.

Logan and Meg. I do have the cutest picture of them, but in the back is Cass
bend over sweeping and since I don't want my butt shot for all to see I won't put hers
on either. But trust me they are beautiful babies!!

Monday we got up early and hit the beach! I could have stayed there all day! It was beautiful. We found seashells and build sand castles and played in the water! SO MUCH FUN!!

Logan and I looking for seashells.

The guys getting water for the sand castle. This is the only picture of Sam.
Shortly after he tripped and got wet and then was done. It was a nice day but windy.
Cassidy said it really wasn't that windy but Sam did not agree.

The boys wandered down the rock breaker thing. Dave said Logan
wanted to get in at the end of it.

I decided to let go of my fear of sharks for a few minutes and let Logan go
swimming, not like if I would have said no he would have listened. Dave kept
moving him back up but he kept going deeper in the water. He had a blast. He
was really trying to swim in that shallow of water too, it was so cute.

Dave was spinning Logan and getting him to spray water with his feet,
Logan always love to get people wet so of course this was the activity for him.

For dinner we went to Rainforest Cafe. I love it there, it's just so cool.
The kids were not all that impressed, but the food was good.

Dave trying to tongue the snake! ( I made him)

Logan was LOVING this frog. He kept hugging and kissing him, I may be gross
but it was really cute. I ended up buying them a little frog for there collection. I love
spending time with Bo and Cassidy, we always has so much fun. I love that we can just
sit on the floor and play cards in our PJ's all night long. Thanks for letting us camp out at
your house and playing tour guides for a couple of short days! We love you guys so much!

Texas Ratcliffs

We went to Lumberton Texas to visit Erik and Sarah Ratcliff. They are such good friends we met at BYU. Dave and Erik were in some of the same classes. We talk often but haven't seen them for over 4 years. For our anniversary we decided to go on a road trip to see some friends. We had such a blast! Dave and Erik spent all day Saturday fishing which is the perfect day for them and Sarah and I did some shopping and took the kids to a kid fest. I wish we lived closer, we always have so much fun with them! We will have to make seeing them an annual event. Thanks so much for letting us crash at our house and play for the weekend!

This sums it up!
Erik and Sarah! We love them!!

Friday morning we went to a bounce house in Beaumont. The boys love the Bounce house. We have one here in Jackson but they liked this one better because it had the girls!!

Dave and Erik decided they were just the right size for them so
they hopped in and had a party. The big boys may have had more fun than the little kids.

Friday evening we ordered some Pizza Hut and headed to Silsbee Park and went fishing. We had some much fun. The boys had a blast and it was fishing so Dave couldn't think of a better way to spend Friday night. I love to fish especially when I can stand on a bridge and fish without touching the grass and weeds.

There was ducks at Silsbee park. We wanted to feed them tortillas but
they weren't interested in them, we found later there was a HUGE bag of corn
spread over the other side of the pond.

Sam's first fish. He is an awesome fisherman!

Logan's first fish! He was so excited until it wiggled, then he was
over it and wanted to play.

I tried to hold it still for a picture, without actually touching it.
Logan feels it is way to close to him. If that fence hadn't been
behind us he would have jumped in the water to get away.

This is the biggest one of the day. Dave loves spending time with Erik.
I'm so glad we got to visit.

Madelyn touched every fish we pulled out while my boys won't touch any of
them so Erik held this one and made both boys touch it. The next second Sam touched
it's fin and it poked him. No more fish for Sam.

We were catching whoppers!

On Saturday Sarah's brother told her about a kids fair going on so we decided
to check it out. It was AWESOME!! They had so many booths and the kids walked away
2 bags of candy/stuffed animals/crafts each. We had so much fun driving the firetruck
and checking everything out.

The kids got their faces painted (Sam-Tiger, Madelyn-Kitty, Logan-Batman)
I had them stand behind this fence and pretend to be in a zoo. This was the
best picture I got.

Lindsey, just SO CUTE!

Sam and Madelyn (his 'sister') They absolutely loved each other. Sam still
a month later doesn't call her by her name just 'my sister'. I love it.

Dave's First Ticket.....

EVER!! Dave is always so good about getting us where we need to be in a record setting time. I love that about him. He can go as fast as he wants and I swear the cops will wave at him. If I even get behind the wheel on the freeway I get a ticket! I will drive if Dave is tired, but normally Dave does all the driving and I talk at him to keep him awake.When we were driving to Texas for a fun weekend in April, to see friends we were making excellent time. We made it all the way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On the map it said we were on a scenic route and we were! The freeway was a raised road for with a swamp under it. I KNEW that there had to be alligators in it so I was making Dave look for them because I couldn't see that far down and over . Well......Dave started to pass this old lady and a sneaky cop STANDING on the side of the road started waving frantically at Dave. Dave looked at him and he waved Dave over to the side. I may have told him to keep going because he could just say that he didn't know he was pointing to us but Dave is better than me and pulled over. The cop came to the window and told Dave he clocked him doing 83 in a 60. OUCH!! Not only that but we are driving a rental car and Dave can't find his license. It was a stressful few minutes while he searched and Sam is in the back saying "Dad, do you do something very naughty?" I still think it is super funny, but then I have had PLENTY of tickets and so a $200 ticket doesn't seem like that much money compared to mine (I hate Oregon!) Dave still doesn't think it's funny! Welcome to the club Babe!

Playgroup Easter

Since our camera stopped working before Easter. These are the only pictures I have of the boys looking for eggs. We hid eggs in our back yard for playgroup and let them find them. I told Sam that since he was the oldest he had to help the little ones find eggs too. He spent the whole time helping other kids; he had the least eggs of everyone because he was trying so hard to be a helper. (not picking his nose)
Something touched his face right as I took the picture. He was mid 'get it off'.

I had to follow Logan around so he would pick up the eggs he was seeing. He would just get excited and point to them then leave them there for the next person.
Silly boy!

They decided they could wait any longer to check out their loot.

ALL BY MYSELF

Logan started his breathing treatments about the same time as Dave's surgery. Every couple of months he has to take them for a couple of weeks. Normally we have to sit him in our laps and hold it over his nose so he will breathe it in, but this time he wanted to do it himself. He wants to shake the medicine, squirt it in and turn it on. He actually sits and takes it really good. He does want to turn it off before it's empty but we just remind him to finish and he does. I love that he is such a big boy! I'm sad that he has to know how to do it all by himself. But if he has to do it he wants to do it alone. I love that Shawn White is about to make his run and Logan is so intently watching him. You can't see us cheering wildly for him in back but Logan is so mellow.