Our Visit to Texas

Last week the kids and I got to tag along with Donna on her trip to go see the Bischoff family. It was their spring break in Texas and the weather was absolutely beautiful. We had a wonderful time, Haven got to play with "her girls" as she calls Bailey and Ruth and Jadon definately got his fix of wii time with Lucas and Micah. Since we were on vacation I didn't monitor his wii time, when we are at home he can only play for 30 minutes a day. Needless to say he was loving all his wii time.

I got to actually hang out with Wendy and even got to go to a Boot Camp class with her. The only negative thing about the class was it being at 6:00 in the morning. I'm usually not even up by that time, but it was an awesome class and well worth waking up for.

We also had plenty of tea parties with tea we bought from the best tea place ever, Teavana. Mmmmm, I think I'm going to fix me a cup of hot tea.

Saturday the kids sort-of played in the pool and then that night the kids got to have a picnic in the living room floor and watch a movie at dinner.

The rodeo was in town, and if you ever want to go see a true, huge rodeo Houston, Texas is the place. The kids had a blast and we still missed about half of what was there.

Here's our little mutton busters, Jadon, Micah, Bailey, Ruth Ann, Jude and Haven (Lucas helped hold Jude up so he could look through and that was enough for him).

Next we were onto seeing all the new babies that had been born that week and the tractors. Jadon loved this part, sitting in a real tractor.

When we first arrived there was a family taking a group picture. We all made the observation that there is almost always one that doesn't want their picture taken. As was the case with that family. Well, later in the day we were that family. Haven was really wanting to go see the rabbits, not have her picture taken.

Jude loves his Lucas.

Haven got to pet the rabbit, this was definately a highlight for her.

Next we went to the neatest thing. You walk in and everyone gets a basket and a cup of chicken feed. You are then led to the chicken house where you feed the chickens their feed and you pick up an egg (the eggs are made of wood). You then get a "seed" that has a picture of a vegetable on it and you go plant in the garden. After planting you "pick" your vegetable and put it in your basket. Next you go get the wool that was sheared from your sheep. Then you're led to the cow barn where you can "milk" a cow and pick up your carton of milk to put in your basket. Next is the orchard where you pick oranges off the tree and add to your basket. After you have collected eggs, picked your vegetables, got your wool, milked the cow and picked the fruit the kids take their baskets to a farmer's market where they "sell" their stuff and are given a play dollar where they can then spend it to purchase a snack. It was the neatest way to show kids the process farmers go through. And the kids loved it.

Next we enjoyed the Pig Races. So much fun, although our little pigs were always last.

My little piggies.

And to end our day at the rodeo we all got to choose a carnival ride. After the one ride of choice, we all (minus Donna and Jude) raced down the giantic slide. Haven and I came in last. After climbing all the way to the top Jadon decided it was way to tall and didn't want to go down. Me being the great mom and really not wanting to have to walk him back down, sat him down on his mat, put his feet in the pouch and gave him a nice big push down the slide. Thus making Haven and I the last ones to leave. Don't worry once at the bottom Jadon jumped up and down saying how much he loved it. He just needed that little push.

We ended our last night there with a pajama party where we had rootbeer or orange crush floats and all the kids slept in the girls room. That was also the night where Haven made it quite clear to everyone that she was "never going to go to sleep". I think she may have scared the other kids and she made quite a go of it, but in the end sleep won out.

Aunt Wendy reading bedtime stories.

It was such a great 5 days and it was so nice to get away on a little vacation. The only that would have made it better was if Todd could have joined us.