Ice Cream You Scream...

 Over the weekend Simon's cousin Tanya and her three girls, Mia, Ally, and Emi, came to visit aunts, uncles and cousins, grand parents and great grand parents.  We spent a lot of time with them during their stay.  We went on adventures like feeding (and being chased by) the ducks in the rain, we played Candy Land,  read books together, jumped and slid on mattresses and even did some cooking.  Simon and I decided to take Mia and Ally out for a special frozen yogurt snack for some quality time.  We took them to Orange Leaf and were a little worried they would get overwhelmed with all of the choices but they seemed just fine and pretty quickly had made their decisions... however random those may have been.  

 Ally (left): Cotton Candy Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, Pecans and Gummy Bears

Mia (right):Vanilla Ice Cream, Cotton Candy Ice Cream, Chocolate Ice Cream, Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, M&M's, Gummy Bears, Valentine's Day Message Hearts and some last minute Chocolate Syrup 

Mia saw the tall stools but the tables only had three seats so she just went over and sat by herself for a minute and then came back just to say she sat in the tall ones I think.

Simon and me with the Girls

Our outing was fun, yummy, and cold.  It is neat to see their personalities forming and growing as we get to know them each better.  I hope we get to do more one on one dates with all of the girls as they get older.

It was great, as always, too see you Robertsons! Hope to see you soon and we love you!

...And A Happy New Year

A new year again.  The time for New Year's resolutions,  embarrassing pictures in weird party hats you would never wear any other time, followed by whole hearted gym membership purchases and crazy rash decisions like "no more chocolate... ever".

The chocolate thing for me usually lasts about... a week tops and then I'm shamelessly dipping oreos in chocolate milk.  This year I made no such chocolate resolution to save myself the disappointment.

To celebrate the new year we went to Austin, now an easy 3 hours away which is wonderful in comparison to the 9 hour distance we faced before, to celebrate with the family we had just spent Christmas with.  But no complaints!

 We car pooled to Austin with Dan and Sarina and Hannah which made the trip more enjoable: a few new people to converse with on the road trip.  We got lucky because Hannah slept the whole way giving us all more freedom to chat.

Simon and I spent the time with Grant and Jessica and as usual had an awesome time vegging out on Jessica's meals and watching movies.

On New Years Eve we all got together at Tanya and Wilson's house for cheese fondu and games.  Cheese fondu was a first for me.  I didn't really know what to expect (Honestly I had always thought fondu was only with chocolate) This was just as good though and I'm glad they introduced that fun and yummy thing to me!

 Before all the kids went to bed we got some cuddle time in.  Here is Simon playing with Emi.

Emi was loving all of the attention she was getting-she got to stay up a little later than the other girls.  She laughed and giggled as she was carried around by Grant in the Panera bag. 

Anthony, a friend we have happily acquired through our Austin adventures, came and spent the evening with us and we were glad to get to spend some extra time with him!

 We welcomed in the New Year with a pause in our games, the clinking of glasses and comically trying but failing to find the ball dropping on the internet.  

The following day everyone came to Grant and Jessica's for lunch after church.

 This is a little silliness from the girls.  They are hiding from Wilson and Simon behind the couch and then jumping up an laughing.  

We were able to enjoy the christmasy atmosphere just a little while longer with their decorations still up and perfect. 

As usual we had a great time with everyone and it is a blessing to be so much closer to everyone now so that those moments can happen easier and more often. 

Thanks for having us Jessica, Grant, Tanya and Wilson!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!