OKC Visit

After being gone for two weeks, we are all back home and getting back into our routine. We spent the last weekend of our vacation with Tom's parents and his sister's family. The main reason for the visit was to celebrate Tom's Grandma Trent's 90th birthday. There was a nice big party for her and Clara and I were able to meet a bunch of Tom's extended family. It was so funny to hear people say to Tom "Little T!?! Is that you? I haven't seen you in 15 years!"

Tom and I, along with his great Uncle Carl and Grandma Trent

Clara was worn out from running around and meeting so many new people.

Tom's sister Amy, her husband Terry, and their 3 kids (l to r) Katherine, Jared, and Heidi

Clara and Heidi, Jared, and Katherine playing on Grandma's walker

We spent most of our time at Tom's parents house and with his sister Amy and her family. Cousins Heidi, Katherine and Jared were so sweet to cousin Clara and kept her well entertained and loved the whole visit.

I think the highlight of the visit for Clara was swimming in the kiddie pool and helping Grandma water her flowers. Aren't these pictures so cute!?!?

Houston & New Orleans Update

Here's some pictures from my visit to Houston and New Orleans. We are having a really good time!


We went to the Houston Zoo. The weather was perfect - comfortable temp and very low humidity. Very UN-Houston like! Thanks Auntie Ann for the matching outfits! Didn't the kids look so cute?

Today we went to the Houston Children's Museum. The big highlights were the face painting and the shaving cream wall. Jake especially liked sitting in the cars and pretending to drive.








Here's some of Tom and I in New Orleans. It was pretty hard to leave Clara at first, but I had a really nice time away from her after a while. Phone calls every few hours to keep me updated on her activities helped a lot too :) We walked around a lot in the French Quarter and ate fabulous meals around the clock.



Here are some pictures from Sunday. We had all of my siblings, their kids, and my parents together. This virtually NEVER happens so it was fun to hang out together. Here are some pictures from our trip to the neighborhood pool.

Househunting Trip

Before we left on our house-hunting/Arkansas vacation, Tom decided he needed some peace and quiet during the long drive. He was coming off a string of night shifts and was hoping to get some sleep in the car. So Clara ended up with this:

Tom's parents drove up to help watch Clara while we went househunting. We looked at 14 houses in one day. From 8:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night we drove and looked and drove some more. Most of the houses were a good distance apart and at the end of the day, we drove around 250 miles total. It was exhausting!

Clara and Grandma and Grandpa went to the Bass Pro Shop and spent some quality time together. I think they all had a great time together.

The next day we had narrowed our choices down to four houses and brought Tom's parents and Clara with us to check them out. They were all really nice, but one stood out above the rest. To make a long story short, we got the house! We close towards the end of June and move in shortly after. I can't wait to be in our new house!!

After the house hunting, we drove south to visit my grandparents. Tom's parents came too and they stayed down on the river to enjoy the scenery and to do some camping. Clara had so much fun being surrounding by grandparents...which means tons of attention. We took a lot of walks down by the river and at the park, ate a ton of great food (pecan pie one night and pineapple pie the next) and spent a lot of time relaxing. Clara saw the tractor again, fed the deer, and went on a lot of walks. She took great naps and slept a long time at night! It was a much needed vacation away from work for Tom and a nice change of scenery for Clara and I. We had a great time and are so happy to be moving closer to this part of the country.

My grandfather is the commisioner of the fire department and was able to get Clara an up-close and personal visit on a fire truck. She enjoyed seeing it, but was a little apprehensive about sitting in the driver's seat.

We are back at home now and Tom is back to work. I think he has something like 25 shifts left in his residency!! Yahoo!! Our house is still for sale...in a perfect world, we would get an offer soon and close towards the end of June! We are hoping and praying this will happen for us. I am 16 weeks along now and have another doctor's appointment on Wednesday. We probably won't find out the sex of the baby for another few weeks. Stay tuned!