Our new pool!!!

One of the best perks of where we live is that we are just a stone's throw from a pretty awesome neighborhood pool area.  We just load the kiddos up in the choo choo wagon, cut through some bushes and we are there! 

They have two water slides which they let anyone go on (so Ellie and Owen can go on these no problem, the life guards are so lax that they would probably let us throw Mags down by herself-- scary, I know).  Owen will occasionally go down the enclosed slide but usually says it is too scary (it is)... Ellie will go down anything!

There are several areas, there are two splash pad areas, a baby pool, the slide area, volleyball area (not pictured) and a huge lap pool (not pictured).

Maggie always starts out over in the splash pad area and then after a few minutes makes her way over to the slides.  Elise and Owen head right for the slides and occasionally take a dip in one of the other pools for a couple minutes before returning to the slides.

Water slides are a family affair:

Maggie is so cute!  On the walkway to the slides there are spacings where water flows, so Maggie has to take these giant steps to get across.  She looks so funny.

We really are loving this pool, but unfortunately with school starting, they've closed it down.  It will be open for two more weekends before it closes for good until next summer.  We are SOOOO sad about this as we only really got to enjoy it for a week.  The kids are going to be incredibly disapointed.  Next year....

Water Fun

Last week we went to our favorite sprinkler place to eat dinner at Mission Burrito and to let the kids get worn out before bed.  My mom came with us to watch the kiddos have fun.  Maggie really loves the sprinklers and all of the kids are really fun to watch.

Of course, we could hardly get Owen to hold still for 2 seconds to get a decent picture of him, but we'll just keep on trying! 

In our new home

Well, we made it into our new home.  We've been so excited about this next phase of our lives and now it is finally here.  The bank was dumb and so we ended up closing two days late, but besides that, it was a relatively easy transition.

We painted every wall, most of the moldings, put in a couple new fixtures and had several service people out to make sure everything was running as it should.  The painting was the most work but we were lucky enough to have family close by and even some help from the people in our new ward at church.  We are still working on hanging things on the wall, getting things that need to be stored away into the attic, and definitely have quite a bit of yard work to do, but I think we have been able to do a lot in a short amount of time.  Before and after pictures to come soon.

Here is our house after we left out the trash after moving in.  Daniel was pretty proud of our mound of trash and took about 30 pictures of it.  It's about 4 boxes deep.  Originally the garbage men didn't take our boxes, but I caught them taking a little siesta under a tree and got them to come back and take it all. 

Anyways, we love our house.  Really we do!!  Plenty of room to grow, plenty of space for everything we would ever need, the floorplan is great, the location is perfect... we couldn't have asked for anything more.

Dr. Daniel Weber

In early August, Daniel presented his paper and then defended it.  He said it went well and he felt good about it.  He must have done well since they approved him for graduation and to receive his doctorate degree.  Here are some pictures of the room and of Daniel the day of his defense.

We are, of course, incredibly proud of Daniel, his decisions, motivation and dedication in getting his degree.  It was a great sacrifice for our family, but ultimately, so worth it!  Daniel now is not answering to his name unless you put "Dr." before it.... Ok, that isn't true, but if I worked that hard to get that much education, I sure would be making people use the title to address me!  Anyways, Dr. Dan, we love you and are very proud of you!

Erin's Birthday and Our Last Days in Austin

On July 31st I turned 27 (yes, I know it has been almost a month since my last post-- sorry!).  Since we were running low on the number of days we had left in Austin we decided to make the day sort of a 'goodbye to Austin' day.  We went to two of our favorite places.

For breakfast, we went to Kerbey Lane Cafe.  It was delicious... as always.  We have only been there a couple times, but it did not disappoint.  We had delicious pancakes.  Kerbey Lane prides themselves on their choices of organic and vegan choices... it's very Austin.  It was lots of fun.

That evening, my parents made the trek from Houston to Austin to celebrate and help us with a few things we needed done before the move.  We went to our favorite BBQ place (which has been praised on Food Network and declared the best BBQ ever!)... The Salt Lick.  It was delicious!  I was sad that my stomach couldn't hold more because I definitely would have liked to store more away.

My birthday was wonderful and I am happy that we were able to spend it in Austin and make it our last hoorah. 

The next week we made our move to Houston.  Besides a two day delay in closing, everything went relatively smoothly.  Daniel went back up to Austin to be there for the packers/movers and then came back down to Houston.  The offloading and most of the unpacking happened quickly and we are already feeling pretty settled.