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.

Summer in Summary

Sadly, I do not have a ton of pictures documenting our summer. I certainly started out with the intention to document this whole summer in detail, but it just didn't happen, so instead I am going to try and summarize this summer with a bulleted list and maybe add in some details here and there.

• In July, Elise had her final 4 shots until she is 11.... yee haw
• "You have a large son, Owen is the size of a 4 year old", says the doctor

• Elise now colors in the lines and has become an excellent artist
• Maggie's hair has been growing in curly so we might have a child with curly hair
• The kids have discovered chocolate Popsicles and request them almost every hour of the day even though they are only allowed one
• Erin joined a gym and got a personal trainer
• Dan finished his dissertation and has now been preparing for his defense scheduled for August 4th
• Erin learned to french braid hair
• Owen is still potty training... six months, still no #2 in the potty and won't go unless dragged to the toilet... it's going great
• The kids spent much of the summer making huge messes including the little gem pictured of every piece of clothing dumped out of Maggie's room
• Went to Sea World with Uncle Evan and enjoyed the water park for the first time
• visited grandparents on multiple trips to Houston
• Maggie is still using a pacifier... sorry, it just isn't my priority to rid her of it
• Maggie also now climbs up on everything

• Erin is now behind on the kids' yearly picture books by two years
• bought our first piece of furniture for our new house (a kitchen table)
• The kids spent 4 days with Dad and Grandma while Erin went to Florida
• Erin introduced Elise to gum... (don't do it)
• played at lots of pools and went down a lot of water slides
• did swim lessons (though Owen only participated for one day)
• played with all the cousins
• spent a lot of money on a house
• bought a new camera after our old one broke
• learned to play racquetball and love it!
• Owen now takes cars, trucks, airplanes or whatever else he can fit in each of hands every time we get in the car
• Elise has memorized many words to many songs she hears on the radio which has really made me re-think what I listen to
• held our first garage sale
• attended Daniel's cousin's baptism in Tomball, TX

• rode bikes many mornings
• went for lots of walks
• Owen continues to be a milk crazed child and still loves to be comforted by mom... many mornings Erin finds Owen spooning with her in the bed
• Maggie will now leave a bow in her hair for a good amount of time
• attended Chuck E Cheese a few times
• stayed indoors a lot as the summer has been oppressively hot
• Owen broke our front window two weeks before our move costing us $140, ugh
• Erin has planned many vacations that we will probably never take :)
• Ellie is starting to sound out words
• Daniel is starting to get excited about being done with school... He is 28 almost 29 and has been in school his whole life... I think he is ready to be done!
• While in Houston, was able to see Erin's dad become bishop of our, soon to be, ward

• Ellie discovered a love for photography and Owen a love for modeling as Ellie took many pictures with our camera of Owen around the house in his underwear
• Maggie is apparently looking more and more like Owen as many people continue to tell me that they look alike
• The kids have requested daily for Daniel to spin them around and do airplane with them

• Ellie has been trying to understand what moving means and asks questions like "will our friends be able to find us if we bring our green door?" or "Mom, do you think that I am going to need clothes in the new house?" or "Will the movers have a box big enough for my bathtub?"
• reorganized the baby clothes (we are now up to 14 bins of baby/kid clothes that don't fit)
• continue to work on everything involved in moving and buying a new house