Excellent Weekend - Part 2

So now, it's Saturday morning. We've had breakfast with Atticus and Mom and now, we're headed down to Houston. It's my sister-in-law's 40th birthday party and it's a surprise.

We've driven down to Houston several times and we always pass this huge statue of Sam Houston right outside of Huntsville. This time we made a point to stop.
It was a very nice little state park.
So we're walking out to the statue and off to the side, we see this. I guess this is an extra in case...what?
So this is the actual statue. When you are driving TO Houston, you don't really see it until you are upon it but driving home FROM Houston, you can see it along way off. It's right off I-45. We've driven by at night and it's very cool because it's all lit up. It was a nice side trip.

Now, on to the good part. That night, the families and some of Dave & Tanya's friends all gathered at this restaurant to celebrate her birthday. We're all up in a private room upstairs away from the dining room. As soon as she comes in - we all shout surprise! And she is surprised. (see the video below).

David has set this whole thing up and began planning months ago. He did a great job!
Tanya - enjoying herself.
Mia, stopping by to say hello before she goes back out to play with her cousin.
Me and my two sisters-in-law, Michele and Tanya.
The traditional singing of Happy Birthday.
Tanya & Mia. Mia's all hot because she's been out playing with her cousin, Silver.
Tracy and Silver.
Tanya with her family - Mom, Tanya, Mia, Dad, Tracy and Silver.
Tracy & her boyfriend came up from Austin so they had to leave a little early to get back. Here's Tanya with her sister.
The Moms. Brenda and Judy.
The Dads. Dan and Pete.
The view from our hotel room. Houston at night.
The same view the next morning. (Which came way to early for me!)
John with a little pick me up from Starbucks.
We went back to Dave & Tanya's for lunch. Here's Miss Mia walking around in Gransy's shoes. She loves the heels.
One of all of us: David, Tanya, Mia, Michele, me and John.
A family photo. (with a little bit of Dad's elbow...).

It was a great party and fun weekend. Below is a video of the "surprise" and another quick one of Mia walking around in Gransy's shoes. Enjoy.

Excellent Weekend - Part 1

On Friday afternoon, my mom and Atticus came over to visit.
Atticus brought his Pokemon cards and he's showing them all to Uncle John.
We watched SpongeBob and iCarly and then we had pizza and chicken wings for dinner. I think Grandma is his personal cushion. He's always laying on her.

Afterwards, we went to the park for a little fun. This is the same park where, three years ago, I fell off the slide and hurt my backside, much to the amusement of my sister. I'm back to face the demon that is that slide!
Atticus came over to help me out, just in case. Luckily, this time, my trip down the slide was uneventful.
The merry-go-round. I was running trying to get some speed on this thing. Then, in the old days, I would jump on and ride it out. Well, I guess my jumping skills have really gone down because I missed and banged my knee on the metal. Yeah, that left a mark. Atticus & I are laying down because we were getting a little dizzy.
Next we got on the swings. I was showing him how he needed to pump his legs so that he could go high. Huge mistake on my part. Riding on the swing really makes me nauseous. At this point, I had to rest.
Grandma jumped in and became the merry-go-round pusher. She must have learned from my mistake - don't jump on!

Finally, we decided to work on something a little calmer. Atticus decided to build a sandcastle. He spent quite a bit of time filling the bucket and tamping down the sand. Then he asked me to turn it over. I lifted the bucket and....
Nothing. The sand wasn't wet enough to stay packed together.

After this we went back home to take nice cool showers. Then, Atticus and Uncle John were playing MX vs ATV - Untamed! It's a video game for the Playstation that Atticus' papa did the animation for.

Atticus was really good at this game. Uncle John, not so much. But we enjoyed watching Atticus play. Mom and Atticus slept over and we all went to breakfast the next morning. That was so fun!