Water Balloon Fight!

Brit and Lydia spent part of Good Friday planning a water balloon fight for Saturday.
This partially involved calling Emily at work and asking her to bring home a water balloon spout attachment for the front spigot. It's fun to be at work and get a call from Brit and Lydia. You never know what to expect!
On Saturday, Lydia had a difficult time waiting for the balloons to be filled. But eventually, we had a basket full, and the party started!
The whole thing was a blast. Guthrie watched his crazy family run around the yard, while he stayed nice and dry.

The Last Nice Weekend before HOT

So, what do you do for fun on the weekend when it's NOT your birthday, but the weather is still so nice? If your us, you find a festival. Thankfully, that's easy to do in Austin, in April

Any festival worth its salt has a moon walk castle.

Afterwards, Brit, Guthrie (in the stroller) and Lydia found a nice kid-sized park bench (in Republic Square) where Lydia finished her chocolate covered banana. Particularly satisfying festivals have chocolate covered bananas.

Later, we finished our lovely day with dinner at the Central Market playground. It was Guthrie's first visit. He seemed very content.

Cascarones!

Lydia's godmother Mo has a cascarones painting party every year, usually on Palm Sunday. On Easter Sunday, we go to John's house to hunt the eggs, and break the eggs, we painted at Mo's the week before.

Here, Lydia paints with our friend Cheryl.












But before they can be hidden, we paint. Lydia was anxious to get to the breaking part, too.

Swing into Spring!

Guthrie tried out the swing in our backyard yesterday. He liked it. 

The Greatest Birthday Weekend EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So of course, while we were on the coast, we did other stuff, too.
On Friday, we had a birthday dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe in Galveston. It was very fun, and very fancy. They put sparklers in the dessert!

The staff sang to Lydia, and she seemed just delighted.

After dinner, we went on the Rainforest boat ride together. Here we are in the boat.

We spent the night at a hotel right on the beach. Here is a view of the beach from our hotel.

This is a view of our hotel from the beach. We're in the second room from the right. It was great.

So, as you know from previous posts, Lydia and I spend the morning on the beach.

About now you're probably thinking, "wow, this is the best birthday ever! What could possibly top this?"

Two words: Pony Rides! It's true. The weekend we were in Galveston happened to be the weekend of their annual Children's Festival. There were all kinds of great activities and crafts for kids. Lydia made "sand in a bottle" art, she went on a moon walk and gian slide, we fed animals in a petting zoo, and Lydia had her first pony ride.

But Wait, There's More!

We left Galveston early Saturday afternoon, and headed to Kemah. Our first stop was our hotel, a lovely new Days Inn. I learned an interesting fact at the Days Inn. They were founded by a man named Day. That was his last name. I'd always assumed it was named after the unit of time you were likely to stay, but no.

In any case, Brit and Guthrie checked out the beds while Lydia and I got all gussied up for the big birthday celebration. You see, Lydia and her Gan share April 1st as a birthdate. So, we met Gan, Grumps, Gigi and Aunt Mandy at a very nice seafood restaurant on the Kemah boardwalk for dinner.

Here, Guthrie and his grandfather enjoy the ocean view. This was Guthrie's first real view of the Gulf. (Other than looking our the car window, of course. Remember, he and Brit didn't join us on the beach in Galveston.)

Aunt Mandy, Guthrie and Lydia enjoy some bread while we wait for entrees.

Our waitress showed Lydia how to filet a fish. Our waitress was awesome!

Lydia and Gan were presented with lovely and delicious birthday desserts. Mmmmmm.

After dinner, Lydia rode the Ferris Wheel with Grumps and Aunt Mandy. In this picture, they are in the car at the very, very top.

Lydia and Emily concluded a perfect evening with a ride together on the carousel.

It really, really was the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.

More Birthday Pictures

Here are more pictures of our beautiful and fun six year old, at the beach.
(It was just Lyds and Emily on the beach - Brit and Guthrie were resting in our hotel.)

Lydia's Birthday Part II

Lydia wanted to spend her 6th birthday at the beach in Galveston, so we did. We have a lot more pictures, too, which I will post soon.
However, this is probably the last truly beautiful weekend before the miserable hot begins, so we're going back outside now. And of course, we have pictures of our outdoor adventures from today which we will also post soon.
Love,
Emily

Lydia's Birthday, part 1

Lydia's 6th birthday was April 1st. Pappy's "half of 100. minus 1" birthday was on March 15th. So, the weekend right in the middle of the two, we headed to Denton to celebrate both. Here, Lydia takes a break from drawing in the fort she built in Grandma's livingroom.
It was a very nice weekend. Grandma cooked wonderful food for all of us, and we cuddled and laughed and played lots of card games. Lydia is particularly good at Old Maid.




Emily's sister Katie, and her kids Luke and Rachel, spent Saturday afternoon with us as well. Rachel and Lydia are very, very good friends, and Luke is genuinely good company, too. We're all smiling because Brit is acting like a giant goofball. I think he thought we were taking a picture for a Sears catalog.

Guthrie and Brit spent most of the weekend "hanging out", as you can see. Guthrie loves laying way, way back like this. He's a real cool dude.