HMNS Snow Daze

Early this month we took Julia over to the museum of natural science for their Snow Daze, where they have snow brought in on the lawn and you can bring you your children out for them to play on it. It will likely be the only snow Julia sees this season, so we took her.

After playing on the snow, we let her play with the fountain. She had a good time.

Fall Colors

The fall after we moved into our house, we planted some trees to start to get some more shade on our side yard and the side of the house. They are October Glory Maples, and turn brilliant colors even though it doesn't get too cold here. They add a little color to the house in the fall.

More of Julia

Some pictures from a few weeks ago . . .

Tici and Julia

Tici is Julia's nanny. She comes every day and takes great care of Julia, teaching her Portuguese. Julia loves to see her come in every day and tries to follow her when Tici leaves at the end to go to school. She's been a great blessing to us, knowing that Julia is with someone who cares about her.

Here are a few pictures of the two of them together.

Christmas Decorating

Since we came home from camping early, we had time to set up the Christmas decorations. Julia was pretty fascinated with all of the ornaments.

Thanksgiving Camping

For thanksgiving, we got out of town to go camping and relax some. There's a nice, quiet campground about 2 and a half hours out of town in the Piney Woods of East Texas. We intended to stay a couple of days, so we setup a pretty nice campground, with a covered picnic table (with light for Neil's gourmet camp cooking) and a screen tent to hide from the bugs when they come out in the evening. These supplemented the screen shelter (no tent camping anymore) where we set up the cots for sleeping.

We even had a little camping chair for Julia. The weather was nice and warm when on the first day. Shorts and t-shirts weather.

The night of the first day, the cold front blew in, and the shorts and t-shirt weather was gone. After that we had to bundle up.

We left a day early, but we enjoyed our time out of the city, enjoying a little bit of God's Creation.

Nice Trike

When Raquel first worked at Exxon, she was at an old gas plant west of Houston. When they shut the plant down, the got rid of a lot of stuff at the plant, giving it away to employees. Raquel took the opportunity to pick up a workman tricycle. Its been sitting in the garage until just a few weeks ago, when we took it down to the Scrap Daddy, who creates art cars about 3 blocks from the house.

In about two hours, the Scrap Daddy took it from this . . .

To this . . .

Trip to the Zoo

Julia took her first trip to the Zoo back in October. She really liked the animals.

She even had one of her own riding around on her back.

She was pretty tired from all of the walking though . . .

Backyard Cleanup

We spent some time cleaning up the back patio one afternoon.

Julia was helping out . . .

Afterward we had to clean her up.

The Right time to be in Texas

We got out to the Hasketts for lunch in October. This being Texas, it was perfect to be outside so we let Julia play in her tub in the front lawn.

Halloween 2010

Julia was a cute pink kitty cat for Halloween.

Julia by the Sea

Thought this was a cool picture of a trip to Galveston back in September.

Learning to Walk

During the month of August, Julia slowly started to walk more and more. One day Raquel's friend Nikki came over and Julia used the dining room chairs to practice getting around all of us sitting on the floor.

Nikki had just had a couple of shots, so Julia was facinated with the band aids on her arm.

All this walking leaves a person tired out.

Another Party???

Yes, we still needed to have one more party for Julia, this time with Raquel's two American Fathers - Martin and Terry, and their wives. Terry and Donna flew down for a weekend not too long after we got home from Brazil and we met them out in Katy at Martin and Ellen's house for a good meal and some more presents for Julia.

Julia was still getting used to unwrapping presents, so she needed a little help from Mom.

She learned a bit about cats while Mom set up her new present.

Then she enjoyed her present, learning to sit at her new desk (she still wasn't very stable, so Mom got her a little help from the foot rest).

First Birthday - American Style

Before they left Brazil, Steve and Vicki promised that when we got home we would celebrate Julia's birthday in American style - where kids are allowed to eat their cake under their own power, regardless of the resulting mess, and true to their word, not too long after we got home, they had us over for dinner and a party for Julia.

Of course we started with presents. They got her a few presents and were nice enough to take a request from Pedro and get Julia a football, so she could learn to play the Brasilian national game. The ball shows up in some of Julia's one year old pictures we had taken.

Julia enjoyed the little things as well as the presents.

She was also pretty pleased by the thought of the cake that was to follow dinner.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of the cake that Steve presented her with though . . .

"You want me to eat this?"

Steve introduced her to the finer points of whipped cream . . .

And it wasn't too long before she got the hang of it.

Thanks Steve and Vicki for a wonderful birthday celebration!!!

Returning Home

After all of the fun in Brazil, it was time to head home.

Julia wasn't happy to stop travelling.

But she didn't let that stop her from enjoying the unpacking process.

Cold in Brazil???

Like I mentioned in a previous post, it was cold . . .

This is the morning we left to go back down to the airport. It was about 37 degrees at 10:30.

Can you see Neil's breath? (Not to mention the sweet beard he has going on.)

We had to drop into this store to get warm.