Goodbye Scha & Walt

We recently had to say goodbye to good friends - The Thames Family. Walt just graduated as an Oral Surgeon and was transferred to Washington DC with the Navy. We will miss them.... (couple in purple).

Business Trip

Julia and I get to follow Neil on his business trips every once in a while. This time we tagged along to Corpus Christi. This trip was very short day trip ... Julia and I got to stroll along the waterfront while Neil met with the office folks.

Julia at 9 Months - Mother's Day

MOTHER'S DAY - TAKE 2
The joys of infant picture taking

We've learned that for every good picture there are 50 goofy pictures. We are thankful for digital photos and inexpensive computer memory. We love the goofy pictures just as much as the good ones and have been saving them all.... She is so full of life and expressive!

.

Day at the Beach

We took Julia to the beach for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately we forgot the camera, but we couldn't miss this chance, so we stopped and got a $20 digital camera. You get what you pay for, the pictures are grainy because the resolution was low and the lens poor, but you get the idea.

Milwood's 25th

April marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the church we attended while we lived in Austin, Milwood Baptist Church. They had a lot of activities on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the weekend of April 25th, so we went up for the weekend and stayed with our good friend Steve Dobblestein. We got up there Saturday afternoon to hear our old pastor, Lashley Banks speak on Saturday night and catch up with a lot of our old friends at the dinner.

Here is Lashley with his oldest daughter.

And Neil and Julia with Lashley's wife Stacey and their youngest daughter.

This is Ed and Jennifer Wilson, and their oldest son Chandler (can you believe he was 6 or 7 when we left Austin)? The baby in Jennifer's arms is Stacey's. Here Michelle Evans is watching Julia for us. Michelle was one of the middle school student in the group we worked with the year before we left Austin.This is at lunch on Sunday after church. We got to catch up with Jerry and Joyce Leonard.

Someone gave Julia a balloon to play with. You can tell she had a lot of fun with it.

Between church on Saturday night and Sunday morning, we had a good time just hanging out with Steve at his house. Here Julia is playing with the "ball of whacks". They were fun to whack.
Steve got a good shot of Raquel and Julia just relaxing on the floor together.

Julia at 8 Months

Julia turned 8 months shortly after we came back from Washington. The best pictures I could think of to show her at 8 months are these of her taking baths in Charlene's kitchen sink - she fits just right.

Bath time is always fun. Daddy is her bath buddy. He always bathes her at the end of the day before she goes to bed.No matter what the duck is always safe.
Sometimes I come into the bathroom to check on what is going on.
These two can make a lot of noise talking and splashing around.

Grandpa's Birthday - Part 3 - Going Home

It was a quick trip but we are really glad we made it. Here are some pictures of our last day in Washington.

Amy made us delicious lefsa while Grandma Hanson supervised.

There were lots of loving hands to care for James while his mom was busy

And Gary kept an eye on us all, making sure we didn't get in trouble.
I wonder what he was thinking as he looked on this busy bunch.

After all the morning fun, Gary and Becky drove us to the airport. Julia did great - she never cried (and never slept). She loved flirting with people and checking out EVERYTHING.In-flight service was a hit.
She even shared it with her doll.
Forest Gump moment - Do you think these two are related?