Weekend in Houston

John and I went down to Houston this weekend to visit John's side of the family. It had been 6 weeks since our niece Payton was born and we were really wanting to see her again. We stayed with Julie and Robert and had a blast as we always do at their house. Julie made us French toast for breakfast on Saturday and Blueberry pancakes on Sunday morning. We were definitely spoiled. We were able to spend a lot of time with Payton, Phil and Amanda. Payton is so sweet and dainty. We are not used to seeing babies in little girly clothes and headbands! Julie and Robert's baby Silas was his usual happy self and is growing so fast!
Our beautiful niece Payton. I loved her headbands!Aunt DeAnna with Payton
Uncle Dusty with Payton (John's family has always called him Dusty)
Julie and me at breakfast. Julie and Robert turned me into a coffee lover this weekend. I had like 4 cups each morning!

Phil (Daddy) and Amanda (Mommy)

Payton and Amanda
Silas is getting so big. He is such a good, easy going baby!

A Texas Cowboy

Tristan is 10 months old! Erica took these portraits of him and I think they turned out fabulous. He is such a funny and personable little boy. Great job on the pics, Erica!

Graduation Party

John finally finished his MBA program in August. He was not too interested in going to the graduation (even though I wanted him to :). So we compromised by having a family graduation party at the house. John's family came in from Houston and my family all came. We enjoyed having everyone in town to help us celebrate! Congratulations, John! I am so proud of you!


Nanaw and ShirleyJohn's dad and LisaMother and my cousin Todd



What was John doing here? Maybe a dance??
Silas and Tristan sharing toys. They became fast friends

Baby Payton is here!

Wow! I have not blogged in a while. The longer I go without blogging, the more intimidating it is to add a new post. I know, I am weird. I am a frequent procrastinator. Anyway, enough about my psyche. At the end of July, Amanda went into labor. John hopped on a plane to Houston and he was able to be their for the birth of our niece Payton. I drove down on Saturday morning and we were able to spend a few days visiting Amanda, Phil and Baby Payton in the hospital. She is a precious baby and Amanda and Phil are awesome parents to her. I can't wait till we see her again! oh, how I love being an aunt to precious babies!!

San Francisco

John and I took a trip to San Francisco to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary! We had a wonderful time. We stayed at the Marriott in Downtown San Francisco. The downtown area was a lot of fun and always busy. Our first full day there we took the ferry over to Napa. We hired a driver/tour guide to drive us around to different wineries. The day went by way too fast and I think we would like to take another trip there are spend 3 or 4 days in wine country. We ended up visiting 4 wineries and came home with 10 new bottles of wine. On day 2 we hung around San Francisco downtown area and went shopping, that evening we walked down to the pier area and ate at a brewery that had fabulous drinks and food. The 3rd day we were there was our actual anniversary. What better way to spend it then to go to jail! No, we did not get arrested, we went to tour Alcatraz. I knew John would love this tour but I was not expecting to be too impressed. Was I wrong, it was so interesting and the audio tour through the actual jail was very cool! We both loved it! That evening, we went out to dinner to celebrate at a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean called the Cliff House. It was a beautiful place and very romantic! It was a fast trip but it definitely gave us some ideas for our next trip to California!

More Houston Photos

Here are a few more pictures that Lisa took at the shuttle simulator...


John sitting in the pilot seat
My face is so serious here...I think I was nervous as I was getting strapped in!Lisa and Amanda sitting in the shuttle

Houston!

John and I went down to Houston last Thursday and stayed through the weekend. We had so much fun. We stayed with Julie and Robert and got to spend a lot of time with baby Silas. He is such a happy baby and very sweet! On Friday night, John's dad got us special access to the astronaut flight simulator. This is not something you get to do on the regular NASA tour. John's dad knows the man who runs the simulator for the astronauts so he was able to get us in. It was a blast (excuse the pun) I even got to sit in the pilot seat and land the shuttle. It was neat to hear about some of the same people who had flown the simulator, Bill Clinton, Aerosmith, Tom Hanks, John Glenn and many more I can't remember. John got to land the simulator about 3 times and he did much better then me! On Saturday, Julie, Amanda, Silas and I went to the Houston Galleria and shopped all afternoon. That night we met up with the guys and went to a restaurant called Outriggers under the Kemah Bridge. We ate on the water and had oysters, shrimp and margaritas! Oh, why can't it be summer year round?? We headed back to Dallas on Sunday afternoon. It went by so fast! Now John and I are gettting ready to head out again on Friday for our San Francisco trip. I am so excited about all we have planned for there!
The pictures from NASA are a little blurry because we could not use the flash inside.Me and John at KemahJohn's brother Phil and Amanda. You can't really tell here, but Amanda is 9 months pregnant!Oysters, I can usually only handle about 1 of these.Here is my one oyster! I hate to not try something!John, on the other hand, ate enough oysters for the two of us!
Here we are holding Silas. I love him!