Let's see how many pictures I can cram into one post, shall we? :)
For the last week that Collin was in Kentucky, Gram came up to Dallas and drove all of us back to Austin for Spring Break!
We had SO much fun doing all sorts of things! The weather was beautiful and we were on the go! We played at the Lost Creek park, explored the Austin Zoo, went shopping and had a blast at the Austin Rodeo and carnival! It was SUCH a fun time! The girls loved all the things they got to do and see, but especially enjoyed time with Boppa, Gram and Howie.
Playing at the park... guess I only got pictures of Julia. :/
Then on to the zoo in the afternoon!.. PLEASE watch the video of Avery talking to the tortoise, which I kept calling a "turtle," but whatever... I think it's my favorite video yet. (Need to turn your sound up.)
And then the Austin Rodeo, petting zoo and Carnival!...
Avery still in the "rodeo spirit" for her bedtime routine back at the house... Poor kid still had peanut butter on her face from supper. Guess that's what baths are for, huh?
And finally, a picnic in the park on our way back to Dallas...
I never posted anything about Valentine's weekend... and it was FUN! Thought I should...
The Wednesday before Valentine's Day, the girls and I were supposed to go to Sherman to make sugar cookies with Drew. But when we all got the sniffles (with fever) we stayed home. So-- what's a Mom to do on a rainy day with two sick kids?? IMPROVISE! :) We made cute little "stained-glass window" Valentines for our family out of crayon shavings, waxed paper & construction paper, and we also made the Valentines to be given to Avery's class members. Not as much fun as it would have been to hang out with Drew, but it filled our day with craftiness and that's always a plus at the Poage house.
But the real highlight of Valentine's weekend was traveling to Austin for a visit with Mom & Dad, and for Cousin IP's Birthday party! It was a Medieval-themed party complete with castle toys and custom-made crowns, and even a dragon-slaying (pinata) outside! Kids were supposed to come dressed in "royal court attire," so we pulled out the tu-tu's and the girls went as Fairies. (Not sure how that fit in, but we tried.) Such fun!... Happy 4th Birthday, IP! And many more!
Avery had been singing, "Happy Birthday to Julia," so we grabbed the camera to get it on film. As soon as we started recording she switched her tune to the last verse of Jesus Loves Me. (Didn't really know she knew that verse, but they pick up on everything SO fast so I guess I shouldn't be shocked.) And then we were able to get her to go back to the original reason we started filming...
Cute video. Worth posting. :)
(The real words are... "Jesus loves me, He who died... Heaven's gates to open wide... He will wash away my sin... Let His little child come in..." She did pretty well!)
On Saturday before St. Patty's day, we all got dressed in our green and went out for dinner. Initially we had planned to go to Snuffer's on Greenville, but we weren't really thinking that one through. That was the Saturday of the St. Patty's parade on Greenville, and it was CRAZY, crazy with not-so-sober 20-somethings. So instead of stopping to eat, we just drove down Greenville with Avery in the back saying, "Look! All the green people!" Ha! :) Everyone was dressed in green, but some physically looked green by that point too, so she was more accurate than she knew.
Since Greenville on a night like that is obviously not our scene, we kept driving and went to Backyard Burgers on Royal. LOVE that place. We set up camp and had a good old "green" time with our family. Our ancestors would be so proud. :)
So now I can tell the blog world that my sweet hubby has been traveling for the past 3 weeks and we missed him like crazy. (Didn't want to put that information out there before he was home.) He was in Lexington, Kentucky. Ever been to Kentucky? ...Well, I hadn't... until I got to go and visit Collin over the 1st weekend he was gone.
It's beautiful! Green rolling hills. Very "old town" feeling. Southern. LOTS of white ranch-style fences. EVERYTHING is in equestrian decor, and everyone who is anyone owns horses. They're CRAZY about horses. Well... horses and bourbon: Kentucky's two claims to fame. So, being the good Baptists that we are (and having nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon in Kentucky) we toured the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, KY! It was actually really interesting! We learned all about what goes into bourbon and how the grains are cooked, fermented, etc. The tour ended with a tasting... and I am not a bourbon fan. Guess I might be a good Baptist after all! (...kidding, for all the Baptist bourbon fans.)
We really enjoyed spending Saturday evening watching our friends in concert at Winter Jam '09! Winter Jam is a big combo-concert of a bunch of Christian bands. We hadn't planned to go, but when we heard that The Afters were going to be playing, we decided to go and watch. We've seen them in concert a bunch here in Dallas (and surrounding areas) but never in another state. It was SUCH a coincidence that we were there when they were performing because they're not touring with them the entire time, so we hit it just right. What was surreal is that soon after they walked off stage, Collin texted Josh (who knew we were there and had talked to us some that day already) and said, "Great show, man!" and Josh texted right back and said, "Thanks! Y'all wanna watch Toby or do you want to come backstage?" SO weird... HUGE auditorium and screaming teenage girls all around... little did they know that we were texting back and forth with the dude they were screaming "Encore!" for... So we went backstage and then came back just to catch the end of Toby Mac. (I was a huge DC Talk fan back in the day, so seeing Toby up close was fun.)
1st pic: Us with Josh & Matt in their backstage room, which was the locker room for the University of Kentucky basketball team. Collin was impressed by that. 2nd pic: Toby Mac (dressed like the 80's, apparently...)
(Above video: Our friends in concert - Josh is the one in the middle of the stage and Matt is on the right. And check out the videos below... Everyone was holding up their cell phones while Toby Mac was singing. Remember when people at concerts would do this with lighters? I told Collin, "We're so old, we used to do this with fire!") :)
So-- Between touring a bourbon distillery and watching our friends on tour, we just took it easy. Slept as much as possible and ate yummy brunches at the hotel. It was lovely. A wonderful mini-vacation! ...But it was really nice to get back to the girls. I missed them. (Thank you, Nana, for taking such wonderful care of them while we were away! I know they had a blast with you and Aunt Kendra!)
If anyone still checks in on us from time to time, I wanted to do an update to let you all know that we're still here! So sorry we've left everyone hanging for so long, but there are some cute pictures and videos of fun things we've been doing that I wanted to share! I'll let those do the talking...
We've been having fun with bubbles and visits from Aunt Jen and Drew!...
We've been playing at the park...
And eating at yummy local burger dives in Sherman...
Watching the girls have fun together as playmates... (I love the look on Julia's face when she runs over Avery's stuff and then Aves picks it up out of her way and says, "Ope! Excuse me..." Precious.)
We've started a "garden" with Gram... (This is the COOLEST thing! Those little pellets are DIRT and all you do is pour water over them and then wait for them to soak it up... then you plant your seeds! That's my kind of gardening... And they're already sprouting!)
And we've been having tons of fun around the house... making sure not to take ourselves too seriously! Fun phase of life... (By the way, Avery was singing SO sweetly at the table and she would stop if she saw the camera, so I had to do some sneaky-filming to capture those videos... pleas excuse the walls/chairs that are in the way. I did my best. In the first singing video, my little "Daddy's Girl" sang, "Daddy, daddy, daddy" to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me." Hilarious. After that, I think she tries the "Matthew, Mark" song and "Jesus Loves Me." She's a songbird!)
