Bert and Ernie & the Zoo

Claire has a thing for Bert and Ernie - her favorite Sesame Street Characters from the start (Elmo was a close second as well as Slimey). As soon as PBS told her they were coming to town for an appearance at the Children's Museum, she asked everyday if she could go. It ended up being the same day that we planned to go to the zoo with my parents but it meant so much to her that we did both! So off we went to the museum to see these guys but we didn't get as close as we wanted. Luckily Claire was content with waving from a far since we couldn't wait in the MASSIVE line that had formed. We said our hellos, took a picture from behind the fence and then it was off to the zoo to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa for some sweaty fun!

Here is Eden loving the ball zone at the museum. It was a free day which was nice so we could check things out. It's a really great place and now I know we will need to go back soon!
Claire milking a cow - my Wisconsin family will love this picture!
Claire's picture with Bert and Ernie - she was a trooper!
Before leaving, we had to do some shopping at the pretend HEB store. Claire plays shopping almost everyday if not multiple times a day. I always check her out and say "beep" so checking herself out was a dream for her! Eden was helping =)
After meeting up and bathing in sunscreen, we had a great day at the zoo! The monkeys were our favorite! They were so lively!
Grandma packed a lunch - Here is Claire with a couple of her favorite men!
Grandma and Eden
They have an aviary with these Lory birds that just fly around. One landed on Neil's head and Eden just loved it!
Resting in front of the Elephants
The Africa phase 2 is finally open and really nice!
Love this one =)
Claire really loved getting so close to the hippo
Sharing ice cream - one of the girls favorite parts of the day! This is probably my favorite picture!
Can't leave the zoo without the classic picture of girls on lions!
Of course I have about 100 more pictures but I had to only choose a handful! I will be uploading all of them to Shutterfly and adding a link sometime. I know my aunts will appreciate some recent pictures uploaded on there!

Louisiana

As an LSU Tiger, I love Louisiana - love the people, the culture, the food, the music, the school, the food... not loving the Louisiana background check run around they have me on!! I know that God's hand is in everything and it will be His perfect timing for everything to come together but I am worried and being impatient. As little time as we've even spent on this journey, I know this is just the start of a long wait but I can always ask for your prayers to help us along the way!

Here is the update on LA - After sending in my request the second time, I called August 10th and they said it would be 7-10 more business days to process. This week would've been the week so I called to followup again yesterday. The lady didn't seem to have any information at hand so she asked to call me back. I was concerned that there wasn't something in the system right there for her to tell me. So I waited until 4 p.m. but decided to be persistant and call back. She had forgotten and quickly got information to me after consulting with someone else. She told me that the results had been sent to Lutheran on August 6th (I called August 10th and wish they would've told me that then!) I called Lutheran and they never got it so called LA back and they said they would send a copy - not an original. One more call and Lutheran said a copy would be fine. This is the only piece of paperwork we have been waiting on to complete our homestudy that we started back in May.

Our home agency sent our homestudy this morning to AGCI for review in hopes that they would start the review process knowing that the LA paperwork is now on it's way.

All this to say, please pray that the LA background check gets to Lutheran this time around and that everything was done correctly. Pray that our AGCI review goes well so that everything can move along. We are still working hard on our dossier paperwork and training. Most of all, pray for us to be patient as we know this journey will go just they way God has planned it! As we get further along, we get more anxious to just see our little guy's face.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philipians 4:6

A 21 month old post is soon to come and I can't wait to share our pictures from our zoo trip three weeks ago!

Work with Daddy

Claire was beyond excited to visit Neil at work today. Monday will start a busy year so we took advantage of one more down day before campus starts buzzing! Claire wanted her nails done, her hair done, she chose her dress and pearls to wear... all for Neil's friend Carlos! She has quite a crush on him since he gave her a Santa Yoda toy back in December. Yes, December and she STILL talks about it any time Neil says something about work. =) Didn't get a picture of Carlos though because once we walked in the door, Claire got really shy. Both Claire and Eden warmed up and ran all over entertaining the other instructors and secretaries. Silly girls! We did get a shot of Neil and Claire but Eden was much more interested in sitting on the boxes in daddy's office...
Silly time!



Unfortunately, Claire's fever rose when we got home =( Hoping it's something that will just pass like Eden's did last week.

Big Girl

After watching Claire get her nails done today, look who wanted hers done!! She sat so still and said "ooooo" as I painted so carefully! She really does love it but I've decided it makes her look too old =) We'll wait till she's at least 2 to do it again. But isn't she cute with that oh so serious look on her face and hot pink nails?!

Meeting Pearl

Tuesday we had visitors from Austin!! Pearl came down to meet us and enjoy some ice cubes (her favorite treat!) She is Mike and Heather's new puppy even though she already weighs more than Claire - I think in the low 40's! What a sweetheart! We had a great time visiting and eating taco salad at our house. Can't wait to go to Austin to see them all again. There's nothing like living close to family!

Eden got herself a lick and was somewhat pinned to the door!!

Eden just loved her and would walk so carefully around Pearl when she was lying down. So cute!

Great family pic!

Thanks for driving in Mike and Heather! We love you!

Beach Bound

Claire has been asking me forever to go to the beach! She hasn't been since she was about 16 months old and after seeing things on TV about the beach, it's been on her mind. Neil's never been a beach guy so I figured, why not go with friends (plus that helps us both with the expense!)? Kate and I mentioned it casually last summer so we decided to go together this year. Abbey and Claire had the time of their lives! It was a WONDERFUL trip full of great memories and I love that Claire is at that age that she will be able to start remembering things =) So last Thursday we were off to Corpus - look who wanted to come with us... It was SO hard to leave her but she was all smiles waving good-bye when we left! She had a great time with Daddy =)

Our first stop after a quick lunch was the Aquarium. (SA Zoo pass holders - you get a great discount. Thanks Kate for letting us piggy back on your season pass!) I LOVED it! It really was a great set up and we all enjoyed it so much.

Best Friends
My favorite fish - Sargassum Fish - isn't he cool?
We waited in the HOT sun for the dolphin show but only stayed for a little bit to watch. This is one of my favorite pics of Claire from the whole trip! She loves her Spurs hat.
Me and my girl
Sea Turtles
This was Kate and my favorite area - so calming with great music and nice and cool! The girls ran around and danced while we sat and watched the beautiful dolphins swim gracefully.

After the aquarium it was back to the hotel to get ready for the beach! Our hotel was right on the beach so it was a great place to be with excited kiddos on your hands!

Abbey girl
They loved mixing the sand and water. Both girls didn't mind getting in the water at all but the waves we big so we held them.
This is how close we were to the Lexington Ship

Feeding the seagulls

Making memories
After beach time we went to dinner at the hotel restaurant for ease and we let the girl's wear their PJs for fun! The service was pretty bad so they brought us dessert - can you tell my child loves her desserts? Another one of my favorites from the trip.
Claire got a dolphin key chain at the aquarium and carried it with her everywhere - that's what is in her hand =)
The next morning we went back out to the water and look what we found... jellyfish! The water was so calm but we couldn't get in. We saw probably 20 of them floating right on the edge so we did our seashell hunting and collecting that morning. Claire is still talking about the jellyfish. She told me the other day "I didn't know Jellyfish were real" even though she's seen them in aquariums. Funny girl liked seeing them in their natural habitat!
Collecting shells
You had to look closely to really find them since they were all kind of in pieces together. We found some amazing shells...
Angel Wings

Bathing Beauties
More jellyfish on the shore
Back to the hotel to check out - the other coolest thing in Claire's eyes was sleeping in the same room with her friend. They each slept with us but still the same. Oh I see a lot of sleepovers in the future!
Walking to lunch we found a giant shark!
Couldn't resist taking this picture! She looks about 13 with her purse, flip flops and phone in hand. She carries that phone all over and pretends to talk to everyone. My friend Lauren gave it to her forever ago and it's still one of her favorites!
We went to a beach bum/patio place for lunch for our seafood indulgence =) The girls loved playing on here while waiting.
The food was yummy - I love fried shrimp at the coast! This is the only picture we have of all four of us.
It was a fabulous trip and one I'd love to do as the girls get older. The trip home was interesting... my child resisting to take a nap and crying for an hour straight while her friend slept. I was trying so hard to keep her quiet so she wouldn't wake Abbey. Not fun but still worth it! Thanks Kate for letting us tag along this year =) Can't wait to do it again!