JAMSquared

Sunday, August 8, 2010

James, Jessica and I went down to McDade’s Emporium, the little pastry & ice cream parlor near the lobby, and picked up some breakfast tacos. We then wandered outside to enjoy our breakfast on a bench under a massive oak tree. We then returned to our room to change into our swimsuits.

At the pool, we floated the Crooked River, the resort’s registered name for a lazy river, with everyone except Jason’s family who had already going swimming and went to take a nap.

Everyone then met up for lunch at Old Buck’s Place, the poolside cafe.

While Jessica napped in our room, and Cameron and Trevor napped in Jason and Julia’s room, the adults played a round of Balderdash in Mom and Dad’s room while Aspen played on the floor. Jason won. He had a real knack for guessing the real answer.

After nap time, Cameron rode a pink tricycle that was still too big (it was smaller than the blue tricycle).

And Jessica and Trevor talked to each other in their strollers.

Jason, Julia, Aspen and Dad went swimming some more.

Jessica then rode the horse in the lobby.

We drove into Bastrop and enjoyed dinner at Nancy’s Steakhouse. The bacon wrapped shrimp and chicken appetizers were very good.

Back at the beginning of August, we went on a mini vacation getaway with the Dzubinski side of the family. I tend to be really picture heavy in my travel blog posts, so I’ve decided to do separate posts for each day. Check out Julia’s post here and Sarah’s posts here and here. I apologize for the delay in sharing our trip. James and I are making some behind the scenes changes to our website and I had hoped to be finished before posting about the trip. Alas, grout sealing has taken up our time until recently so the web changes are still not in place yet.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

After partying with Aspen at her birthday celebration and Jessica’s afternoon nap, we arrived at our travel destination, the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa. Granted, the destination wasn’t far from home, off of Highway 71 just west of Bastrop but it was a perfect getaway. Everyone settled into their rooms. Sarah’s family’s room was on the 3rd floor while the rest of us were on the 4th floor. Dinner was then eaten at the Firewheel Cafe, one of the resort’s six dining facilities. They had a buffet that everyone decided to try. I tried a variety of dishes including salmon, prime rib, and a cauliflower au gratin that would have tasted better if the cauliflower pieces had been more uniform in size. The dessert table of the buffet had many delicious choices. I loved how many of the desserts were bite-sized or small so you could try multiples desserts without feeling guilty.

After dinner, we walked around the grounds a bit. Cameron tested out the covered wagon.

We scoped out the pool. Then we let the kiddos play on the playground.

Don’t you love that little tongue sticking out? Ever since this trip Jessica has been sticking her tongue out a lot too. I don’t know if it is because she saw Trevor doing it or what, but it sure is cute.

Last weekend, James took Friday off from work and we traveled up I-35 to Keller to visit my sister and her family. The main purpose of the trip was so Sarah and I could go to the Great American Scrapbook convention in Arlington, but we did a bunch of fun stuff outside of the convention too.

Friday afternoon, the kiddos had fun playing together.

Babies don’t quite understand the concept of sharing. Fortunately, there were two of those orange things.

I even got a rare picture of Jessica and me, courtesy of Sarah. Of course, Jessica isn’t quite looking at the camera. That’s tough to do sometimes.

Jessica enjoyed Trevor’s piano walker toy.

Here’s a little video of James playing with Cameron and a puppet.

After dinner, we took a walk and stopped at the swings. There was only one baby swing, so Trevor and Jessica had to share. See the cute pictures of the two them Sarah posted on her blog.

Saturday morning, Sarah and I took the kiddos to Homestead Farms. There were three baby goats, a rabbit and some chickens. The farm wasn’t quite what we were expecting, but they had a great produce stand. We got some unusual squash you don’t see at the supermarket and some peaches. Sarah made Trevor and Jessica some peach baby food and Jessica loved it. I thought it tasted pretty good too.

After lunch, Sarah and I left for the scrapbooking convention. We had a ton of fun doing a workshop, wandering the vendor fair and then cropping the night away. It was nice getting to spend some sister time together. I plan to post what I worked on during the crop night soon.

While we were at the scrapbooking convention, James and Brian took the kiddos to Brian’s parents’ house to go swimming. It was Jessica’s first time. James said she did okay. The next time, I bet she will enjoy it even more and I will get some pictures.

Sunday morning, Jessica got her first hair cut. Sarah did the cutting and I kept Jessica from moving, well moving too much. James took the photos (I was very impressed with the quantity of photos he took).

Afterward the kiddos played together. Apparently Jessica’s hair cut gave Cameron ideas as he wanted to cut his mama’s hair with his toy pliers.

We went to lunch at Rosa’s and then headed home. It was such a fun weekend. I’m glad we live close enough to have this kind of weekend.

Last Saturday afternoon was Aspen’s baptism. It was held at 4 PM at St. Theresa Catholic Church. I’d never visited that church before and the stained glass window behind the alter was gorgeous. Aspen did really well and it was a very nice ceremony. Unfortunately, I didn’t take as many pictures as I normally would as I was helping Julia out by taking photos with her camera.

Apparently, it was more interesting to look at her Aunt Sarah than smile at the camera.

Since Brian was keeping Cameron occupied and Sarah was the godmother, James held Trevor since Jessica was happy to play in her carrier for the majority of the ceremony.

Here’s my cutie pie with her Daddy. Doesn’t she look fancy in her party dress?

Earlier in the day, Jason and Julia held a cook-out to celebrate the day’s big event. I’m glad I was able to help out by bringing dessert (blog post on that to come). I think the party started right after Aspen woke up from her nap. She still looks a little sleepy in this photo, but it was such a great photo of my Mom.

Jessica fought and fought naptime that morning and so she was kinda sleepy at the party. We actually ended up leaving to take Jessica home for a nap before the baptism.

After Aspen’s baptism, my parents, Sarah and her family and us went to eat dinner at BJ’s Restaurant. Jessica did pretty well, considering she didn’t get a morning nap and only got a relatively short afternoon nap. Here we are waiting for our table. The wait wasn’t too terribly bad since we called ahead.

Sunday morning before Sarah and her family left, Trevor and Jessica got to play together. For some reason, Jessica really liked holding his ear. She does like to grab my ears too for that matter.

This is a pose that we’ve begun to see a lot of recently. This makes bow wearing difficult, because the bow typically goes where her hand is located.

We then went and had breakfast tacos at Torchy’s Tacos before they headed out of town to go home.

Sunday, March 28th was Cameron’s 2nd birthday. We took a road trip up to Sarah‘s place for his party held Saturday afternoon. We arrived Saturday at lunch. Then the kiddos got to play some before taking naps to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the party. Unfortunately, Jessica did not want to nap. She finally slept for about an hour on James’ chest upstairs after the party got started at 4 PM.

The birthday boy had a blast blowing out his birthday candles. Sarah had to light them multiple times since he kept blowing them out before everyone sang him the birthday song. Watching him open the presents was fun. He kept getting excited and wanting to play with his new toys. Sarah had to reel him back in to open the rest of the gifts.

A lady Sarah works with was nice enough to take a little family photo for us.

After the party attendees departed, the kiddos got to play a little bit before going to bed. Since Jessica didn’t really nap very well, she slept like a champ.

The morning brought some play time with Papa and her cousins.

I love the expression on their faces in this next photo. You can certainly tell they’re related.

Before Jason, Julia, and Aspen left, we had to have a little photo shoot with all the kiddos and the grandparents. Of course, at this point, getting everyone to look the same direction is nigh near impossible, but at least everyone was happy.

We stuck around and had lunch with Brian, Sarah, Cameron and Trevor and then we headed back to Austin. Jessica took a nice long nap in the car, as did her mama.