World Cup Journal - South Africa - June 2010

This is a journal I kept on our trip to South Africa (It's pretty long). Click here if you want to see a BUNCH of pictures (more than 400) - sorry I haven't had time to make comments on all of them.

Wed June 9th - Friday June 11th
We woke up with the kids that morning and hung out for a little while. We tried to finish what breakfast food we had in the house. A little later that morning we got a call that Greg’s Grandfather had had a stroke. Of course many things went through our heads about whether we should go or stay or whatever else. After talking later to Greg’s parents we decided to go ahead. The 4 of us went to Freebirds for lunch because I wanted some Mexican food before we left.

We went to drop Kasey off at Grandma and Pops house. Kasey fell asleep on the way there. This really upset me because I didn’t want her to be asleep and wake up with us gone for 2 weeks. She actually woke up a little later so I got to tell her goodbye. Fortunately or unfortunately she’s to young to understand. I know she will be taken good care of, but it’s still hard to leave. Then we took Landon and Lady to Grammy and Gramps house. Landon and Gramps took us to the airport. Landon liked seeing all of the airplanes like the kids usually do. I think Landon was excited that Lady was staying with him, and he was excited about having fun. I think he’ll have enough activities and fun time with the Grandparents that he will be ok.

Things went smoothly at DFW. We had a drink in the lounge, got to talk to a couple who had been to South Africa a few years earlier, went and got some water and got on the plane. We had an 8 ½ hour flight to Madrid on American that went pretty smoothly. Greg didn’t sleep any and I only got about 2 hours.

Once in Madrid we had a 16 hour lay over. We locked our luggage into a locker, and went into town for the day. We got to eat ham sandwiches, chirizo, potatoes bravos, shrimp with butter garlic sauce, some Spanish wine, & sangria . We saw a few other guys that were doing the same thing we were. We also went to a museum that had a lot of EU paintings and some sculptures. We went to a botanical gardens that wasn’t great, but sort of relaxing. We went to a couple plazas – Plaza Mayor. We stopped in a couple places that were big into bull fighting – I am not a fan, but won’t go into that.

After getting a late bite to eat we headed back to the airport. Some people had told us to wrap our luggage in cellophane to prevent theft and rummaging through your luggage. We did this. At check in our flight seemed ok, but as we were getting through security the board showed that our flight was delayed by 2 hours. This means we had to be there until 3:30am. Luckily we were able to go to the Iberia lounge. Doug slept for about 3 hours, Greg tried since he didn’t sleep on the first flight, and I watched the stuff and watched a movie.

By the time 3am came around and we boarded we were pretty tired, but glad to be getting on board. Of course just about everyone on the flight was going there for world cup. We had a very diverse croud. There were people from US, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, England, Haiti, Brazil, and some others as well.

Needless to say we slept most of the 10 hour flight from Madrid to JoBurg.

Once we got to South Africa and through customs, the travel group we went with was there to meet us and take us to the hotel. It took a while to get to the hotel because the driver didn’t know where the hotel was. We were pretty tired, but showed and watched the first world cup game between South Africa and Mexico – they ties 1-1.

Saturday June 12th

We got up that morning and went to breakfast, and then got ready for the day. Doug came over to our hotel and we went and walked around the mall some. We got local sim cards in the mall.

We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant outside the mall. Gathering near where we were eating was a group of Algerians in full dress. They were all singing/chanting together. After lunch we had our picture with them.

When we got back to the room about 2pm we started getting ready and we got a text that the bus at Doug’s hotel was now leaving at 2:30pm. Our original email said the transfer bus to the game was supposed to be 3 hours before the game, and then we got an update email that we were supposed to leave 5 hours prior to the game which was 3:30pm. We had no communication that we were supposed to leave at 2:30pm, but we decided to get ready for the game and go downstairs just in case. We got down there and they said that they wanted to leave at 2:30pm now because of all of the traffic. The lady that was in charge was trying to call everyone, but she wasn’t getting ahold of anyone. We decided to go sit in the bus to wait. Then about an hour later (3:30pm) everyone was finally in the bus and we were leaving. We had to go pick up 2 other people from another hotel. By the time we got them it was almost 4pm when we left the area.

As we were getting closer we Rachel (the lady helping to get us there) said that they were supposed to take us somewhere and we would have to take a bus to the game. We weren’t to happy about that. The traffic close to the game was bad and it took us a long time to get to the parking lot to catch the bus. Once we finally got off of the bus it was around 7:15-7:30pm. I still can’t believe that it took us over 3 hours to get there. Anyway, Greg really had to go to the bathroom so he went to the outhouse, and then we got in line for the buses. We barely got on a bus. They closed the door and Greg barely fit in the bus it was so packed. It took 10 minutes or so to get to the stadium. We got off the bus and went straight into the stadium. Of course I had to go to the bathroom in a not very clean trailer with soap and no water. Then we went into stadium to get our seats. Because it took so long to get there we didn’t get to eat dinner, or hang out and experience the crowd and atmosphere. We had on our US jerseys, cowboy hat, and Greg had his cowbell and USA flag he wore on his back. We also both had USA scarves. USA played England in this game and the score was 1:1. The US goal was a howler. Dempsey kicked the ball to the England Goalie (Green) and he tried to catch it but this it just kind of fell out of his hands and went into the goal. Good for the US, but pretty bad play.

We have a tradition of trading scarves with people from the teams we play in World Cup matches. I asked a couple England fans to trade and a couple people said no. Down on the main floor I asked another older gentleman if he would trade and he said yes. I thanked him and asked if we could get a picture. He said yes if I would give him a kiss. With a kiss on the cheek, a picture and an England scarf we were off to the buses. We had to ask multiple people where to find the 104 buses. Once we finally found them there were about 15 buses lined up. Most of them were already full and closed. We finally found one and were able to sit down. It was about 11pm when we got on the bus. It took us about 45 minutes to get back to the parking lot which was ~10 minutes away. Once everyone on our bus back to Rosebank was there we got in and tried to leave. This was about midnight. It took us another 45 minutes to an hour to get out of the parking lot because there were about 10 lanes trying to go into 1 exit. Even with our bus driving being somewhat aggressive we didn’t get back to the hotel until about 3:30am. It was like day tripping College Station for a night football game!

Sunday June 13th

We traveled to Capetown via airplane – British Airways. It was about a 2 hour flight. No issues. We wrapped our luggage like was recommended, but it seemed that most people didn’t do this. We got to our hotel – Blue Horizon which is really like a Bed and Breakfast. It’s very nice and Karen the innkeeper was very helpful and friendly. Our balconies overlooked the Indian Ocean, we had beer, Champaign, some candies and jerky waiting for us in our room.

That evening we went down the street for dinner to a place called the Tavern. It was a local restaurant where the official England soccer team band was eating. They were fun, and sang about everything. They ordered food and beer singing, talked to us singing etc. We had a good time and the food was great. We really enjoyed the Calamari. When we left we smelled like firewood smoke from the fire that was at the restaurant. This is much better than cigarette smoke. All in all we had a really good time.

Monday June 14th

It was a rainy day in Capetown so we decided to go wine tasting. Doug had gotten some recommendations for places to go and Karen had recommended a place for lunch near them so we took off for the day. We started off at Rustenburg winery. It was very nice, the guy came out with umbrellas to bring us in and there was covered parking for the car. It was very nice inside, and the people were very friendly. We tasted a couple wines and liked a few of them, but weren’t going to buy to ship them. We bought one to drink while we were there and got the way to order their wine in the US. Once of the ladies there made us lunch reservations, which was nice.

From there we took off down the street to Takata winery. It was a little more casual. They had a nice fireplace which we took a couple pictures at. We tried some of their red wines including one called a Pinotage that we all liked. The story of Pinotage was that in South Africa they had the grape and wine, and they had to trade grain (I think) for the ability to keep the Pinotage in South Africa. We all bought a Pinotage to take home and we bought another bottle to share while we were in Capetown.

Off to lunch at Delheim. We sat in a cave for lunch which also happened to have a TV to watch the game. We had a good lunch and then a wine tasting there. They had a spicy wine that Juan really liked called Vera Cruz Shiraz. He ended up getting a bottle because they don’t sell it out of the US. We were there for about 3 hours but it didn’t seem like it.

After that we went to what was reported to be one of the better wineries for red wine. It was called Kanonkop. Marissa and I found some local paintings of South African kids playing soccer. We decided that we wanted to get them. We liked the wine but didn’t buy any there.

On the way, back to the Blue Horizon we hit a pot whole pretty hard and ended up with a flat tire. It was still raining and we were all out of the car helping to change the tire. We got back on the road and realized that there was a second flat tire. We were able to get back to Blue Horizon, but weren’t going anywhere else. We had thought about trying to get tickets to the World cup game in Capetown that night, but it was cold and rainy and with the flat tires we decided to not even try. Juan, Marissa, Greg and I got a taxi ride from Jacques (Doug stayed at the Blue Horizon to wait for Hertz). We got in the car and said we wanted to watch the game and eat food, but didn’t really want to go to the Tavern again (since we ate there last night). He said there were some noisy Brits at a local place, but warned us about them. We told him we’d been around many crazy Brits and it sounded good to us. Jacques said he wanted to come in with us and see the expression on his friends faces when he brings in several Americans. We walked in a caused a ruckus, and they made some. Then they asked us to sit with them. We pulled up an extra table for us and everything. We had some fish and chips, several beers, watched a pretty good game (Italy/Paraguay), and had interesting company. Come to find out the main guy was Jacques partner Craig, and several others were long time supporters of England. The ladies had a very good time and enjoyed dancing and hanging around. Craig kept playing tricks on people including throwing water on them. He got Greg on one and splashed water all over him off a tray. Greg then poured the tray of water on Craig. Needless to say we had a good time. Luckily Doug was able to get a new car from Hertz so all was good.

Tuesday June 15th

We decided to spend the day at Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. We had a good lunch at Cape Point, and then took the lift to out over the water. The views were great. You could really see the power that the ocean has. There was an area out in the ocean had some turbulence which we assumed was a rock or sucken ship. This is where the Lusitania sank and we think there was something out there to show where it is. There was a small animal (clawless otter) that we joked was after Marissa – we called it a rat. The lift broke and so we walked back down the mountain. It wasn’t to far. Good thing it wasn’t Table Mountain.

Then we drove to Cape of Good Hope (the most south western part of Africa, but not the most southern part). On the way we saw a few Ostriches on the side of the road. There were several signs for Baboons, and we saw 2 on the way but figured there would be more so we didn’t get pictures. There was a lot of seaweed out and I’d never seen that there was more than the part that floats on the top. There is a long hollow cylinder that connected to the floor and then the loose part that floats on the top of the water. We took some good pictures and watched the waves crash against the shoreline for a little while. One the way out we saw several ostriches and some large Springbok. I was sad that we had not seen any more baboons as we exited park. Then just down the street there were several baboons including a baby. There were even a few baboons were playing (male and female playing), and the one on the back looked up at our car like hello some privacy here. Anyway we got to see our baboons.

We had scheduled a Wine Cave dinner that night at 7pm, and by the time we got out of the Cape of Good Hope we basically had to go straight to dinner even though we were a little dingy. The dinner was very nice and there were some wine paring that I took part in (I think I was the only one).

Wednesday June 16th

We decided to spend the day in Capetown. We went down to the waterfront to look around. We found some shops to buy some local things in and then we went to town in the Fifa store. We bought a duffle bag at the Fifa store to take stuff back home that we bought. Then we had lunch at Ocean Basket and watched Chile/Honduras game on the big screen.

Then we drove down the coast to Camps Bay. There was a nice beach around sunset that we walked on for a little while. The tide was coming in and we had to back up pretty good a few times to not get wet. The water didn’t feel to cold, but we just touched it with our hands so who knows.

That night we went to a restaurant that was recommended to Doug – Bayside Café. Dinner was good and Juan tried some Springbok that I tried. It was pretty good. South Africa was playing that night, but we decided to head back after dinner to avoid the traffic. Probably a good thing since they lost 3-0 to Uruguay that night.

Thursday June 17th

It was supposed to be clear on Thursday which is has to be to see stuff on Table Mountain. We had breakfast early for us (8am, we’d been meeting for breakfast at 9am), checked out, said goodbye and thanks to Karen, and headed to Table Mountain. Of course since this was the first clear day in several days there were many people there. We waited in line for tickets probably 30-45 minutes, and then it was pretty quick once we got tickets to get up. The lift could hold 65 people and rotated 360 degrees as you went up and down. We spent some time walking around at the top (1067 meters high) and taking pictures. You could see the waterfront and Capetown as well as the other side where there were some more mountains and the Camps Bay beach. The views were amazing. We had a quick lunch up there before coming back down and heading to the airport.

That afternoon we flew back to JoBurg. That night we went to Melrose Arch for dinner at Moyo and watched a game on the big screen. We ate outside and nearly froze, but we survived with a fire near by and blankets. We also had a few bottles of Pinotage wine 

Friday June 18th

We woke up a little early so that we could do a little shopping at the African market right by our hotel. We had an early breakfast and headed to the market to find some gifts. We also went to a camping store to get some pants long johns because it was pretty cold.

When we got back we got dressed with our layers ready for the game and went down early. We had heard at breakfast that they tried to leave early for another game as well so we assumed this would be the case. Of course not. It was 12:30 when they were supposed to pick us up and the bus still wasn’t there. Juan had brought by some face paint so we spent some timing doing that. We did USA on one side and stars on the other in red, white and blue. Of course we had our hats on. We had USA jerseys and scarves as well. Greg did wear his flag, but will now be retired. At least there were other US fans waiting for the bus. Anyway, we got on our bus but Juan, Marissa and Doug were still waiting for them. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the game and we were one of the first buses there. We got out and decided to have a beer and wait for the other guys. We took some pictures, had a couple beers, and talked to the tour guy from our bus for a little while. Once they got to the bus parking we took some pictures, of all of us. Then we headed in. Of course he had people wanting pictures with us. There were also several Mexican TV stations that wanted to interview Juan and Marissa. We walked around some, got some hot dogs to eat, Doug exchanged his scarf with a Slevenia. We got to our seats which were in the shade so it was chilly. Not horrible, but it was good that we had our long johns on. Our section had some Americans, but mainly it was South Africans. The guy next to us was South African and had a guitar with a USA flag. He was VERY excited to be there, and took several pictures including some with us. Overall the game was pretty good, but the US got some bad calls including a late one to disregard a winning goal. The use was down 2-0 at half time and came back, but wasn’t able to win it because of the penalty and not being to finish in other instances.


Saturday June 19th

We got up early again to do a little shopping and then we got picked up by Rachel (the tour lady from our first game trip to Rustenburg) to head to Soweto township. We started out by going to a poor part of town. Rachel basically dropped us off with a tour guide who took us through the streets. There were several kids around playing soccer and looking cute and asking for money. In this area, they basically have a faucet for everyone to take a bath, only have overhead street lights (no other power), and only about 50% of them have jobs. The kids have to walk 30 minutes to get to schools. We went into one of ladies houses. She lives in the very small “shack” for lack of a better word with 2 rooms with 6 total family members. They had 1 bed. They did have a small TV powered by car batteries. The kids were very trained to be nice, ask questions, and try to get money for pictures, soccer balls etc. The tour guide told us he would give the community 70% of what we gave him. Who knows.

After that we went to a church where towns people used to have meetings with the church as a cover. There were bullet holes in the ceiling. It was a catholic church with some pictures upstairs of the history. I bought a necklace from the vendors outside of the church. I found one I really liked and they were so thankful that I bought something.

After that we went to the small museum for Nelson Mandela which was at one of his old houses. His second wife still has a house in the same area which is known as Beverly Hills of Soweto.

That night we got back and just had dinner by the hotel at Nino’s – We watched the Denmark/Cameroon game.

Sunday June 20th

We left Johannesburg today for our Safari. We flew to Hoedspruit which was about an hour or hour and a half flight. We took South African Airlines. The plane was a small prop plane that was completely full. They had to weigh our luggage and everything. When we got on the flight they offered us a small bottle of water, and then offered us juice. After we took off they offered us a mystery snack in a brown paper bag. The snack was a bag of Lays chips (Marissa was happy (she works for Frito Lay), a cookie and a small candy bar. In addition to this they offered drinks (free wine, beer, whatever). I had a bottle of red wine (it was Merlot, but ok for airplane wine), and Greg had a Windhoch light beer. Later we learned that Juan got 2 beers. I told him Greg would be jealous (he had gotten one for him and Marissa and just drank both). Juan was nice enough to share his second one with Greg.

When we got to the airport, we got off the plan on the tarmac, and were looking where to go. There wasn’t really an airport. It was a roofed little building with a runway and a little more concrete for the plane to park. We could see all of the people waiting to transport people to the safari’s (holding up names) from getting off the plane. Once we got there we found out guy, walked through the very small building out to wait for the tractor and luggage holder to bring the luggage around. We needed to wait for the van to take Doug, Marissa and Juan to their safari because it was late. We decided to have a drink and an ice cream while waiting.

On the way to our Safari, we had to pay an entrance fee into the park, and then we saw several animals along the way. Our drivers name was Remember. We saw Zebras, Wildabeast, Apola, and a hippo in the pond right by our lodge.

We were at the Royal Legand Lodge in the Timivati private reserve. We got checked in and they said they were serving lunch and we’d be leaving on safari at 3:30pm (it was about 3pm when we checked in). We got our stuff we were going to take to the Safari and headed down to the place where lunch was to see where it was. When we got there the staff was introducing themselves to us, but there were 2 giraffes just off the where you eat. We were amazed. Needless to say we had not gone on a safari yet and we had already seen a lot.

We were in short sleeves and pants at this time when we started the safari, but a couple people commented that it will get cold so we brought our jackets. We started out and saw some Apolla (they are like deer, and there are many of them in this area). A little later we saw Cape Buffalo (one of the big5). There were a whole bunch of them including several babies. A few of the babies were drinking their mom’s milk. They drink the milk from the back between the legs because they are on the move so much. We also saw several birds and a small monkey at a top of the tree (looking out for lions and other cats). We stopped around sunset to have a drink. They brought out of a cooler basically a full bar – several kinds of cold beer, wine, several small bottles of liquer. We had some French people with us that all drank Wisky, Greg and I had beer. They also had some dried fruit, kind of chip things, and some chicken liver. I tried it all, but don’t think chicken liver is one of my favorites. The French people really liked it. Our guide (Fanni) said that the other group had found some Rhinos and wanted to know if we wanted to stay on our break or go find them. We all wanted to go find them. There were 3 Rhinos – mommy, baby and Daddy. The mom was very protective of the baby and got a little tired of us, but I think we got some cool pictures. It’s neat to see them in the nature and how they react to things.

Monday June 21st

We had to get up at 5:15am to get ready for a 6am departure of the safari. It was definitely worth it. We were leaving the lodge and the other lady said she thought she saw a warthog or something. It ended up being the baby hippo that stays by the lodge. We got to see him walk across the street and into the water. Unfortunately we didn’t get good pictures or video, but it was cool to see. We were out for about and hour and had not seen much. Then we got a call on the radio that they other group had found lions. It was really cold. We had every long sleeve item that we brought on, long johns, scarves, hats, gloves, blankets. It was pretty cold, but in the open breeze of the jeep it was really cold. Fanni said we’re going fast to see some lions. We didn’t complain. On the way we passed several giraffes and Greg saw a male Waterbok – we just kept going to get to the lions. What we saw was 2 grown female lions with about 10-12 cubs. They had killed a cape buffalo and were eating it. It was amazing to watch. Some of the cubs would play with each other. Fanni said that when they are eating, none of them are nice to each other including the grown ones. We heard a few growls, but nothing serious broke out. A little ways away was a grown male lion with two cubs. They were just hanging out after their meal. We got pretty close to all of them which was pretty cool.

I was very happy to have seen the lions, Fanni said they haven’t seen them in about a week. Not long after that we saw elephants. They were amazing. We saw about 15-20 of them including a couple young ones. Fanni says that most of the babies are born in Dec/Jan timeframe. The elephants were drinking water, one of the babies was drinking it’s mother’s milk, some were eating leaves, and one was rubbing it’s side on a tree. Several of them came walking very close to us. It was crazy being right in the middle of them. Fanni said they usually travel in about 60-70 but we still got to see several of them. Some of them are very big.

After that we saw 2 Apolla males that were fighting for dominance, but they were also making a nasel sound that was telling other Apolla that something was close and to go the other way. We didn’t see anything, but Fanni says that normally means that there is a lion or leopard near when they make that sound.

We also saw several Warthogs including a baby and we saw a female Waterbok going across the street.

Tuesday June 22nd

We had to get up at 5:15am again to go on Safari. We saw the hippo walking along the main walkway on our way to the Range Rovers. We didn’t see much else that morning. They are tracking different lions, but they went onto someone else’s property so we had to stop tracking them. We did get to see the hyena though.

After safari we went down to eat breakfast. Then we went back to the room to take a shower. There was an outdoor shower that we considered but decided not to 

Then we went down to the eating area and hung out hoping to see some more animals, but we didn’t.

We left at noon to go back to the airport, and we flew back to Johannesburg. We had about 5 hours there so we plastic wrapped our bags, got an assessment for what VAT we could get back, and then went and got in line to check in. There was a whole group of Brazilians in front of us for our flight. Once they go through the line they started singing. The South Africa game was on, and you could tell when someone scored because the whole airport started screaming and blowing Vuvuzelas. We went and got our VAT back (of course minus 25% fee), and did a little shopping.

I think we were pretty tired because we both slept most of the flight from JBurg to Madrid. We had another 5 hours in Madrid. We spent most of it in the lounge. I slept some more and Greg played on the computer. We went a little early to the gate because there is extra security to go through. We had joked earlier that if they asked us if we wanted 1 upgrade who would take it. Of course, they called our name and they had 1 seat in business class and we had to choose. I told Greg he could take it and happy fathers day. Luckily he was nice enough to bring me some ice cream from business class.

We had a great trip. We really enjoyed the experience, the people in South Africa, Cape Town, the games, and the Safari. I hope that when the kids are older we could take them back for a safari. Who knows!

Playing in the back yard -

Here are some pictures from us playing in the backyard in the water. The first pictures are from 5/16/10 and the second set are from 6/6/10 - you can tell the difference from the bathing suits.

First visit to the pool this year - 5/31/10

This was at our neighborhood pool. This was really the first time Kasey was able to get into the pool and play around some. Last year we just held her. We tried to practice some of the stuff from swimming with Landon, but he just wanted to play.

Conroe Visit May 2010

We went down to Conroe for a family party. Nina was graduating from College and we were also celebrating Jim and Gary's birthdays.

It was good to have the family together. Several friends were also there. There was a DJ playing at the party, and then later a full Mariachi band came. One of my cousins Marisela and one of her daughters Ashlyn did a special dance for Gary (husband and dad) to the Mariachi music.

For pictures click here

Landon's 4th Birthday

Landon's 4th birthday

We had a couple celebrations for Landon.

Saturday May 15th we had Landon's friend birthday party. We had it at Pump it Up in Frisco which the kids really liked. Landon picked Cars (from the movie as his theme). I made a cake with a road in the shape of a 4. We put some of the cars characters like Mack, Lightning, Tow Mater, Chick Hicks and The King. We had about 18 kids at the party from his school class, the neighborhood and friends from TI moms.

Sunday we had the family birthday. We had everyone over to eat Freebirds (one of Landon's favorites). For cake we made cupcakes and put them in the shape of a 4. Landon wanted the icing to be green, blue, red and yellow. I made the icing and topped the cupcakes then Landon helped me top the icing with blue, red, green sprinkles or multi colored stars. We had fun decorating together. Then we put on Tow Mater and Lightning McQueen ring toppers. Landon also got to open presents from his friends and family at this party.

On Monday on his actual birthday he had school. We took in cupcakes with the Cars themed rings on them for his morning class. We had won a root beer float party for a class at the AppleCreek Auction so we had them do this at Stay and Play with his friends there. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Landon had one with rootbeer and without rootbeer because he wasn't sure he liked the rootbeer.

Landon went to the Dr on his birthday after school and stay and play. He weighed 39 lb - 74%, and was 41 1/4 in tall - 70%. He had to get 4 shorts which wasn't fun, but everything looked good. His ears were clear which we were happy about.

Below are some pictures. For more pictures click here

Landon's Cars cake for his friend party - 5/15/10

The friend party was at Pump It Up - Even to adults got to play

All of the kids at Landon's party

Landon's friends from his school class from left to right - Brooklyn, Landon, Justin, Miles, Jack, Mirabia, Dylan

Some of Landon's other friends - Mirabia, Alfonso, Landon, Devon, Eliana, Lauren, Sarah, Jack

Landon helped me decorate the cupcakes for his family party - 5/16/10

Here is the cars cupcake cake for Landon's family party

Landon and Kasey before the party

Landon got a basketball goal for his birthday from Grammy and Gramps. This was his expression when he saw it for the first time

The family out watching Landon and Kasey playing basketball

The family at the party, not sure about Kasey's expression

Grammy and Gramps with their grandkids

Grandma and Pops with their grandkids

Updates, Mother's Day, Kasey 17 Months

It's been pretty busy with my new job, some travel, and just busy weekends. Anyway, here are some updates. I'll have to get more pictures uploaded.

5/11 - Kasey turned 17 months on April 28th so I'm a little behind - who knew time would go so fast. Kasey is a strong willed sweet little girl. She can throw a fit, but she can also make you laugh with a smile. She scratches (sometimes I think to get attention), but she also cuddles. When I leave her room she will throw a fit and throw her blanket out of her bed, and then Greg will go in and she'll settle down first try. She understands just about anything we say. In May I started giving her options at night or nap that she could cuddle in my lap or go to bed. She will choose what she feels like and then decide when she's ready to go to bed. She's eating pretty good. She still loves most meat. The main vegetables she eats are cucumbers and avacados - sometimes peas and green beans. She likes fruit especially bananas, blueberries and cantaloupe. She's just getting breastmilk at night now, and drinking soy milk outside of that. It depends on the day how much soy milk she drinks - sometimes 16 oz and somedays I think more like 4oz. She'll eat yogurt as well. We've actually started giving her some cheese with cow's milk in it and it seems to be ok so far. We'll see how that goes. She has gotten sick a couple times, but other times she doesn't.

Kasey can climb up into the car by herself. She also can take her own shirt off. She tries to put on any clothes or shoes that are around the house (everyone's except her own)

She's in 5 diapers although last night we were noticing that they really don't fit her very well. She's wearing 24months and 2T clothes. Her top half is long with shorter legs, and she still has a belly. She tried to say avocado the other day. She says things like bye bye, teeth, ma ma (a lot), da, and she tries to say several things like all done, Landon, other family member names, and things we repeat a lot

She loves to play. And loves to take Landon's toys. She likes books, she loves to draw, and will pull everything apart. Anything that has several items in it she will remove them all and put them all over the floor. We wonder why our house is a mess all the time.

Landon is recovering from being sick. He went at least a day and a half without eating, and now we sometimes think he'll eat us out of house and home. He's hungry all the time.

He's playing tball, and only has a few weeks of school left.

Landon is also getting some attitude. He'll tell us he can't do things, or do things that we've told him not to do. We're trying to negotiate that when he turns 4 at least his blanket in the car goes away. We'll see how that goes. There are days that he throws a complete fit for not having it. This past weekend he picked riding with his blanket over riding with both of the grandparents and me. He seems to be doing well in school and wants to learn how to spell things which is good.

5/9 - My mother's day

Landon came home from school Friday with some fun Mother's day gifts. He had made a plate with some flowers on it that had a little card that said Happy Mother's Day, and he wrote Love, Landon. They had planted sunflower seeds and they were starting to grow with a little card and poem attached that Landon signed. The teachers had filled out a little sheet that said:

My mommy is 14 years old

Her favorite foods are lettuce, blueberries and raspberries

She likes to fly on trips

while I'm at school Mommy does art at work

Mommy's favorite thing to do with me is: draw pictures

I think this was priceless!

Saturday night Greg and Landon went to the FC Dallas soccer game. Greg came home and his eyes were very red, hurt and he couldn't breathe very well. Needless to say he didn't sleep very well. The kids got up at normal time so I let Greg sleep in. Landon, Kasey and I made muffins together. They helped me poor things in and mix them up. Landon helped me figure out which ones needed more batter. The three of us had breakfast, and then Landon said he was tired (he had been up late the night before). Landon went and laid down with Greg in the bedroom and they slept until 10:30-11am. After everyone was awake Greg had the kids bring me my presents. They each had a bag from James Avery, and they helped me open them. One had a beautiful bracelet in it that I had told Greg I liked, and the other one had matching earings. Greg still wasn't feeling well, but the kids and I went and met Janice, Cindy and Nanny for brunch at Mama Emilias. It was a little crazy. We had reservations, but still had to wait 30 minutes for a table. Landon was telling me he was hungry and starving every 30 seconds :) After brunch we went back to the house for a little bit so Grandma could open her mother's day presents. I got some pretty flowers from Cindy and a few nice cards. We hung out for a little while and finally got the kids down for a nap about 4:30pm. I then went and took a nap. I thought Greg was going to as well, but I don't think he did. We had to wake the kids up to go to dinner at Terra with Grammy and Gramps. We had a great dinner, and then they came back to the house for a little bit for Grammy to open her gifts. I got another nice card and some Mother's Day money. Grammy helped me get the kids a bath and read them a book. It was fun to get to do that with my mom on Mother's Day

5/2 - This was the first day that I stopped breastfeeding or pumping in the mornings. I'm now down to breastfeeding Kasey once a day. She's doing pretty well. She will ask for it sometimes, but is doing better drinking soy milk instead. I try to give her lots of hugs and lap time when I'm home.

5/1 - Landon had his first Jr Tball game of the season. This is his second season with the Cubs, but Greg is the head coach this time.

4/27 - I had to go out of town to California this week. The kids did well. Greg had his first tball practice on 5/28 as the head coach for the Cubs Jr Tball team. Landon is on the team with friends Justin, Asher, Alfonso, Ian, Jack and Miles. This is Greg's first time to be head coach and is doing a great job.

Week of 4/19 - Kasey said ear. She says eat a lot, bye bye and tries to say a few other things.

Last time Landon went to that Little Gym for a party he got the Swine Flu. This time he got a bad virus. Monday night he had a low fever of 99 but was fine otherwise. He didn't go to swim Tuesday because he had a higher fever. He seemed fine otherwise. Wednesday he still had fever and wasn't doing as well. Wednesday night he came downstairs and slept with us. He woke up about 2am and started throwing up. He said, that wasn't very fun. He got to point where he didn't want to eat and was sleeping a lot. Greg took him to the dr and they said it's a virus going around. Thursday afternoon we thought his fever broke, and then he woke up Friday morning with a 103 temp. Finally by Saturday afternoon his fever went away and he got a rash which is normal.

Even today - 4/29 - he slept 3 hours for a nap. He's started to get his appetite back, but not fully recovered and not eating like he used to yet. Hopefully he can get some rest and fully recover soon.

4/19 - Kasey is trying to say things like elephant and cookie, not quite there but she tries.

4/18 - I think Kasey is drinking breastmilk or breastfeeding twice a day now.

Landon got to go to Little Gym for birthday party for some friends from school

4/17 - Today Kasey is taking her shirt off because she can do it in the middle of the day!

4/16 - Kasey said bye bye today for the first time. She's been eating cheese a little bit, but the one day she had a whole stick of cheese she threw up. She's not drinking a lot of soy milk during the day. I'm still breastfeeding some. In the mornings I either feed her or pump if I have to go into work early. Then I feed her in the evenings before bed.

We went to the park by our house today and Kasey went on all of the big slides by herself. That was the first time. She's growing up to fast. Landon is such a big help to make sure she's ok or to help her to something.

Kasey took her shirt off by herself. Greg says she's done this before, but I haven't seen her do it.

4/12 - I guess I've been busy celebrating my birthday and doing stuff for my new job that I started on 4/5.

Greg said yesterday that he thinks Kasey says eat. She still signs it too.

Blog updates - Mid March to April 1st

4/1 - We took the kids to Fort Worth Zoo, and then headed back for soccer tots. Kasey was out before we got to the car, and Landon was out not long after we left the parking lot. We had fun seeing the animals. They both really like the elephants. We were trying to sign a lot of the animals to Kasey and even Landon would help out with that. We got to pet a cow and a chicken. Greg and Landon got to have some fudge, but it was made with real butter and cream so Kasey and I didn't get any.

I think Kasey has at least 1 eye tooth on the top coming in.

3/31 - I took the day off. I got to go volunteer at Landon's school during art time which was fun. I also got to sit in the class for a few minutes while they were teaching about the letter I.

3/30/10 - This was the first day that I didn't pump at work. Sort of sad. I'm still breastfeeding, but we're giving Kasey only soy milk during the day so I don't need to pump. We'll see how it goes.

3/28 - I had bought Landon, Grammy and I tickets to Disney on Ice. We all 3 enjoyed it a lot. I loved all of the characters, the music and the diversity of things they showed. They did several numbers with songs from movies, and then in the second half Micky and Minnie were pretending to look for each other while ended up in foreign countries for an adventure. They went to Japan, China and then New Orleans. It was put together really well. Landon doesn't know all of the characters (which is fine), but he knew several and really liked seeing some like Aladdin. Grammy really enjoyed it as well. We had great seats in the lower bowl of the AA Center.

we went to the Pump it Up where Landon is going to have his birthday party in May. He had a blast and so did I. I got to jump in the bounce houses and slide on the slides as well. Landon decided I had picked a good place for his birthday.

3/27 - Landon has a little bit of crust coming out of his ear. I assumed that his ear drum had burst so Greg called the Dr and took him in that morning. His ear infection was not getting better even though he had been on antibiotics for 10 days. Because of this they wanted to give him a stronger antibiotic, and he had to get 2 shots for it. Poor thing. I think they hurt pretty bad, and we probably let him milk it for a while. He said he was sore, couldn't walk very well. We got home, gave him some motrin, put ice on his legs, and before long he was running around the house with daddy. We had told his soccer team he probably wouldn't be at the game, but he got dressed and went. Probably the best thing to move his legs around.

Luckily this worked out ok. After the soccer game we had lunch at our house and then Grammy, the kids and I went to a craft fair at the Plano Center. We found some really cute things, but by the end Landon was a bit worn out and saying he didn't want to go down any more rows of the craft fair.

Sat night we grabbed a quick dinner at Tin Star, and then Landon and I went to the Circus under the big top in Allen. It worked out pretty well. I had not gotten tickets because I wasn't sure Landon would make it. We had to wait in line for tickets - it was actually cold with the wind. Landon had my jacket on. I got reserved seats so that we didn't have to rush to our seats. After getting tickets to the show I got some coupons for rides. Landon rode a train, and then we decided to go into the main area. This was pretty good timing as the line was starting to move pretty good. Once we got in most people were getting to their general admission seats so the camel and elephant rides were pretty empty. Landon and I rode both with very short lines. Then we got some popcorn and went inside to our seats to watch the show. We enjoyed it quite a bit.

Week of 3/22 - I bought Kasey some new cute shoes online. She got them in and likes wearing them. She came over and stuck her foot out to show me her new shoes. She was excited, and still is really excited to wear them.

Kasey is getting shorter and shorter on naps. She'll take 30 minutes to an hour, but is less and less sleeping a long time. She doesn't take 2 naps as often either.

Landon is pretty close to being done with naps. When he's really tired he'll take one, but most days he won't.

3/18 - Landon started drawing people today. Stick people but people. Usually he draws maps or just scribbles. He drew our family of 4.

3/16. I think Kasey said eye and Landon. She's trying to say more words

She knows where eyes nose ears tummy and toes are. Shell also do head shoulders knees and toes

She's really started climbing more. Yesterday she stepped on Greg's foot and climbed into his lap on her own. She can also get onto Landon's bed by herself and thinks it's fun.

She also figured out how to open Landon's closet door (from being fully closed) - which is where we keep the ride in car that the kids fight over. She actually tries to open several doors. She wants to go outside and tried to open those doors. Yesterday she tried getting to the backyard through the doggy door. Luckily she wasn't successful.

3/15. Kasey has 2 new teeth on the top. Not for sure if they are eye teeth or small molars. Also last of the bottom front four teeth has come in on the right