Princess Addison

Ainsley won this little princess crown at the family reunion for winning the Golf Ball Toss. Ainsley and her cousin Lauren wore these on Saturday night to roaring applause. Since then Miss Addison has comandeered it for her own use.

Princess Addison makes her appearances for her adoring crowds a few times DAILY. Here are some (not so) hard to obtain photos of one of her recent appearances...


Princess Addison entertaining on the lawn...



Princess Addison posing for a rare paprazzi shot...we are never without our brush in case we have a hair emergency.

Family Reunion

Our family reunion was this weekend. Each year my mother's family gets together on the last weekend in July in Salado, Texas at a place called the Summers Mill Retreat and Conference Center. It's a neat little place with sleeping rooms for everyone as well as a "house" where we have a living room/TV, huge dining space, kitchen, etc. We all gather there to catch up on the year's activities, laugh, eat, drink and have fun.

We weren't able to make it last year, as both of the girls were sick, so I was really looking forward to this year's event to see family and friends I hadn't seen in two years. Plus, one of the cousins is almost exactly Ainsley's age (I think one month separates them), so I was looking forward to Ainsley seeing Lauren again.

Ainsley and Lauren became FAST friends...walking off holding hands within the first five minutes of our arrival. And, Addison had a BALL chasing after everyone and playing.



Addison's first bounce house. She LOVED it!



Then she decided to take a crack at hula hoops. She actually did pretty well considering these weigh almost as much as she does.



We always play games at the reunions, and this year Ainsley won the "Golf Ball Toss." She was very excited but a little overwhelmed when everyone was clapping and cheering for her.



My family tends to get a little "redneck" with one of our newer competitions - the "Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest" (or as most people say it when speaking quickly, the "Speed Sitting Contest"). This is my mother-in-law giving it her all. She was a great sport to go along with all this craziness.

My cousin, Matt, from Virigina giving seed spitting a try.

After the "Water Balloon Toss" everything went crazy and turned into a water balloon fight/mêlée. I'm totally shocked that my family would act like this (OK, not really).

My mom's good friend, Polly, brought a really fun game called "Redneck Golf." This is Matt climbing into the tree to retrieve one of the golf balls after he tossed it into the branches.

This is Matt getting it from the lower branch he tossed it into after retrieving it the first time. I never said my family was full of Rhodes Scholars.

Ainsley's sweet cousin Lauren blowing bubbles on Sunday morning.

Ainsley blowing bubbles for Addison to "catch."

More bubbles (can you tell we like bubbles?)

My mother-in-law giving the hula hoop a try. I was pretty impressed with how good she was...

Linda helping Addison with the hula hoop. It's so big that this picture is comical, but Addison REALLY wanted to be like the big kids!

Overall, the reunion was a huge success. We had a lot of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year. I still can't believe my in-laws came along. They seemed to have a good time, but I think I'm glad they didn't see this part of my family until we'd been married almost 10 years. This way maybe they won't encourage Derek to file for divorce and run as far away as possible.

Addison - 1 year

I'm totally behind in posting these pictures, but that's partly because Miss Addison didn't cooperate the first time we tried to take her pictures. SO, we ended up with Session #2 and got these...good thing she's cute, because she's a handful!

A "Grand" Day at the Hall

Today was grandparents' day at Ainsley's school. My mother is home recovering from her shoulder surgery, and my grandfather was in town to help her out around the house, so it was perfect timing for them to attend!

The morning's events began with a concert by all the Montessori and kindergarten students in the theater. The theme was "Americana," so Ainsley was wearing her blue and white dress with a red bow. She was very particular that all three colors had to be in her outfit.


The kids sang several patriotic songs and even recited the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a great show!

The children had been working on paintings from a book their teacher selected. Ainsley's class worked on the book "Waiting for Wings" about butterflies. Each child selected a page in the book and created a painting from it.


Ainsley's painting is the one above her head.

In addition, the children have been learning a lot about plants. They've learned what plants need to grow and thrive. They've learned how to plant things in the ground, and they've even grown their own bean plants! They're also learning how water and food move through plants and flowers!


On our visit to Ainsley's classroom, she showed us her flower, which she's turning pink by placing it in red water. She's all about pink.

After visiting Ainsley's classroom we headed to the book fair where Ainsley selected "Pinkalicioius" and "Purpleicious," books about little girls who want to eat, sleep and breathe those colors. They're very cute.


Right before everyone left, we got a great picture of Ainsley with her great grandfather. She was SO excited he came to grandparents' day with her!

Exploring Roma - The Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel

Ainsley and I ventured out by ourselves today to visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. The museum is lovely and fairly small, but there is a gift shop about every 50 yards inside the building. It was really kind of funny. In almost every gallery there was a kiosk set up where you could buy books about the Vatican, a 2010 Vatican calendar (I didn't actually see a 2009 option), a rosary or some other trinket. We avoided all of them (with the exception of buying Derek's great aunt a rosary that had been blessed by the Pope himself. She's a nun and will likely never have the chance to visit the Vatican in person), but I had to laugh when we entered the final gift shop and the woman in front of me said very sarcastically "Oh, no! It's my last chance to buy something!"

The museum itself was not terribly interesting to either of us (sorry...just being honest), but we did see some things we thought were pretty.


No idea what this is...just thought it looked neat.


Ainsley asked me to take a picture of this vase. I have no idea why other than perhaps the fact that it's pink?


Yet another item that I just thought looked interesting. A really pretty stained glass piece, obviously, but I have no idea who the artist is or why it's in the museum. Wanna hire me as your tour guide?


I thought this was really interesting. It's a letter from Galileo that was on display in one of the gift shops. I almost laughed out loud about it. Perhaps the Vatican is developing a sense of humor over being wrong about the whole sun moving around the Earth thing?


This room was roped off in the museum, so we couldn't actually walk down the hall and look around, but I thought this was really lovely.

After walking through the museum (Ainsley and I did it backward since I was forced to take the "handicap route" with her stroller) we headed into the Sistine Chapel. You're not supposed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, so I disavow any knowledge of how the following photos were acquired.

Exploring Roma - Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps

After the Pantheon we decided to head to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Our cabbie dropped us on this completely nondescript street with a bunch of multi-level buildings that looked like apartments. He told us to go a block or two to the right and we'd see the fountain. We came around the corner and saw the gorgeous fountain. Here is a video of the fountain - and of Ainsley throwing a coin into it.



We had our first gelato while near at the fountain. And, man-o-man...people were right. Gelato in Italy is amazing. Ainsley got mint and strawberry, and I got lemon and banana. They were delicious. Ainsley stole some of my mom's chocolate, so she got to try several flavors!

Then we headed to the Spanish Steps. We finally made it after a slight detour. We got a little turned around with all the streets that meander this way and that. We were exhausted by the time we got there, so we decided instead of climbing the steps to just sit at the bottom and admire the view. And, what a view it is.


The Spanish Steps from across the street. The building at the top is the Spanish Embassy to the Vatican, hence the name "The Spanish Steps."


Ainsley's favorite part of the Spanish Steps was this odd little key chain she scammed my mother into buying her from a kiosk nearby. She's named it "PJs" and its eyes fall out on a regular basis.