Fun with Photobooth!

We spent part of Saturday morning having fun with the camera on our computer. There is a program called "Photobooth" and we just made a few silly pictures. Natalie really enjoys doing this, and I guess I can only blame myself for this part of her genetics. My mom would say that she gets it from G-Ma's side of the family, along with her music ability and rythm :).

I found this picture from when we lived in Houston. It is a picture of Natalie and her twin (she, I mean "they", were so little then!):


Today's version (our computer is in the basement, next to the junk shelves, so please excuse the background):


Natalie really enjoyed making the last two:




We then took a few minutes to capture a video. I am not sure if this means she watches too much Noggin or has natural music ability from her G-Ma...probably a little bit of both!


This weekend is going to go by quickly as we get ready to leave for Walla Walla, Washington. We are headed there for vacation with Kristin's family, and to see her cousin get married. I going to try to post while we are there, but I can't promise anything (based on my lack of posts for over a month this summer!).

Happy 60th Anniversary GG-Ma and GG-Dad!!

Thursday was my grandparents 60th Wedding Anniversary! My parents are throwing them a party tonight in Houston, but we couldn't make the trip. We wish that we could be there!

Instead, we decided to make them a video of Natalie. Enjoy!

July 4th 2008

For July 4th this year, we went to Skippack, PA to watch their annual parade and to have a bbq at the Young's for lunch. Natalie really enjoyed the parade, but was very scared of the fire trucks at the end. And when I say fire trucks, I mean ALL of the working fire trucks in existence in the northern part of Philly. There must have been 50 of them. I was hoping that our house wouldn't burn down while we were at the parade because there wouldn't be anyone to go and put the fire out!

Later that day, we went over to another church friend's house to play in the pool and eat more bbq! We have been so blessed to have such a good church home up here. It has definately made things easier for us.

Here is some pictures that I took of the parade:

Link to all the pictures

BBQ at the Clarks!

One of Natalie's close friends is Annie. Her parents moved to PA from Midland, TX a few months before we moved up here. They go to church with us, and we have some mutual friends in Midland. Small world, huh?

Natalie and Annie enjoy running around the church building together, so we try to get them together every once and awhile so they can play. Around the July 4th weekend, we went over to their house for a bbq and to light fireworks. This was the first time that Natalie has seen fireworks, and to my surprise, they didn't scare her. She really wanted to help me light them, but THAT was not going to happen.

The last picture is Natalie and Annie sitting in the kitchen, watch the fireworks as they drank their juice.

Strawberry Picking

On a recent, hot, sweaty, Saturday morning, we loaded up in the car and met up with all the kids from church to pick strawberries at a local organic farm. No, we did not ride our bikes to the organic farm, we chose to burn some gasoline so we could stay cool...and the fact that the farm was 15 miles away.

Here is a picture of Natalie as we get ready to pick. At this point she is covered in sunblock and bug spray, both non-organic substances, so we made sure that we didn't rub up against too many plants. I didn't want the Al Gore police to follow us home. :)



The strawberries we very ripe (some were too ripe) and it took Natalie a few minutes to figure out that you can't just grab them on the red part with the middle of your hand and pull. For those of you that do not know this, Natalie does NOT like to get her hands dirty. She will literally stop eating at the dinner table if she gets food on her hands, until she can get them cleaned off. I am not sure where she picked this up. I guess if she starts wiping her hands on her jeans then I will know it is from me.



After Natalie got the hang of picking strawberries, she became more interested in running around with all the other kids. So, I was the designated picker for the family (I actually enjoyed it, but I am not going to quit my day job) and picked several pounds of strawberries. Once we got our basket full, we had to go and weigh them, and pay for them. They were a little more expensive than buying normal strawberries at the store, but much cheaper than buying organic at the store. Plus, they tasted better than what you can buy at the store anyways, so I wasn't going to complain.

There were several older ladies that brought HUGE baskets to fill up. They looked like they were going to go home and make jam or something...yummy...but after picking a few pounds myself, I am glad that we didn't plan on making jam ourselves. A few pounds was enough for me to get the "full experience".

After picking, we went over to the Young's house for ice cream and strawberries...at 10 in the morning! I guess it is never too early to eat ice cream. We had a great time, and I did take more pictures, which can be seen here:

Link to all the pictures

Crayola Factory and Yankee Stadium

Kristin and I have been trying to see one new thing each weekend this summer in the Philadelphia area. A few weeks ago, we were able to see 2 in one weekend.

The first was to go to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. Easton is about an hour from our house. It is situated on the border of NJ, and is an old industrial type town. We got to see them make crayons in a demonstration, which Natalie barely sat through, before she booked it to more of the "hands-on" type exhibits. Her favorite by far was the section where you can play with Crayola's version of Playdough.

Here is a picture of Natalie standing next to the world's largest crayon:



The second place we went was Yankee Stadium. We tried to go to a game a few months ago, but it was rained out. This was the rescheduled game for the rainout. It was the first of a subway double-header. The Mets played the Yankees in Yankee Stadium in the afternoon, and then they both traveled down to Shea and played in the Mets Stadium in the evening. Ironically, the Mets killed the Yankees at the game we were at, and then Yankees returned the favor in Shea.

Going to this game was important to me as a fan of baseball because it is the last year Yankee Stadium (the house that Ruth built) will be standing. After this season, it will be torn down. I hope Natalie can look back at these pictures one day and know that she watched a game in THE Yankee Stadium.




I took several other pictures on our trip, and they can be found here:

Link to all the pictures

Gulf Shores 2008

In June, my whole side of the family met up in Gulf Shores, Alabama for a week long vacation at the beach. It was my parents idea, well, I guess my mom's idea really, and what a great idea it was!! We had a blast with my sister and her family, my parents, my grandmother, and all of my mom's brothers and sister (including their families as well).

It was a full week, but most of it was spent on the beach or in the pool.

I could probably write a few pages of all the details that week, but I am going to rely on the old phrase "a picture is worth 1000 words"...and just give you a link to roughly 39,000 words worth of pictures, enjoy...

Link to all the pictures

My New Bike

Well, it has been WAY too long since I last posted to our blog. I have several events to post on, so I hope you are having fun catching up!

One of the summer activities we have been getting into is riding bikes. I started using Kristin's bike to run errands in town (I felt like a big tree hugging hippie at first, but now I am okay with it). I told myself it was for exercise anyways, and actually, it is quite popular in the northeast. Once I proved to myself that biking wasn't just one of my latest "obsessions" as the other adult in the house likes to put it, we decided to get a second bike so we could ride together. And, what fun would it be if Natalie couldn't go with us?! So, we got her a pull-cart. Yes, the cart is built for two kids...No, that doesn't mean that we are hiding something from everyone...I just didn't want to buy another in a few years.

Here is Natalie when I put her in the cart for the first time:




One of the reasons we wanted to get bikes is because there are very extensive bike trails throughout the Philadelphia area. In fact, you can get on a trail near our house and connect to other trails all the way to downtown Philly. It would take riding your bike 50+ miles, but you could do it.

We decided to go from one Park to another on the bike trails, which was 2-3 miles each way. When we got to the park, we had a picnic lunch, and Natalie really wanted to play on the swings:



Natalie didn't eat with us at the park, as the other kids and playground were too much of a distraction. However, once she got back in the cart, she was ready for lunch:



Once we got back home, we put Natalie on the couch while we unpacked everything from the trip. It wasn't long before we realized we weren't hearing her run around or talk to the TV, and this is what we found:



I guess you could say the whole family was exhausted after our biking!

Landon