Our Visit to Oklahoma & Traber's First Birthday Party

Drew, Luke and I visited my hometown of Broken Arrow, OK last weekend to visit with family and celebrate our nephew's (Traber's) first birthday.

Traber REALLY enjoyed his birthday cake.   He even got his feet into the action!  Here is an adorable picture of Traber on one of his gifts that my uncle, Randy, made him.  What a treat to get a gift like this!!

Of course, all of the other kids wanted a turn on the horse also.  Here is a picture of Luke's 8-month old cousin, Linnea, taking a turn:

Luke and some of his cousins tested out one of Traber's birthday gifts--a super cool wagon!

We had lots of fun adventures while we were there.  Some of these included going to a high school football game, going to a fun park with Luke's cousins and cheering on OU at the watch-party on Saturday night (guess our cheering didn't help any).   Luke and his cousins Kaylee and Brody were all ready to cheer on OU in this picture:

We'll probably being seeing a lot of this over the years with these two only being a month apart:

There were so many good pics from the weekend.  So, I've included them in a slideshow below:

A Trip to the Botanical Garden with my Cousins

My cousin, Kristin, and her husband, Michael, came down from Oklahoma for a visit last week.   We had a great time visiting with them.  I had taken a half-day off, so I was able to visit the Zilker Botanical Garden with them.  Kristin is taking a photography class, and just purchased a new lens the night before that she wanted to try out.  Of course, I love photography and was also excited about all of the photo opportunities at the gardens.  The last time (and only time) I had visited the gardens, it was about 100 degrees.

During our visit last week, we could not have asked for a more perfect day for pictures.  I probably could have spent a lot more time there.  I always forget about this beautiful place--and you know what else is great....it's FREE!  During the week, you don't even have to pay for parking!  I would love to go back soon!  Here are some of our pictures from our visit to the Garden:

Boo! Halloween!

Yes---that is Drew as Luigi, me as Mario, and Luke as Yoshi.  We spent Halloween with some of our Austin Family...our friends from our Austin Stone Community Church group.  We had a great time!  We ate some delicious food, played some Halloween-themed celebrity on our driveway and enjoyed seeing all of the costumes as trick-or-treaters visited us.  Was it just us, or did kids quit saying "trick or treat"?  At one point in the night, our friend, Adam, held the candy basket and asked kids as they approached with their hands out ready for candy, "What do you say??"   We were expecting to hear, "trick or treat."  Instead, we got a "thank you".  I guess at least they were polite!  :-)

Glenna provided some excellent costume commentary for the evening.  One of my favorite comments was given as a kid dressed in a Texas Longhorn #12 Basketball Jersey approached---Glenna said, "Oh, it's Colt McCoy!"   The kid responded, "This is a Basketball Jersey."  He then said "Hook'em Horns."  Glenna, who was proudly wearing a Baylor Bears t-shirt responded with a "Sic' Em." You're awesome, Glenna!  :-)

Luke and his friend, the cute little ladybug, Krystle

Here's Miss Krystle again

Jessi, Adam, Glenna and Aaron

Daddy and Luke checking out the display at the house down the street.

Luke was very curious about the display.

Jennifer and Krystle