Busy October continued...

The next weekend was my turn.  My 10 year high school reunion and the 100th year celebration of the Theta Zeta chapter of TriDelt (my college sorority) fell on the same weekend so there was no way I could pass up on reuniting with so many friends from high school and college in one weekend!   So Kendall and I packed up and flew to Texas. 

Friday I left Kendall in loving hands

and drove on to Austin with my sweet friend and old roomie, Molly, where we got to relive our roomie days by staying at Rachel's house. :)  That night we ate yummy tex mex and went to our pledge class reunion.  So fun.  It was a blast to reconnect with so many old friends where it felt like nothing had changed except everything had.  Jobs, husbands, babies....Whoa. Life moves fast.   :) 

 The fun didn't stop there.  We got up Saturday and drove back to The Woodlands where I regrouped, spent a little time with my fam and got ready for more reuniting.  I went to dinner with some of my best friends from TWHS and then got to see even more at the party.  So so fun.  

That night Kendall got some quality time with DeeDee, Billy and her cousin, Blake (I love that they are so close in age)

 The big kids were well taken care of by Michael.  I got these pictures while I was away...

 I'm pretty sure they weren't missing me much  ;)  

It was a fun weekend for all.  

Busy October

After Michael and I got back from London we had a busy couple of weeks of travel that can't go undocumented.  First, Michael took off for a conference in Dallas and made a quick visit up to OKC to meet our new nephew, Ike (Jono and Sandra's new baby boy).  Your crazy cousins and Aunt Kim can't wait to meet you over Christmas!

He also got to meet Samuel Estrera (his dad is Michael's MED brother, Ken) but failed to take a pic.  So instead, and because I can hardly stand how awesome this is, here's a picture of their cute family

 And after a quick turn around, Michael headed to Madison, WI for a Badger's football game with some good buddies.

Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween and though the weather wasn't exactly perfect, it cleared up just in time for a chili party and trick or treating with some sweet friends.  Luke and Langley Grace were super excited this year and thanks to Michael's love of dressing up we went with a family theme of super heros.  

Even Kirby participated but didn't cooperate enough to make the family pic. 

The Dads

 A couple Captain Americas

 Rounding the troops before trick or treating

 The crew minus a lot of moms and babies

 Buddies

 The dads took the kids trick or treating this year and I have to say, this mom did not miss the mayhem and the cold.  

 Can we say sugar rush?  Sweet DeeDee sent us our annual cookie bouquet and the kids were ready to dig in even after all of the candy.

It was a fun day. 

We hopped the pond

Michael got accepted to present some research in London and he didn't have to twist my arm too hard to get me to tag along.  ;)  Neither of us had ever been to London and we were long overdue for a getaway without the kids so we were pretty excited to say the least.

My sweet mom came to take care of all of the kiddos and my dad was able to come for the weekend to give her some relief.  I'd say they deserve some sort of medal because it was no small feat to take care of those three for five days and they did awesome! 

So off we went but not without getting a little teary about leaving these sweet faces behind

 Our hotel was a five minute walk from Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

And Buckingham Palace

I was surprised this was as close as you could get to the guards with the funny hats.

We made our way to a few pubs and were sure to find some fish and chips (pretty plain if you ask me)

We saw Lion King which blew me away, and Wicked which was really great too

I couldn't get over this pretty view of our hotel each night

We also did our fair share of sight seeing.  The London Eye

Tower Bridge

Tower of London

And St. Paul's Cathedral where Princess Diana was married

Leaving a 6 month old did not come without it's disadvantages.  The pump and I made a few trips to the "water closets" around London.  :) 

The kids were more than well taken care of and I got so excited every time I got a picture from Mom  

We had an awesome time but couldn't wait to get home to these guys

Thanks for loving on the kids so well, DeeDee and Billy!  We are grateful.

Pure Michigan Vacation

At the end of September we got spoiled with a week and a half of fun with Nana and Papa.  Michael and Robert went on a bear hunt in the Upper Peninsula for the first few days and then Kellie and I drove with the kids up to Harbor Springs to meet them and spend a week at an unbelievable cabin in the woods.  It was on a beautiful golf course in the middle of some of the most amazing fall colors.  Kellie is quite the vrbo.com queen these days.  

Our trip started out with some of this

a fireside dinner

 followed by s'mores of course

And then the boys took off to do a little of this.  That's 275 lbs of black bear.

While we did some playing and building

before heading up North to this

where we did some snuggling

 and hot tubing.

  Nanny and Grandad made quite the road trip from Ardmore, OK to spend the week up there too

 Langley helped Nana make some pumpkin bread

she dug the sugar

She also helped Nana and Luke figure out his new Angry Bird's game by reading the directions for them

 We celebrated Nana's birthday with a from scratch red velvet cake made by sweet Nanny with three crazy kids running around to distract her.  It was a fun memory even though it didn't turn out exactly right.  

 We ventured out to a farm for lunch one day

Papa with a happy girl

Nanny and Grandad with their great grandkids.  Pretty special.

And the rest of the time was spent relaxing and playing quite a bit of golf. I didn't get any pictures of all of the golfers, but here's one of me and my love.  Kellie was the absolute best for keeping the kids so we could both play so often.  

It was a wonderful trip and such a sweet gift of time with Nanna, Papa, Nanny and Grandad! We are thankful.