Touring Austin Texas

We hiked up to the top of this "mountain". James told us it was 99 stairs, but was actually 103 stairs. I was not planning on the extra 4 steps. It was a very quick and fun hike to see the views.

The boys made it. Congratulations!

You can barely see downtown Austin in the background

The gang at the top. Robyn was taking the picture

View of the neighborhood along the river

You are all welcome to come visit us when we live in this house
or this one....

or this one. We haven't decided on one just yet.

After the hike we went downtown to see the bats. You may ask, why would you want to go see bats. That is what I said at first. Under this bridge there lives somewhere between 1-3 MILLION bats. They all come out right after sunset every night. We didn't get any great photos of the bats, but it was pretty cool.

This is simply to show you the crowds on the bridge not to show you our beautiful faces.

Jon and I thought this building was really cool until James said they call it the noseclipper. Thanks for ruining it.

Downtown Austin

Grandpa, Shawn, Uncle James

All the boats waiting to see the bats

The round rock that Round Rock is named after. This was a very exciting detour. Thank you James and Allison for taking us here.

Bull statue by the Round Rock

Day in San Antonio

For Labor Day we drove down to San Antonio. We first visited the Alamo and went for a little tour of that. Then we went down to a place called the River Walk. It is a river in the middle of the city with restaurants, hotels, and shops lining it. It was very beautiful and lot of fun. We ate lunch right along the river after the boat tour.

The Alamo

Shawn enjoyed the grass the most at the Alamo

James wore his belt buckle for the occasion
There were lots of water features around San Antonio

James and Allison on River Walk boat tour

Jon and I on the tourAnother water feature

This building looked like it was a freestanding wall

Grandpa holding Shawn on the boat tour

I bet Jon will love that I included this photo

Trying on hats

Random Fun Pictures

Maybe he will be an architect

Sporting the animal hats Grandma West gave him
James and Shawn in Mr. Potatoe head glasses (James kept them on for about 40 minutes)
When we went out to lunch Shawn and James kept dancing to the music at the restaurant. I missed their best moves. Every time Shawn would stop James would insist "Shawn dance....Shawn dance!)

We moved Tiff into her BYU dorm this morning. I can't believe she is old enough to go to college. I feel like I was just moving in as a freshman and Tiff was 10-years-old. Crazy how fast time goes. It was so much fun to be back at the dorms and remember all the fun/good times I had there. Freshman year was the best. I wonder if they would let me move in too....

Shawn's birthday party was this morning. Luckily we had good weather, nobody was sick, and almost everyone was able to make it. For the last couple of weeks I have been planning all these games and activities for the kids, but then realized that kids 2 years and under aren't going to do organized activities well. Therefore, we set out a bunch of toys for them to play while the adults visited. Shawn was given a lot of wonderful presents and he is so excited to play with all of them. Thanks everyone for coming and helping Shawn have a great birthday!

Happy 2nd Birthday Shawn

My little boy turns 2 today. I can't believe how fast the time goes. He is such a sweet and good boy. He has brought so much joy to our lives and he keeps us laughing. You never know what he is going to come up with next. We love you Shawn, Happy Birthday!!

First day of life

Proud daddy

Mother & son

1st Birthday (party #1)

1st Birthday (party #2)

There are a lot of things that Shawn loves to do. Here is a list of his favorite things:

-Playing with blocks
-cars and trucks
-throwing rocks in water
-anything to do with water
-singing
-helping me cook, vaccuum, and do laundry
-dogs
-friends
-nursery (he now cries when we go to pick him up because he doesn't want to leave)
-Disney movies
-marshmallows
-Going to the playground

Things he hates:

-waking up
-brushing his teeth

Roasting Marshmallows

loves water

Throwing rocks

We bought a house!!

Well it isn't finalized. We are supposed to close in the middle of Sept. As long as everything goes as planned this house will be ours. We are so excited. It is exactly what we were looking for. Actually, we weren't looking to buy a brand new house, this one just kind of fell into our laps and it is an amazing deal. It has 3 bedrooms 2 1/2 bathrooms. There is also a basement, but is isn't finished. We love the neighborhood, the house, the whole area. We actually went to the ward last Sunday and it was all young couples and there were about 1,000 kids under 10. :) When we went to the house tonight to take pictures we could hardly drive down the street because there were so many kids out playing. If it somehow doesn't work out, you will probably want to avoid me for a while because I will be so sad/mad.

Our first house

The houseKitchen view #1
Kitchen view #2

View of Living room from the kitchen (there is a sliding door you can't see to the right out to the yard)

Entry way

Loft upstairs with door to laundry room

View from loft

Master Bedroom

Walk-in closet

Master bath. Wahoo!!

Open area on side of house

Side yard

Back of house

Entry way windows

View from front yard- if you look at the bottom of the picture you will see a grassy area. That is the 14 acre park/playground.

Front Yard

View of mountains from the park

Park that is super close. The elementary school is across the street from the park

The park