Sunday photo shoot, making cookies, and F.H.E.

 The Girls looked so cute once they were ready for church that we had to stop and take some pictures.

Later for desert Mama made cookies and the girls got to clean up.

 On Monday we had an F.H.E. lesson about Lehi's dream with some friend.  Julee made an iron rod and set up a track for the kids to follow it on.  At the tree of life they were able to munch on some delicious Texas size marshmallows.

Texas!

Matt said goodbye to his former commander, supervisor and co-workers and we said goodbye to our friends and Colorado (boohoo) and started our drive toward Texas, Matt driving the Penske with everything we own in it and I was right behind him in the van with the girls.

 

First stop was Toas, NM for a lovely but short stay at my sister Angie's house.

 When Harper and Rowan woke up in the morning they were like, "Wow, that is a big yellow truck outside our house!"

 We stopped for the night in Carlsbad and checked out one of the caverns (the "Big Room") there the next morning.  It was way rad. 

 

Then it was a long boring drive to who knows where for one more night in a hotel and the next afternoon we arrived in San Antonio!

 

The first thing about Texas is that there is A LOT of state pride.  There is not another state I know of that has it's flag all over the place.  Not only that, but I saw an entire house with blue trim and a garage door painted to be the Texas flag!  There are also lone stars proudly hung everywhere.  (The second thing is that it is HOT!) 

 

It does have a rich history.   We went to the Alamo to learn about it.

 

I was excited to check out the much heard about River Walk.  It was neat.

We enjoyed an expensive but yummy meal at The County Line, which brings me to the third thing about Texas and that would be Barbeque! 

 

The fourth thing about Texas are it's Longhorns and cowboys, real cowboys.

 Matt's sister Angela form  Dallas was on a little vacation in Bandera with her adorable kids and Mother-in-law at the Flying L Ranch so we went there for a day and enjoyed some festivities.

Some other things we have done here in Texas so far is go to the pool of course...

 

and the Children's Museum (these pictures are taken from my phone).

 Here are a couple shots from my phone as well of our house.  It is in a nice neighborhood and we have already had dinner with two neighbor families with young kids!

We are excited to go to Sea World still (which is like 10 minutes from our house) but we are waiting on Aunt Cyrie to hurry up and get here first!

Oh New Jersey, I really don't miss you much.  I have been meaning to post this picture a while ago.  It is of most of the parking tickets we got in Jersey City and Hoboken.  It wasn't that we were parking in front of fire hydrants of blocking driveways.  One way the city makes money is "street sweeping" on certain days at certain times you had to move your car or get a parking ticket, doesn't matter if the street was actually swept or not, the parking police were very punctual.  So don't forget to appreciate your garage and driveway, we sure enjoy ours!  Total parking ticket fines:  $1,020

Quick Funny Story

 

We have one of these cute plush piggy ball things and today when it was Matt's turn to play with the girls he tried to come up with something else he could do with the girls other than play with "stupid dolls."  So he had Carlee get up on the top bunk bed and he was throwing stuffed animals to her (or at her?) and then she would toss them down and Dani would hand them to Matt. Well, pretty soon there was a lot of giggling going on and I was called in to watch.  When I peeked in, both girls were on the top bunk and Matt was throwing the piggy at Carlee and when it hit her she just cracked up (yes, she was tired).  Dani would toss the pig down and the process would repeat.  So, tonight when I was helping Carlee review her day before she said her prayers I reminded her to be thankful that her daddy played with her.  In her prayer she thanked Heavenly Father that Daddy threw a piggy at her face.