My birthday weekend.

Happy Birthday to Mommy!! My family gave me a weekend of lots of fun.




What a great weekend. Russ, Mona, Sarah and I drove to San Antonio for the weekend. We celebrated my birthday by going to the Riverwalk and having lunch on the river. Russ had Mariachi's sing for me by the table. We then went to Oma's house, and relaxed. In the evening, Harold and Karen joined us and we went to a restaurant called Lulu's Diner. It was a hole in the wall but lots of fun. They are known for their Chicken fried steak and 3 pound sweet rolls. I took pictures to make sure I could share it with everyone. After dinner, we went home and Oma had baked a cake for me. Everyone sang happy birthday and then we got to eat cake. On Sunday morning, we had the sweet roll for breakfast. It wasn't as good as we had hoped but it was pretty good. I thne got to watch the men {Russ and Harold} put Oma's chair on the curb for heavy trash pickup. I know she is sad but I think it will be better for her in the long run. Then it was back on the road and home for the future week.

Anniversary

Russ and I celebrated our 8th anniversary last night at Ouisie's Table in River Oaks. It was a lovely dinner where we sat on the porch along with 50 other people but it felt like we were the only ones there. We ate seafood crapes, Antelope medallions and crab cakes. For dessert, we shared a black and white cake that they put a candle in and wrote Happy Anniversary in chocolate. We had a wonderful time.

Playing around

Mona and Sarah were playing around this morning and they decided to set up a restaurant called Mona and Sarah's. They made a menu and wrote down the foods they were going to sell. Sarah told me to go on Sarah.com to see the menu. Now if I only could cook them. One of these is the scanned version so you can see Sarah's writing and Mona's writing. Mona would spell the item and Sarah would write.

Here are a few pictures of Sarah. Mona took them while Sarah played up to the camera. She was being a rock star and making also a soccer player. She and dad were playing on the computer and having a great time.

Mona and Sarah go skating

Saturday the family went to the Dairy Ashford roller rink and Sarah and Mona both went skating for the first time. They had a great time and Mona was proficient by the time we left. We met up with other foreign exchange families and the kids had a wonderful time getting together. The pictures are of Russ, Mona, Sarah, Nikki and Jeslyn.

The Rest of Zadie's Trip

We had so much fun with Zadie came to visit. Not only did he and Mona love talking to each other, he also made us laugh a great deal. One morning, he came out of the bathroom asking if we liked his new glasses. He actually had Mona's swim goggles on. All we could do is laugh. Then later that night, Sarah put on Dad's shoes and went walking into the bathroom. She took off all her clothes to go to the bathroom, but left his shoes on. She even made up a little song to go with it. I just wish Sarah or I could remember it now. Sarah and Mona slept in Mona's room while Zadie was here. We can't wait for Zadie to come back.

mona's meet and greet

Here Sarah and Mona are working together to cut up fruit for the party. They made up a song about a sister team to sing while they cut and then washed their hands. It was quite fun to watch them and listen.

We had Mona's meet and greet yesterday. About 30 people came and we had lots of fun. The weather sort of held out but the kids had to get out twice due to thunder. Mona had two of her friends from China come and they were very happy to see each other. While setting up, I cut my little finger on the lid of the beans and after the party had to go and get 3 stitches. My good friend Wendy came to the rescue and the lifeguards at the pool were wonderful also. All our friends helped out also so the party was a huge success.