Memorial Day Weekend

Welcome to Paradise Pointe! Over the holiday we headed to Table Rock Lake with friends and had a blast! We ate, boated, swam, relaxed, tubed, and shopped our weekend away. This condo is great, I highly recommend it to anyone traveling there. This was Mason's second time on the boat (we came down here last year as well...Mason was only 2.5 months old!!) and just like the first he slept through all day on the lake. We went to "the strip" in Branson which we had never been to and ate dinner there and shopped Saturday night. Sunday we spent the morning at the pool and that evening the guys made a delicious steak dinner. Later that night we headed over to Big Cedar to watch the fireworks and Mason managed to stay awake for those. It was nice to get away and enjoy great weather on a beautiful lake. We can't wait to go back!

View from our deck

Daddy and Mason swimming

Baby Gracie

Getting ready for a boat ride

Nicki and Baby Ava

Connor and Jeff tubing

"The Strip"

Shopping before dinner

Watching a fire and water show

The Brand Family

Mason's first night ride...enjoying the fireworks at Big Cedar

Enjoying the show...so happy Mason had a buddy down there to chase around. Connor is 3 and was more then happy to keep Mason entertained!

Summer Is Here

And with it brings heat, cookouts, lots of fresh produce, playing barefoot outside after dinner, and fun activities do with friends! Last Saturday we had a great time at the Carson's, there were lots of little ones running, jumping, and sliding and the adults had a great time catching up and eating good food! It is always fun to spend an evening with good friends. We visited the produce stand near us on Saturday morning and stocked up on our fruits and veggies. Mason wanted to "sample" as we shopped...it is hard for him to understand we have to purchase these items first and the we can eat. Speaking of sampling, I took my nephew, Landon, and Mason to Lake View Farm in St. Peters for a play date with other moms to go strawberry picking. Mason and Landon (along with all the other kiddos there) did more sampling instead of picking. Mason put the entire strawberry, stem and all, into his mouth. I was cracking up because he was grabbing at the strawberries by the handful and shoving them into his mouth! Probably trying to get as many as he could before mommy put a stop to it. I offered to pay the farmer for all that Landon and Mason ate, but they refused my money.

It has been HOT here! I can't wait for our pool to open so I can take M up there to cool off in the afternoons. This weekend we are heading out of town for Table Rock Lake. I am very excited for the get away and hope we have good boating weather! I should have lots of cute pictures to post next week from our mini vacation.

We are looking forward to a great summer with family and friends!

Enjoying on of our purchases from the produce stand

Mason helping himself to a strawberry..or two..or three..

May 11 2010

We have been busy! I have not had a spare minute to download pictures or a new post. So this post is a combination of a few things. First, Erick took off Thursday and Friday of last week and we had so much fun with him and were spoiled having him home for 4 days. Mason and I were very sad Monday morning when Erick had to go back to work. On Friday we went to Erick's job site at Wash U and he gave us a tour of the building...incredible! I love that this building will be around forever and when Mason gets older he will be able to say his Dad helped build this amazing structure for Wash U. I hear a lot about the "job" when Erick gets home in the evenings, but stories didn't do the project justice until I was able to walk through it and realize the amount of hard work that really went into the facility! Walking through and hearing Erick talk I found myself saying a quick prayer that Mason takes after his Dad and is as smart and hard working.

Afterwards we headed to the zoo for the afternoon. I was pretty excited to take Mason again, last visit he was about 3 months old and slept the entire time. We are trying to teach him animal sounds so it was fun showing him different animals and telling him what they say. The zoo was CROWDED and so my original plan to take Mason on the train was bumped after a 25 minute wait and we still didn't make it to the front of the line. We will try again next time.

Mothers Day we went to church and breakfast with my parents and then ate an early dinner with Erick's family. In between that we went for a walk and played outside with Mason...it was perfect! I am very thankful for my own Mom and to Mason for making me a Mom!

The train we didn't take...the line was horrible!

End of the day and Mason was almost asleep in this picture

This was taken a couple weeks ago on the patio