Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Grama & Grampa Ryan in Texas!


Oh boy- oh boy! You don't know how MUCH fun these two have together! They are cute little buddies and all is well as long as we hide Tommy's prayer rock when Henry has a sleepover. :) Here they are at Gatti's Pizza- all-you-can-eat! Grama and Grampa Ryan were in town, so we thought we'd show them to the very best of McKinney!


Jane was a little sad, but VERY patient while waiting for her dinner. She perked right up when the food was served. We think her favorite item on the menu was the cinnamon-sugar breadsticks. Yummy!


All the Texas "kids" outside the McKinney Town Hall (a.k.a. Back to the Future Clock Tower...)


Taking a tour of McKinney downtown. Our favorite shop by far was the MOM and POPcorn shop! What fun (and retro) candy and gifts! They have candy there that you haven't seen since 1978- even the lipstick candies!


Grama and Grampa with all the Texas grandkids outside the Heard Natural History Museum. We had a fun (muddy) hike as well!


"Hiking"- Texas style. As Josh put it, ".000001% grade."


Inside the museum.



Cockroaches, tarantulas, walking sticks- oh my! (and beetles, hermit crabs, and more...)


There were 2 really awesome trees to see on the hike- a 150-year-old Sycamore (seen here) and a 250-year-old Maple. Wow! They are impressive!


Playing with fake plastic bugs is fun to do....


It was Valentine's Day when Grama and Grampa came! Here's Thomas working hard on his valentine cards. He took this job very seriously. What a trooper!

P.S. We're hoping that more relatives of ours may make a trip down south after seeing this post!? We may even venture over to Six Flags and we'll definitely make a permanent Wii character of you. ;) Love you Grama and Grampa Ryan! Please come back again soon!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

SUPER Snow Days & Sledding in Texas

We never thought we'd be doing this in Texas! We're so happy we kept our sleds.


(ha ha- those huge gloves of John's look ridiculous on me...)




After 4 SNOW Days, (yes, FOUR straight days of NO school!) we were super happy to get outdoors and have an adventure.


Rebecca had an especially great time. Sick on Sunday & Monday + 4 Snow days stuck indoors= a little onery girl! She recovered quickly while sledding- phew!




John and I had tons of fun taking lots of pictures.



Super style Thomas.


The other highlight of the week was the homemade play dough for our snow days.


Peas in a pod by Rebecca.

Birthday cake (for a 5-year-old) by Allison.


Thomas' version of the birthday cake.



Super scary snake by Rebecca. (After a week like this, we'd still like spring to come back.... in a hurry! We're so glad the ice on the streets melted on Saturday. Now Dallas can get back to business and school as usual.)