The April Days...

This past April was filled with a lot of driving, loud music, and talking.
We spent Easter weekend in Austin, where we celebrated my Grandma's birthday (who proudly turned 69) and my own birthday. On Sunday we went out to lunch with some dear friends. The restaurant was one of a slew of trailer stands parked in a little nook in the busier part of Austin. The food was little bit pricey, but the environment and chips made it worth it.

Becca and Tita.
Dear Becca, she's gotten so big!

Emily and Jacob (note Emily's cheesy pose).

Sweet 16...oh, and those yummy beet cupcakes.

Eva and I had a little photo shoot on the living room floor.

Dominic and "Gendpa"

Dom was quite concerned that there wouldn't be enough chips for him.

The familia.

Behind us was a shake stand. They sold shakes that had real cake blended in.

The Ragamuffin. 

Reminds me of this pin

A delicious Thai dinner in Bryan, TX.

We spent the day with our friends the Loyd's, cleaning, organizing, and reading books from their massive library. We went over  to Mr. Loyd's brother's house, for a Thai dinner and dessert.

Lovely arrangement for my surprise party.

The girls "threw me for a loop", and pulled off a surprise party the week after my birthday. They took me to a local cupcake shop where a few of my friends were waiting. Yes, I was surprised.

We had a crawfish boil one fine Saturday, with a few families.

Us and our Cajun friend's put together a little crawfish boil at our house. Though I'm not a big fan of fishy foods, I do enjoy socially eating crawfish. I stuffed myself silly. But as each batch came out I just felt so inclined to keep eating.

Us Marques, Webb, and Johnson girls had a sister slumber party. Though that was in May. :)

The first weekend in May, the Johnson girls and us (including Nicole) had set a date a month ago, to get together for the weekend. We had a great time talking, going to a Mexican market, going for a walk, watching one of our favorite movie, and talking some more!

Elena's pavlova lemon meringue. 

Elena has had some failed attempts at making pavlova, so she decided to try again but call it something else. It...kinda worked.

Dear Eva, on the day of the crawfish boil

Nicole had completely surprised us by coming down for the day and  thus attending our crawfish boil. Amusingly enough, her hubby, and most likely all her kids, are highly allergic to shellfish. No kisses that day.

Birthdays, cereal, and cute kids

[ For some strange reason, this scheduled post, did not get posted. Oh well, here it is]
This is really a "part two" of my previous post .
So, earlier this month our church had it fall FIC Conference, which was held all the way up in Conroe.

This was a short stretch to drive, for all the people who live in Conroe, but not so much for all of us Spring folks. Now, it was convenient for us, cause it gave us an excuse to stay with our dear friends the Hoods, in their new house!

Which is quite lovely!

Mia and Mia, or " the Mia's"!

Nate, being a little man!

So, after the conference, we had a "surprise" party for my Dad! I say "surprise", because we had several leaks-- particularly little kids and emails-- but in the end it was all good!

You may be wondering what's the deal with the cereal, well, it Dad's idea. He had mentioned a while back that it would be a neat idea, for a party, to have everyone bring their own cereal. And that's exactly what we did! Everyone enjoyed everyone else's cereal, and we supplied the milk.
It was a hit!

Eva! Look at little yummy arms and hands!
I just had to add her in.

Sophia, showing us her acrobatic moves.

"Looking out to sea!"
or
"Watching the approaching danger!"
or, just daydreaming at the same time. :)

A sweet friend in Austin, had a surprise party that we had to go to, a couple Saturdays ago.

Mushrooms, birthdays, and baby Eva

Well, let me update you'll about our past couple weeks...

"Your dinner!"

Dommy giving his cheesy smile for the meal.

Baby hands are SO precious, as well as the whole baby!

A Sunday, or so, ago, we had the privilege to ride in a certain somebody's Mustang convertible!
I know, "sweet ride", that's what I said too.
Thanks Naquins!

Though this picture doesn't quite capture it all, but there was this beautiful morning mist, that I just had to capture.
It looked like I was in some ethereal world.

Okay, last month, it had to do a experiment in Biology with mushrooms. And it just so happened that some mushrooms had grown in our yard. So, with gloves and plate, I picked one of the mushrooms. I was going to remove the cap (the umbrella part) from the stipe (the "trunk" part) to collect some Basidiospores, and put under a microscope. I was trying to gently shake them from the cap, but what started coming out instead, WAS NOT little seed-like thingys. Suddenly--or maybe it just seemed suddenly-- all these little maggots started seeping out of the cap! Okay, roaches are one thing--though Mica would disagree with me---but maggots are just...just gross!!! Amusingly enough, Mica found it all fasinating, while I was completely grossed out, but she persuaded me to get one and look at it under the microscope. It was actually pretty cool to see the maggot's organs--the light from the microscope, made its body transparent--moving (of course, after a while of the maggot being squished in a slide, its organs stopped moving).
Thank you Scott's for letting me borrow your microscope!

Eva, very thoughtful and pensive in the outside.
More to come!