Netflix!

We've been long-time subscribers to Netflix, and quite awhile ago we ordered one of their "instant streaming discs" for our PS3. It worked really well for a couple months, but then started to be glitchy and unpredictable (probably due to the PS3 rather than Netflix). We've told Lily that it's broken, so she can no longer watch her kids' movies and videos via Netflix on the big tv. Needless to say, this has been a serious hardship for the girl who has come to love the movie "The Swan Princess," which we've only ever seen from Netflix's Watch Instantly service. So here is a picture of Lily discovering one of her favorite movies on Daddy's iTouch... Thank you Netflix for the free app! (Don't mind the fact that the kids are basically naked. They had just finished dinner and were headed to the bathtub - I promise I don't make them run around naked all day long! Ha!)

California Vacation - San Francisco

Dusty and I went to California last weekend for the wedding of our friends, Scott and Mary.  A perfect reason for a vacation!  Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Scott came to our house to visit with the kids while Dusty and I were gone.  We flew into Oakland and drove to San Jose on Thursday.  We did some shopping and ate dinner on Santana Row that evening, and then spent all day Friday in San Francisco with the Henleys, who also traveled to California for the Turner wedding. 

We decided to take a guided tour of San Francisco, and it was fantastic!  The pictures and my description are really just the highlights, as the tour guide pointed out numerous other points of interest along the way.  Oh, and San Francisco was cold! The temperature was in the low sixties at its warmest point of the day, which for a Texan in August, is basically freezing.  It was at least 15 degrees colder in San Francisco than in San Jose where we stayed, so we didn't really pack well for the crisp, cool San Francisco weather.  Good thing I bought a sweater the night before on Santana Row!  Anyway, the highlights of San Francisco...

Cable cars were interesting to see, and we really enjoyed crooked Lombard Street.  We walked through Chinatown and visited a beautiful church.  There were great views of the city from inside a tower at one of the local museums.  Pictures don't do justice to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Sausalito was a fun place for lunch, and it was remarkable how much sunnier it was in Sausalito compared to San Francisco.  The ferry ride back to San Francisco was made more interesting by the humongous yacht in the bay.  Also on the ferry ride, we got close views of Alcatraz.  When our tour was over, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf, where we saw lots of sea lions!  After Fisherman's Wharf, we headed back to San Jose - it had been a long day of sightseeing.

Here are some pictures from San Francisco...

Gymnastics Performance

Lily had a short gymnastics demonstration at Victory Sports tonight. The kids showed off some of the skills they've been learning, and then each person received a certificate and medal. She had fun!

Dylan's New Car Seat

Dylan likes his new car seat. He sits up higher so he can see out the window now, and he and Lily can actually reach across the back seat to hold hands. Dylan had outgrown his infant seat already - much, much earlier than his sister did! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Corning for the early birthday gift!

Kids playing with box

Somewhat long (2:30) video of the kids playing with Dylan's car seat box.

Turner Wedding

Scott and Mary's wedding was beautiful, and we had a great time at the reception! Congrats, Mr. and Mrs. Turner! Here's a picture of Dusty and I at the reception.

Dylan Dancing

Dylan loves music! In this video he's dancing to the music in the Princess and the Frog movie.

Lily Floating Again

Another video of Lily floating at the swimming pool.

An Afternoon at the Pool

We went to the swimming pool at Cinco Ranch with David this afternoon.  We all had a good time at the pool, and Lily did a GREAT job swimming and floating!  She learned to glide in the water and float on her back at her swim lessons at Houston Swim Club earlier this summer, but during our vacation in Omaha she redeveloped a fear of being in deep water and wouldn't try to float anymore.  We thought she would start floating again once we got home, but she has still been scared for the last couple of weeks.  So we got her a floaty that fits on her belly and her back, so she would be safe but still able to move her arms freely.  She got comfortable with the floaty during the last couple weekends, swimming all around the pool all by herself.  And then today she started practicing floating on her back again, all by herself, without us trying to get her to do it!  She practiced over and over, and then she decided she wanted to use her pink Strawberry Shortcake floaty.  Well, the pink floaty doesn't stay attached to her, so of course she fell out of it - and she turned over on her back to float!  We were SO proud!  It was such a great confidence booster for her... She kept going into the water with the pink floaty and intentionally letting go of it so she could practice floating on her back.  She would float to the side of the pool and climb out, just like she was taught in swim lessons.  Hooray!  Great job Lily!!!  There's a picture of Daddy floating too, but Daddy can't float as long as Lily can.  He sinks.

There are two water slides at this pool, and the lifeguards let Lily go down the slide one time with Daddy, and then after that she went down them all by herself, over and over again.  She loved the slides, and she had fun yelling and screaming when she was inside the yellow tube slide, so it echoed.  She usually came out of the yellow slide backwards, but I'm not sure how she managed to get turned around inside there!