Swim Lessons

Swim lessons at the Dad's Club. Third year in a row with Miss Georgia. If there's one area of conflict here in Houston, it's where to take swim lessons.


When it comes to stuff with Justin, I am a bit lazy. Maybe because I know our time is coming to driving all over for sporting events and such. So I want to lay low until we have to do that. So I just drive one mile from my house for lessons.


Our second to last lesson we were the only kid to show up. And conveniently this was the one time I brought my camera. Bummed we didn't get a photo with Braden and Gabbie.


So we got a private lesson if you will. We swam our one, two, three, four, back sequence. Something we have yet to do with mommy in the pool. Only Miss Georgia gets the privilege.


We did swim the shorter length of the pool both directions that day. We took a good nap that day, to say the least. Miss Georgia pushes us quite a bit.


Justin's face cracks me up here - he was almost to the end and was pausing for a theatrical moment.


Looking at what lies ahead of him. A quiet moment before starting back on the sequence.


And what exactly warrants a child as "officially becoming a swimmer"? The fact that he does it in swim lessons or the fact that mommy can lay out while he entertains himself in the deep end of the pool.


Yes, we are still a ways away from that day. But until then, one, two, three, four, back.....

Delivery for Justin

Justin woke up from his nap last week to a package from Birdie. I felt like it was the scene from The Christmas Story where the dad is tearing into his prize and pulls out the lamp with the leg. That was us, and then we saw the treasured gift.

The alphabet in the shape of already dead and dried worms.


Just to put all you animal activists at ease - these worms were found as it. My mom had to hunt for certain worms to be the shape of the letter Q, G, etc.


I think the combo of uppercase and lowercase letters confused Justin. He's an either or kind of guy. Need to start throwing in those mixtures. He told me that the letter M and W looked different. My mom told him over the phone that it was tricky to find dead worms in those letter shapes. He was still a little unconvinced.


Then it was off to conquer the bubble wrap.


The running jump


and the big bounce.


To say we had a fun afternoon is putting it mildly. We have been working on our letter sounds and what sound they make with our new chart.


My mom, the nature lover. Gotta love her. Thanks Birdie for all your hard work! We love our new work of art...

HC Pet Show

Justin's school had a Pet Show in May. Roxy of course was the pet of choice form the Michaelis' household. Justin loved showing everyone his dog.



He patiently let everyone pet her.


We even won an award - Fluffiest Tail. Ok, so every pet got an award. But ours was special. wink wink


The most exotic pet was a baby Emu. Yes, a small ostrich. This family had raised this from the day it broke free of the egg. I was totally fascinated by it.


A pet emu - who would have thunk it?


Maddox proudly showed us his beta fish, purchased the night before.


Wes showed off his goldfish, that was in a different bowl from the day before. Apparently fishy had been bouncing on the counter when the old environment happened to break. Oldest goldfish ever - they have had this over a year!


Raley showed us Maggie, who could do some tricks for the crowd.


And Luke proudly showed off the small spider that they had caught in their bathroom that morning. Gotta love Leslie's creativity. It was either that or a stuffed animal, so we were all impressed with the pet spider.


Makes me want to go rent Best in Show to get some laughs.

Galveston for Mother's Day

Justin came back form Waco and told me he wanted to go to Gigi and G-pa's beachhouse soon. So last minute the three of us politely declined our few obligations and headed to Galveston for Mother's day Weekend.

Roxy was loving it with her new summer do.


The weather was chillier than what I had packed for. High of 74, cloudy, and 15 mph winds. Justin and Derek braved the water that first day but not me.


Justin was so excited to be at the beach. Derek and I both caught his enthusiasm realizing how fun summer was going to be in the water with an almost four year old.


Justin and mommy built drip castles. Justin was good helping with the "drippies" as we were calling them. Derek asked how our "sprinklies" were coming along, and Justin and I both looked at him like he had a horn on his head.


Short lived - we smashed it right before we headed home.


We didn't cook all weekend and uncharacteristically went out to eat for every meal. Dinner was casual at the Spot. I ate coconut fried shrimp for the first time in about 6 months. Justin loved sitting on the deck and watching the water, people, and motorcycles. I loved not having to blow dry my hair all weekend. Not bringing a hairdryer will do that to you.


My man chillin' while we waited for our food


Sunday morning I "slept in" until 7:30 and went outside to see the boys fishing. Justin was enthralled with just sitting there with his Batman fishing rod in hand.


Justin was about to exclaim, "Mommy!" I love the sleep that is still in my boys' eyes as they got excited to see me.


After seeing the flowers that Justin had picked while out on the golfcart, we quickly got ready to go eat breakfast at the Sunflower Bakery and Cafe. We loved it - especially since we had never ventured out for breakfast in Galveston. Why would you when you normally are running towards the beach?


I included this photo because Justin was trying to turn Roxy's head towards the camera. That boy is going to turn out to be a camera nazi like his momma.


Justin's head shot of us. He's getting closer and closer to capturing all of Derek's head. We'll get there soon.


We headed back out to the beach. Derek tried to show Justin how to stand on the boogey board.


The crew out in the water.


Justin was trying to leap over the waves. Ah, brown water - I have a suspicion that we are in Texas.


Lots of man-of-war were on the beach. This particular one right by our gear was literally trying to weave its way back into the water. It would pull itself up and wave towards the waves. It was creepy. In fact I think Roxy got too close to one when I was showing Justin how we don't touch these. She went home and was swollen and could barely move. I called animal control and gave her some Benadryl. 5 hours later her face looked normal and she started to move again. It was quite alarming.


Daddy's sand cast;e was a little bit more climactic than Mommy's.


Someone was blubbering nonsense at me. He liked his water hole to sit in.


Such a great, relaxing, family-packed weekend. We needed it, and can't wait to go back to our one-hour-away destination. In fact we are returning this next weekend....

While mommy was in Sonoma....

Justin stayed in Waco with Papa and Birdie for a week of non-stop excitement. He was telling me before we left for Waco that he was going to stay at their house for 66 days. Uh-huh - wouldn't that be nice. My dad took some photos from his i-phone and would periodically send them to me. Here are just a few of the activities that they partook in.

Justin went to Cottonwood with my dad to practice some golf. My little perfectionist realized very quickly that it's not proper golf etiquette to throw your golf club on the ground when you don't hit the ball very far. I wanted to tell my dad that he was only doing what his mother did about 15 years ago. I never hit the ball far, much less made contact for it, so why play a sport that makes you look bad? Justin truly has a beautiful swing, he is just picky as to when a ball hit is worthy of clapping. So he took to working for his keep and raked the sandtraps instead.


He loved holding the flag for Papa when his ball rolled in the hole.


Getting ready for a Baylor baseball game. So serious.


This is the smile he gave his teachers in every photo in the end of the year book they gave us. Gotta show this boy that we do teeth in our smile. He knows better than to do this with me. It's kinda cute, but if you have teeth, I want to see them.


They went to First Woodway and shot some baskets. So nice his daddy has already showed this boy how to hold and shoot a ball. Not like his mother, let's just say.


Swish!


They went biking downtown and went to see Papa at work. We always wear our helmet with our big boy bike.


Elise and Grandpa joined them for a game of bowling. Justin apparently was dancing and jiving to the music as well as celebrating when he would knock some pins over.


They also frequented the Jumping Party, walked Grace by the new Hillcrest campus every night, played with some neighbor kids, made cupcakes, walked 2 miles every morning by 7:30am, and had lots of laughs. Thanks Papaw & Birdie for always entertaining the master! Sorry he didn't stay the full 66 days...