New Family Pics

Before Britt left I decided to get some new family pics done and get some good ones with her and Andrew since we had none really from her whole summer here. So I bought a special deal off of Groupon and had a 45 minute on site session with as many photos as we could fit in and they gave me a link for all of them. Fabulous deal. We took the photos downtown at the Four Seasons right off of the lake and I think they turned out great.

Here are a couple of my faves.






Can you tell that Andrew loves playing in the grass? He kept picking it and throwing it while we were taking the pics. Pretty funny.


James had to dance around like a maniac but it worked to get the smiles out of the little man.

Random Sleeping Pics

Brenham

James and I have lived in Austin for 7 years and never been to Brenham, TX the home of Blue Bell ice cream. They have the yummiest ice cream ever! Just ask my dad. So we thought we would take a quick day trip over there with Britt. It was about an hour and a half drive. They have a cutesy little town kind of similar to Fredericksburg but more spread out. We ate a little diner there with the good home cooking and lots of grandmotherly waitresses that loved Andrew.

Then we just walked around the little antique shops and stores all around the square.




After we had walked off lunch we drove over to the creamery for some dessert. YUMMY!!



Britt posing. She actually likes pictures unlike her older sister who avoids them at all costs.


Can you believe this was only $1? And it was huge. I couldn't finish my cup of Happy Tracks. It was delicious though. Try it if you haven't already. You won't regret it!

Andrew was so tired on the way home. He had quite the day out and crashed.


A couple of random shots of Britt and little man that were pretty cute.


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OKC

Brittany and I took a little road trip at the first part of August before she went home to Oklahoma City to visit Jake and BrieAnn and Cora and baby Maggie. It was a lot of fun. Brittany has never been there before and we really wanted to see baby Maggie since we couldn't be there for the baby blessing. It was a quick trip but we had a lot of fun.

Friday night we ate dinner and let the kiddies hang out for a while before we stayed up way to late talking in typical Lund fashion. Saturday we went to a fabulous little antique shop to look around and then went up to OCU (Jake and BrieAnn's alma mater) and also the school of Brittany's musical hero Kristen Chenowith. And she got lucky and was actually able to meet the voice teacher that Jake worked with and will be working with again, who also taught Kristen Chenowith. Her name is Florence Birdwell.
We ate dinner in Bricktown - a cool little neighborhood in downtown OKC that has a lot of restaurants, and shops and music. We are dinner at a great little Mexican place and saw this fun little mural of Oklahoma the musical.

And this was the street sign right outside the restaurant which we thought was pretty funny. Not sure what the signifigance was but it made us laugh.

After we had sufficiently stuffed ourselves silly we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial to look around. It is quite the place to see. Really makes you think about how quickly things can change. And it also shows how great the people of this country really are. When something like this happens we pull together and take care of business.
There is a pool in between 2 of these big gates. They are supposed to represent the moment of destruction – 9:02 a.m. framed by the East Gate - 9:01 a.m. on April 19, and the innocence of the city before the attack. And the West Gate 9:03 a.m., the moment everything changed forever, and the hope afterwards.

These are the Field of Empty Chairs. 168 empty chairs to symbolize the 168 people that were killed that day. They are set up in 9 rows because there were 9 floors and each has the name of one person on it.

You can see that there are smaller chairs for the children from the daycare inside the Federal Building that were killed.

Here is a little wider shot from the other side of the reflecting pool.

There is one wall that "survived" the attack. As you can see not much is left but up close you can see the damage that was done to the wall and there names inscribed on pieces of granite from the wall.
There was also a tree that survived the attack and is now surrounded by a bunch of other trees and a wall that says " To the courageous and caring who responded from near and far, we offer our eternal gratitude, as a thank you to the thousands of rescuers and volunteers who helped."
Across from the tree spray painted on the wall of the museum is this message from the rescuers -
The actual museum with portions of the original wall.

These are tiles that were decorated by children from all over and sent to the museum and are now on display.

This is a statue in front of a church across the street from the memorial of Jesus weeping for those lost.



Britt and I in front of Braum's - best ice cream ever and every time James and I are near one we have to stop. Now Brittany understands why.

We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed getting to hang out with the cousins - I hope they get to be good friends like their mommies.
Thanks Johnson clan for letting us come play.

Our First Overnight Getaway

I have been saying since we moved here that I wanted to go stay in a bed and breakfast in Fredericksburg, it is one of our favorite towns to go visit. Lots to do and see, great shopping, great food. Can't go wrong. But we haven't ever gone before. Since Brittany was here, we had the perfect opportunity to get out of town overnight one night. I had to be in Fredericksburg for work on Tuesday so the Monday after 4th of July we drove out and stayed in my client - Kingwood Cabinets newly built suites. They have a cabinet showroom on the bottom floor of their building, but on the top floor have built these 5 absolutely beautiful suites. Each one is named after a gemstone - Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby etc. We stayed in the Sapphire Room. They built all of the cabinetry in there and each room had cabinets the color of the gemstone and everything was decorated in that color.
Here is a shot of the bed and cabinets.

The bathroom tile in each one is also color matched as you can see around the tub here.

And even the couch in there matches.

They had a big common area where you can gather and there is a huge screen tv, home theater etc.



Go here to check out more pics on the suites. And if you ever get a chance to come and stay here you should do it. Well worth the money.

We had a really nice time though. Got there on Monday evening and we were able to grab dinner and a new restaurant. Normally when we go, we have to eat at Friedhelm's Bavarian Inn - because they have the best German food ever, and we don't have time to try anything else out, but we at at the Fredericksburg Pizza and Biergarten. Yummy stromboli and calzones! And then we explored town outside of Main Street. Again something we normally never do because we are doing all of the touristy thing. There are some beautiful old homes around that area and it is just a really nice "hill country" view. Mostly we got to enjoy just hanging out with each other which was really nice.
The next morning we ate at Winslow's Restaurant which is totally the typical small town hangout. All of the same old couples who probably go in there everyday were there getting "their usual". Cracked me up but I love it. And we both got huge meals for under $5. Wish there were more places like that.
James even indulged me and let me walk around shopping at my favorite little stores there until we had to get back for my meeting at Kingwood. He sat through that like a trooper knowing that Friedhelm's would be his payoff.
We went and stuffed ourselves silly with the delicious schnitzel and spaetzle and German Sausage sampler and decided it was about time to head home. We did have one quick stopoff at Rustlin' Robs though. I was so stuffed I couldn't even enjoy this store as much as normal. The beauty of this store is they have dips, salsa, marinades, honey butter mixes, peanut butter mixes, jelly and oh so much more.
And they have samplers of everything in the store set out so that you can taste it all. It is heaven. They even have fudge in the back that you can just sample if you want. Or you can decide to buy it. We were too stuffed to partake this time so we just had to stock up on this one dip we always get there and of course James needed to restock his jalapeno peanut butter.
It was a quick trip but it was so nice to just get away for a bit.

Happy Independence Day!!!!

I'm a little behind. Can you tell? For the 4th this year we missed all of the fun festivals because they were all on Sunday and we were at church. We did have some friends that were having a get together at their house which is outside city limits so that we could shoot off fireworks there and see the Pflugerville fireworks and the Round Rock fireworks.
Here is a cute picture of James and Andrew in their 4th of July outfits.

And a couple of shots from the party at Marie and Roberts.





We had a really fun time just hanging out with our friends and celebrating one of my favorite holidays. We are so lucky to live in this wonderful country and enjoy the freedoms it has to offer. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom to be what we want to be - a teacher, a doctor, or a mom. :-) Thank you to all of our men and women who serve and allow us to stay free. And thank you to their families for the loan of their loved one allowing them to serve.

Andrew just continues to grow. He amazes me every day. He loves being in his jumparoo and is quite fascinated with any toy that makes noise or has lights.

Here are a couple of funny pictures I got of how he ended up falling asleep. He gets himself so worn out and then just crashes. But while he is playing in his crib going to sleep he pulls everything he can in there and throws his pacis all over the room, buries himself under blankets and stuffed animals and throws those all over too. He is a mess. But lovable!