Father's Day

So I finally gave Jeff his Father's Day present. I was waiting until we got our new computer (which we did this past weekend) since it involved pictures and our new Mac is great at editing and sorting pictures. It is going to take some trial and error to figure out the differences between this and our old pc so bear with me while I get used to it. I have some great pictures to post, but I have to do some homework. Here is what I got Jeff. What do you think?

Couldn't resist...

I took two great pictures of Charlie today and I just had to share. The first one was in Wal Mart. He was practically laying down in the buggy. He stayed like that throughout the entire trip. I guess he was tired! But he was not fussy or anything. Crazy baby!

The second one was after his bath tonight. We got him that outfit when we went to the outlet mall in San Marcos. I think it's adorable and its made of terry cloth so it feels really comfortable. And he looks great in it!

Cousins

Last week we went to Fredericksburg to visit Jeff's parents. Kasuen and Annika were visting from California and Carrie, Chris and Rebecca came for the weekend as well. This was the first time that the 3 cousins had been together and it was great! They are all 3 months apart and it was neat to see them in each developmental stage. Charlie is 8 months, Annika is 5 months and Rebecca is 2 months. We had a photo shoot with the babies wearing the new Huggies jean's diapers and they were so cute! We took a million pictures so here are just a few:



We can't wait to get the cousins together again for our next family function. It's going to be so exciting watching them grow up together.

3 month checkup

I went to MD Anderson yesterday to do my 3 month ct scan. I got the results today. All is clear! Great news to hear. Jeff and I went to the hospital today and brought Charlie with us. He brought a lot of smiles to many of the people we came across. It always feels good to brighten some one's day, especially at a place like MD Anderson. This was the first time we got to bring Charlie to the doctor's appointment, but unfortunately all my normal doctor's and nurses were out. My oncologist is on maternity leave, her nurse is on vacation this week and my surgeon's nurse practitioner was also not in today. Oh well. Maybe next time.

All I want for Christmas...

...is my two front teeth! We got Christmas in June!

California dreamin'

Last Friday we headed out to California for a Mauldin family vacation to visit Jeff's brother, sister in law and niece. Jeff's parents and godparents met us there as well. So it was truly a family vacation. This was Charlie's first airplane ride and he did great! He even received a certificate and his own set of "wings" from the flight attendants! We arrived Friday afternoon and hung out at his brother's house and waited for everyone to arrive. We had a nice, relaxing meal and enjoyed everyone's company. Saturday we stayed in the Berkeley area and went to UC Berkeley to see the campus, got some great cheese and pastries at the Cheeseboard shop, and had a super nice dinner at a fancy restaurant in Berkeley. Sunday we went to Mt. Tam and had a picnic lunch up there and enjoyed the wonderful view of San Fransisco, saw the Golden Gate bridge (without fog, for once!) and went to a party for Kasuen (Jeff's sister in law) thrown by her graduate professor. (Clayton and Kasuen just graduated from UC Berkeley with their PhD's). Monday we toured Napa Valley which was awesome. Jeff's Uncle Carl is very big into wine, so we got some VIP tours of a few of the wineries in Napa. Tuesday we did a little shopping at the North Face outlet, had lunch at this great place called "Crepevine", and then went to Half Moon Bay to see the Pacific Ocean. So Charlie has been to the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean's within 2 weeks time! Pretty cool! The Gulf of Mexico is next on the list, which shouldn't be a problem since we live 30 miles from there. Dungeness crabs are are always on our "must do list" when we go out there, so that's what we had for dinner on Tuesday. We flew home on Wednesday. We had an excellent time and really enjoyed ourselves. Charlie did really well considering he was travelling, not on any sort of schedule/routine and was cutting two teeth during this time! Of course we have lots of pictures, so sit back and enjoy!

Ready for Launch...

The space shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center on Friday, May 14 for the last time and we got the opportunity to watch it live. It was a whirlwind trip because Jeff had to get back to Houston as soon as he could because he is working the mission. We left on Wednesday afternoon and drove to my mom's house in Covington, La. We drove the rest of the way to Orlando on Thursday and settled into our hotel room. On Friday (launch day) we got up, got ready and met Jeff's coworker and her two friends and started the drive to KSC. We were about 50 miles away from where we needed to be to watch the launch. We had turned the local news on in the morning and it said that traffic was expected to be twice as bad as normal. Not really knowing what that meant, we left the hotel around 9:45am thinking we had plenty of time to get to KSC before they closed the gates at 1:20 (one hour before launch). Remember, we were a measly 50 miles away from KSC. It was a straight shot down the expressway and we should have been there around 11:30 or so right after the gates opened. Needless to say, we got to KSC around 1pm! Very close to the cutoff time. The traffic was horrible. Never have we seen traffic this bad. It was crazy! Luckily the friends of Jeff's coworker had a toll tag that they let us borrow so we didn't have to wait in the mile long line to pay the tolls. That really saved us! We parked the car and staked out a spot on the "causeway", about 6 miles from the launch site. We had a great view with hardly any obstruction from trees. There were a ton of people there (I think that this spot can hold 3-5000 people), but we were all spread out so everyone got a great view. Jeff got the camera set up on the tripod and I was ready with the video camera holding Charlie.

From Launch 2010

And the countdown began...10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1 LIFT OFF!

From Launch 2010

From Launch 2010

From Launch 2010

From Launch 2010

What a glorious site that was! The sky couldn't have been more beautiful and the takeoff was perfect. So awesome! I tried my best to get some good video, but Charlie was bouncing on my hip and the wind was blowing, so the video came out sorta like the Blair Witch Project, but pretty cool anyway. It wasn't very loud, but you could feel the vibrations in your chest. Charlie did great and wasn't scared at all. After about 2 minutes, the shuttle is so far away you can hardly see it with the naked eye.

From Launch 2010

And just like that, it was over. Godspeed, Atlantis!

We got back in the car and suffered through more traffic and finally got back to the hotel around 7:30. What a long day! But one we will never forget!

Saturday morning, we got up early, checked out of the hotel and headed to Cocoa Beach. We came all this way, we wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean! We went to the famuous "Ron Jon's Surf shop" and got a few things. Our friend Erin's parents were staying right down the road, so we met up with them and headed to the beach. Charlie was not very enthusiastic about the water. I think it was too cold for him. But now we can say that he's been to the Altantic Ocean. :)

From Launch 2010

From Launch 2010

We got on the road and decided to make a detour to Daytona. We ate lunch at this little hole in the wall restauarant on the water. We stopped at the beach for a few minutes, but didn't really have time to do much, so we headed to Daytona International Speedway.

From Launch 2010

We would have liked to have done the tour there, but again, we needed to get on the road since we had a long drive ahead of us. We took a bunch of pictures (from the outside) and headed back to Louisiana, where we spent the night. Sunday morning we slept in and then had lunch and headed out for home. We had a wonderful trip and it was a great experience to see the shuttle launch. Charlie did very well for being stuck in the car for 5 days straight. Our next trip is Memorial Day weekend where we are going to California to visit Jeff's brother and his family. We'll be flying there so that will be another first for Charlie.



Here are the rest of the pictures: