Our Trip to Houston December 2008 - Jan 2009

I know this is a bit late but our time in Houston was a whirlwind trip.
A few things we did:

• Helped mom with errands
• Did last minute Christmas shopping. Went to the outlet mall with Kim and mom. That was awesome!! The bargains were great!
  
• Ren played Frisbee golf, which he loved!!
  
• Unfortunately---attended a funeral --- Sam Carlton
• Tried to get the girls in a Santa photo-yeah on Christmas Eve, hehe, really smart I know.
  
• Had Christmas Eve Dinner at Melanie's house
• Had Christmas Day Lunch at Mom and Dad's house, later went over to Jonathan and Kimberly's house.
  
• On Boxing Day took off to Oklahoma for a 4 day visit.
• Came back on the 30Dec for Aiden's birth.
• Had New Year's Eve at Chris and Kim's house.
• Visited with Cheryl, Jeff, and the girls.
  
• Ren left on the 5 Jan.
• Went to Kemah with Kaila and Grandma.
• Sorted out the DMC threads that I needed for Aiden's birth sampler.
  
• Went to Emily's 1st birthday party.
• Visited with Cheryl, Jeff, and the Girls. Cheryl and I cross-stitched. We had so much fun that we didn't end up leaving until 1230am!!
  
• Went to NASA with Kaila and Grandma.
• Went to the outlet mall to get Melanie a special gift.
• Had lunch with my High School Friends-Tricia, Shelley, and Linda. That was so much fun! Tricia loved getting Katie to say, "Button". hehe.
  
• Spent the night at Chris and Kim's house-had a blast!! Good food and great time playing Wii.
  
• Made a last minute appointment with Sears to get some photos done. Mom really wanted a photo of her granddaughters.
• Katie bought Kaila a Build-A-Bear so after photos we went to the Workshop.
• Started packing.
• Jeremy and Marianne came over.
• Mom helped me finish packing.
• Started panicking because I still had so much to bring back.
• On Sunday 18th of Jan at 830am, we left for the airport with the help of Mom and Dad, Melanie, Jeff, and Kaila. Katie didn't want to leave Houston-she said she will miss her cousins so much, while shedding a few tears. She was such a good babysitter to Hailey. That really surprised me. I know that she really wants a baby sister/brother.

I took so many photos - For those that have access to my Facebook, I put them all there. Way too many for me to share here.
I will put one of my favourite few photos here...again more on Facebook - Holly Loncaric

Katie, Kaila, and Hailey at Christmas Eve

Katie and Kaila on Christmas Eve.

Mom and Emily at her 1st birthday party.

Katie and Emily at her 1st birthday party.

Kaylee, Katie, and Hailey at Emily's birthday party.

Katie and Kaila in Oklahoma.

Katie and Kirstie.

Emily, Grandma, Kaila

Katie, and Hailey.

Me and Katie.

Jasmine and Katie

Dido's 70th Birthday

Dido's Birthday was this past weekend. He is 70years old! WOW! We went out to eat and then back to Baka and Dido's house for Cake and Coffee.

Dido, Katie, and Baka at the restaurant.

Baka burning Dido's cake! hehe. Thankfully there isn't 70 candles on the cake!

Katie giving Dido a big Cuddle.

Baka took a family photo of us.

Katie's Birthday Party

These are a few photos of Katie's Swim Birthday Party. She had alot of fun! I am so glad she loves water!! :)

Katie and her Mermaid Cake

A few of the girls at the party...Katie is in Pink and Yellow-her favourite colours.

Katie waiting her turn on the floating obstacle course.

Birthday Cake time!

YUMMY!

Katie opening her birthday gifts at home right after her party :)

Baka & Dido's house

On Sunday, we went over to Baka and Dido's house for Katie a birthday lunch. Baka made a nice big lunch and a delicious Birthday Cake! Strawberries!! Very refreshing when it is 86F/30C outside. Baka and Dido got her 4small paintings to paint in and 2 Barbie Dolls from the Diamond Castle. :) Our Katie loves her Barbie Dolls/Dolls :)

Katie's Birthday Gifts from us and G&G Lloyd

Katie got to open her gifts from Grandma and Grandpa and from Ren and I on Saturday morning at 7am, hehe. She absolutely loved them :) Grandma & Grandpa got her a Disney Fairies Doll, Fawn, and a Fairies book. She was so excited! From Great Grandma she got a long sleeve shirt. Katie said it reminded her of chocolate, yummm.

From Ren and I, she got a Disney Doll-Giselle from the movie Enchanted. ANNNDDDD she got a pink keyboard and mouse. So she got her own computer!! She was so excited. At first she didn't understand why she got a keyboard and although she was confused she said, "I love it, a pink keyboard!" It wasn't until I said, "Katie, what goes at the end of the keyboard?", that her eyes lit up! hehe. Absolutely priceless. I wish that we had gotten out the camera and recorded it! She made Ren get up and hook her computer up so she could play on it.

Katie's Birthday Day

On the 25th, Katie turned 7!!! Since her party is on 1November, we decided to take her out to eat with a friend joining us. Jemma, one of Katie's best friends, was more than happy to have lunch with us. Jemma, sadly, isn't able to come to Katie's birthday party. Here are a few photos of them enjoying themselves at the restaurant. After lunch, Jemma came back to our house for a bit of a play. They made bracelets and necklaces. They had a lot of fun!

Japanese Dance

Katie was part of her school's concert this year. The theme was "The Olympics" with Chinese decorations. Every girl made a part of the Chinese Dragon and they put their names to it.



Katie's first grade class' country theme was Japan. They dressed up as Japanese girls and did cute little dances. This is Katie's outfit - minus the hair. She was excited to wear make up, hehe such a girl :)


This is the video I took with my camera of one of her dances. Katie is the fourth from the right. They are singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in Japanese. Sorry about how far back it is ... we sat pretty far back :( I had another nice video of them using chopsticks to dance but that video is just a bit to long for the blog.