Family Fun!

The highlight of October was definitely getting to spend time with Lewis family. I'll do a couple posts of the trip.

It was so wonderful to see Doug's brother Kelvin HERE IN THE UNITED STATES! He was so cute. (His behavior is MUCH improved from the days of him running away from us in Mozambique because we were NOT having "galinha" or chicken- his favorite, for dinner!) Cal especially liked to pull his hair!

Visiting the Pumpkin Patch

Callin had eyes of adoration for Uncle Eddie!

A Love Letter

Dear Mr. Lewis,

I know you have been quite busy these days, but at least you do find time to check the blog quite regularly. I thought I would drop you a line... I took a photo shoot last night all by myself. A little dorky, yes. Here are the results. And since it has been 2 days and you still haven't noticed, I will just go ahead and tell you that I got my hair cut and colored. What yo do think?

Yours Truly,
Miss Annie
(That is what my preschool kids call me unless you are talking about Tayt who calls me 'Annie Lewis' 30 times a day, every single time!)

Cowboys

Here is our interpretation of "Cowboy Dress" to the ward Chili cook off. Below the picture are tall white socks & tennis shoes and on our backs are numbers made out of blue tape. Going out and buying cowboy gear: $50
Homemade Dallas Cowboy outfits: Priceless. Or so the advertisements say.

How do you Wear your Shorts?

If I took a picture every time Cal walks around the house with his shorts on his head, I would fill up my camera in a day or two. Here is just one picture and a short video to show you how good he is at doing it. He will usually leave them there for up to 5 minutes or so.

I love this age! I cannot believe it is possible to be as busy as Callin is ALL- DAY- LONG everyday.However, the Mr. Independent "I will feed myself," phase is very exhausting. I am mopping the floor, changing clothes, and giving bathes often 3 times a day! (Okay, maybe more like 3 sponge baths.)
We love our 100% boy!

Georgia!

We had a fun-tastic time visiting Josh and Heidi! Heidi taught me how to make perfect homemade bread (not that I will be able to do it by myself...) and I taught her how to blog! We had fun visiting the National Civil War Naval Museum and the Space Science Center in Columbus.

Doug and I were totally impressed at their family's Guitar Hero skills! They ROCK! Callin loved getting to play with his 4 crazy cousins.

The south is beautiful. It is basically a forest with tons of rivers (and lots of bugs.) I had to pay big money for this picture below!

Callin finally decided wearing hats was fun.Sam's pre-Halloween show!
I enjoyed watching Grace play tennis and Isabel do gymnastics. Both great!

Thanks for a wonderful vacation and great conversation! We returned home to a house with power! Today we enjoyed our 1 hour church and then all the men changed clothes and went and helped around the town.

The After Math of Ike

Getting the house all boarded up! Using up our left over spray paint.

Doug and Chase (and me and Tricia) helped each other through the long process on both of their houses.
We had our friends the Campbell's spend the long, scary night with us.

Here some videos of before, during, and after (if I can get them all to load). Together they are about 10 minutes so don't watch it unless you have a bowel of ice cream. And of course watch for a new cast by Jan and her new co-host Fran! (Good bye Dan!)

Before the storm

During & After


After

We are in Georgia now at my brother Josh and Heidi's house. Doug's school has been canceled for a week and we don't have any power so we figured this was a perfect time to make the drive. We loved driving through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Beautiful states that neither of us had been to.

Ike

Look what's in our back yard and coming right at us! The other cities in our zip code have been evacuated, but not Pearland. So we are planning to stay home and to defend our home front! It is currently at a category 3. Stay posted for more weather updates from Dan and Jan! (As long as there is power and we are not floating away in the middle of a flood...) The past 2 storms turned away from us in the end so we are hoping for a little excitement, but not too much!