Trips to Texas

This spring we've had quite a few trips to Texas!

TRIP #1
The first weekend of February we went to Houston to see Cousin George (Dan & Melissa's oldest) get baptized!  The kids had so much fun playing together!!

Henry and Thomas running together at the park.

It was so fun to see all of Dan's boys again!  They have 5 now!
Here are the youngest 3...

Jack :)

Henry :)

Sam :) 

Sometimes I could get away with holding Jack because I have curly hair like his momma!  Henry and I played for a little while, then it was my turn to play with Sam!  :)

 We played at the park for a little while, then headed over to George and Ben's school for some Ultimate Frisbee and more play equipment!  :)

Who can get to the frisbee first?  Ben (Dan's 2nd oldest) gave our kids a run for their money!!  :)

Edd's brother Eldon and his family also came to play!  :)  Here is Eldon's youngest, Ellie, pushing Jack in his stroller!

Ellie and Jack :)

Of course it wouldn't be a Prince get together without a little competition!!  :)
At the school, I think the boys were trying to touch the backboard... 

Can Dan do it? 

Did Eldon touch it?  

While we were at the park, Andrew and Eldon tried to jump the fence...

We had a great time!

Here is a picture of George that I borrowed from his mom.  I ended up not getting a picture of George this weekend...I guess he was moving way to fast for the camera!!  :)

George, Henry, Dan, Ben, Sam, Melissa & Jack

CONGRATULATIONS GEORGE!!  WE ARE PROUD OF YOU!!  :)

TRIP #2
This trip was to Austin.  Another weekend with family...but this was a sad weekend.  Edd's grandma, Pauline Neergaard Goodwin,
passed away after 99 wonderful years!

Grandma Goodwin was such a sweet grandma!!  :)
She was a wonderful example to us all in many ways.
Even though Grandma Goodwin wasn't very tall, she was a spiritual GIANT!
Grandma Goodwin work hard even till the very end to learn as much as she could about the gospel.  :)


I loved all the sweet notes she would send in the mail for birthdays and such and the fun Christmas presents she always prepared for us!  :)

After the funeral, we had a different Grandma celebration...we celebrated Grandma Leah!  Leah had spent many years making sure that Grandma Goodwin was well taken care of and sometimes wouldn't be able to do all the grandma things she wanted to do.  So we gave her a little surprise party with some fun things that she could use for herself and with her grandkids!

Even Grandpa got some trains from Thomas!  :)

One of Grandpa's brothers, Uncle Warren and his wife Emmie came for a visit...
!  :)

Here are some of Grandma's new toys being enjoyed...

Charlotte loved playing with the Barbies!!  

Jackie found something fun too!!  :)

It was fun seeing John and Melissa again and getting to know their little Elizabeth better!  :)

Of course we had to have some family competition...

It is great to spend time with family!!  :)


TRIPS #3, #4, #5, #6...
As of February 8th, it was official that we were moving back to TEXAS!

We made a bunch of trips back and forth between Houston and Madisonville...
the last trip to TEXAS was driven May 30th!  :)

Madisonville Jr High vs Pitcher Jr High

The new year brought a new soccer season!  Andrew made the team again this year!  This was one of the only games I got pictures of.  We had a few games in the rain.  But this day, we had beautiful soccer weather!!  :)

We played Pitcher Jr High, which usually has a really good team!

Andrew got to play a lot of this game, which was really fun to watch.  Both teams had some good plays!!

Andrew had a few opportunities to steal the ball away, like in these next few pictures!!

Half time huddle.

Looking down field, waiting for the action!

Getting ready to HEAD the ball!!  

#5 on Pitcher's team is Eldon Hendricks, who goes to church with us!

Andrew looks super tall in his soccer uniform!!  

Finally, some action down field!

Let's go Eagles!!

Eldon and Andrew chasing after the ball!

Is that Andrew on the ground?  Did Eldon get the best of him???

Andrew & Eldon back at it again!
Looks like Andrew's about the HEAD the ball again!!

Eldon and Andrew sharing a more friendly moment together.  :)

Heading back to the sideline.

I don't remember the score, but it was a good game.  Andrew said we won the game!  :)

Our Madisonville Jr High Eagles fought a good fight all season long.  Andrew enjoyed playing soccer with them again.  :)

100 Days of School

**I wrote this on Monday, but due to my intermittant internet connection and my limited techno expertise, I think I can finally post this today!!  :)**

Yesterday, on our way home from church, the kids and I were talking about stuff.  One of the topics that came up was how many days Bethany had till GRADUATION...

She has a countdown going on her phone!  She pulled it out and announced, "100 more days...six hours, some minutes and a few seconds!!!"  She is a little excited!  :) 

This is B's ID from school!  It is tradition at her school for the seniors to dress up a nerds on picture day because the pictures don't go into the yearbook...just onto their ID!  Their SENIOR PORTRAIT goes in the yearbook!  Bethany's Sr portraits just arrived the other day!  We will post them when it is graduation time!  :)

On Friday, Thomas and Mattie had their 100th day of School celebration!!

Thomas took in 100 LEGOS for their classroom fun!

Mattie had a project about 100's.  She made a poster with 4 different 100 activities.

She made a "100" with 100 Mardi Gras beads, she calculated how much money 100 QUARTERS equals, she figured out what year she would turn 100, she put who the US president was 100 years ago and that her Great-grandma Goodwin was born 100 years ago too!

As you can see we are in the middle of school and of course a whole bunch of other things too!

GOAL FOR 2013:  KEEP UP ON BLOG BETTER!  :)

Life here in NOLA never has a dull moment!  

Laisses Les Bon Temps Roulez

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

:)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :)  :)

Our trip to Tennessee :)

It's time to start getting caught up on what we've done this year!  This summer was over practically before it even started!!

We were able to sneak away for a few days on a family vacation!  We decided to do something we've never done and do a vacation with just our family...since this would probably be our last summer all together!

Edd and I realized that all our vacations in the past have been visiting family, which of course has always been a blast!!  :)  We felt like it was time to do something with just our kids before they start leaving us.

So we packed up and drove to the SMOKY MOUNTAINS!!  :)  What a beautiful place...turn after turn, we were totally amazed by the beauty!! 

The night before we left, we were out running errands.  When we arrived back home, we found these on our back porch!!  My sweet visiting teachers had put these together for us!!   

When we got to Tennessee, we drove through the areas where some of Edd's ancestors had lived!!  Both of his mother's parents grew up in Tennessee!  It was really neat to see some of the areas they used to call home!

Once we were checked into our cabin, we settled in for the night and admired the view...it had just been raining and we could see little puffs of "smoke" all around!  

Our first adventure in the Smoky Mountains was to hike the trail to Laurel Falls!  It was so beautiful!!  :)

I took this on the trail on our way back down!  Everything was so green and around every turn was another beautiful view!!  :)

After our hike, we drove through Cade's Cove where there were quite a few neat old churches and houses to see!  But the most exciting thing to see was this...

A BABY BEAR!!!  He had been left behind by his mother.  An off duty ranger told us that the mother has 2 other cubs and had probably left this cub in his "playpen" while the mom helped the other cubs!  The ranger said the bears were checking the cherries to see if they were ripe yet!

This is one of the cabins we drove past.  Most of them were built around 1910, which was around the time Grandma Goodwin, Edd's grandma was born!  It was amazing to see how people used to live when Grandma Goodwin was just a little girl!!  

Sunrise on our second day!  :)  Our teenagers didn't want to get up with the sun!!

Back to the park we went for another day of adventures!!  

 

We drove up to the trailhead for the Clingman's Dome.  We went on a ranger lead hike, which took us along the Appalachian Trail!  It was really beautiful scenery and at times we were walking through the clouds!!  At one point of the trail we were on the top of the ridge where one side was Tennessee and the other side was North Carolina!!  Part of the time we were hiking on the N. Carolina side.  The kids thought that was pretty cool!!  :)

On the Dome!  

After our hike, we spent some time playing in on of the many rivers!  Edd had gone out on a big rock to take some pictures and accidentally lost his balance!!  Luckily only his one foot got wet!!  :)

We finished the day with a horseback ride!  Edd took the kids who wanted to go...and they ended up seeing another BEAR!!!  

Our last day started in Gatlinburg! We went to the ski resort, Ober Gatlinburg, and rode the alpine slide! Then we headed back into the Smoky Mountains for more adventures!!  :)  

This is where we stopped to have our picnic lunch!  :)

Another old house that we stopped to explore!  It was by a river that we went down an played in!  We ended up running into another family from Louisiana there and talked to them for a little while!  

 

On our way out of the park, we stopped and got a picture by the sign!  

We all had a great time!!  We were all sad to leave Tennessee!!

On our way home, we stopped at an old cemetary where some of Edd's ancestors were buried.  It was really neat to spend some time in Tennessee and learn to love the land where they had lived!!  :)