Leaving on a jet plane...

We have our leave date!  I am very excited to get over to Saudi and see what it is going to be like, and (more importantly) to see Greg.  We are leaving the Houston airport on Thursday, to land in Dubai on Friday, it is a 16 hour flight, but I opted for it, this way I know exactly what I am getting into!  Hopefully Lily will do her normal trick and sleep 11 hours of it, as we are flying at night.  Greg is going to meet us in Dubai, and we are going to spend the night there and then fly on to Bahrain in the morning.  This is only an hour and fifteen minute flight, which will be nothing compared to the day before!  When we land we will drive over the causeway into Saudi Arabia, and hopefully be in our new home soon.  I will try to blog one more time before we leave, and then I don't know when I will have Internet connectivity again, but I will blog as soon as I can to let everyone know how the trip went.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day (a little late)

Lily's Nana (Greg's Mum) came for a nice visit last weekend, we really enjoyed having her here, and she spoilt Lily with lots of attention.  The weather here wasn't as nice as usually is, so we sent a lot of time indoors.  Monday things cleared up, and we went to have pictures of Nana and Lily taken, and then out to lunch.  We went to the Mucky Duck, where we were going to spend St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to show Sharon the little Irish pub.  We had a wonderful lunch, and Sharon had two Irish car bombs with my friend Kendra, I had to drive :)

Lily with her Nana and Grams, she is a lucky girl!

Lily playing with her Aunt Jordyn at the Mucky Duck

Lily, after she got a shamrock painted on her face!

We spent St. Patrick's Day at McGonigel's Mucky Duck in Houston.  They had lots of good Irish music, good Irish beer, some cute Irish dancers, and a lot of fun and people.  We got there early so we could get seats, thankfully, I couldn't imagine doing it without a place to camp out.  Lily was a trooper, she loved to watch the little kids dancing up front.  We were there for 6 hours, and she was good the whole time, she fell asleep hard when we got home though.

Big Days

The last few days have been beautiful here, Lily helped Gramps mow the lawn, she loved it! 

We put he in her carrier and she had a ride helping Gramps mow, she is such a happy baby when she is outside.

The other day we went to the Woodlands and walked around the shops outside, then we went up to Lake Conroe and had dinner with cousin Sonja.  Sonja had just bought this ceramic fish pot, and we had to put Lily in it, she is such a ham in front of the cameras!  

Our little prop

Lily is getting very smart, and nosey, she grabs for everything and then puts everything in her mouth.  Today when she was in the walker she grabbed an envelope off a side table and started eating it, then when we took it away she went after a big brown shopping bag full of littler plastic bags, she actually got a bag out, chewed on it and tried for another.  All this in her walker, I can only imagine what she is going to be into when she starts to crawl, let alone walk.  I definitely have to watch her closely now.  She likes to role and push herself around, I can't leave her on the bed alone anymore.  Last Saturday I took her out into the garage in her walker, she can really move, she walked through the garage, down the driveway, and into the street, where she turned her walker and headed down the street.  She is too young to be running away!

Her little legs sure can go, she walked all the way back, with us guiding her.

Well time for bed, we will see what tomorrow brings.

Houston Rodeo Days

Hello all who read this blog.  I hope that this finds you all doing well.  Lily and I are great, healthy and doing well.  I know this because on Wednesday we spent the morning at a clinic getting our "International Travel Exam"  Lily's only took 45 min.  She is doing very well for her 6 months, she weighs 16 pounds, 1 ounce.  The doctor said that she is sitting up really well and is very strong.  My appointments took considerably longer, not because there is anything wrong, but because I had to run a bunch of tests, just for fun!!  I thought it would only take an hour for the checkup and a few min for the shots and I would be on my way, but nooo I had to pee in a cup, get an EKG, I have never had one before, see the doctor and go through my life history, get 3 shots, draw 8 vials of blood, and wait we are not done yet, lets throw in a chest x-ray for fun!  Needless to say going through all of this I was sure someone would mention something about the fact that I look like hell, sound like hell and am going through tons of tissues.  But no, not one mention about the obvious fact that I either have a cold or bad allergies.  Which makes me wonder about the state of our health care system.  Anyway, I am glad to have it over, I was glad to go and get it done, one step closer to getting to Saudi and seeing Greg again, who I miss terribly (so does Lily).  Oh, and it was allergies, very bad ones, it me like a brick wall for 3 days, I am just now feeling back to normal, and I am still a bit stuffed up. 

It is Rodeo Days here in Houston, I went to see it on Wednesday night with my parents, Jordyn stayed at home to watch Lily.  It is quite something, they hold the rodeo in the big football arena here, and they fill it up.  It is HUGE, they go through the rodeo events, and then have a performer come out and sing for an hour and a half.  I was glad that I got to go and see it.  There is a carnival set up outside, and in another building there are tons of shops set up, and the animal pens.  They say it is the biggest rodeo in the US, which goes to show you that everything is indeed bigger here in Texas.  One thing that is really nice here right now is the weather, it is beautiful, warm and sunny, with a breeze (to blow all that wonderful pollen around-achoo) But seriously, it is nice to be here where it is warm.

Well that is all for tonight, my baby gets up early so it is off to bed for me