Monday, January 16, 2012

New Orleans

The first week of January we decided to go and check out New Orleans since we weren't that far away. It was about a 5.5 hour drive but an hour into it we realized that we had forgotten our camera. So all these pictures are from Christian's phone. Luckily they aren't too bad.

First we stopped at a plantation, the Houmas House. We stopped on our drive down since it was about an hour outside of New Orleans.

It was a pretty cool house and the tour was really great.

 Right past the trees and the levee is the Mississippi River.

One of the few inside pictures that turned out since it was pretty dark in there. And it was still decorated for Christmas which was nice.

With our tour guide. We were the only ones on the tour.
 Christian was just trying to take a picture of the fountain and Lilly hopped right on in front of the camera. She knew what to do!

Outside in the gardens.

Giant oak trees that are really old. They said this one is 500-600 years old!



After the plantation we drove the rest of the way to New Orleans. The next day we checked out the St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Sqaure.
 Got some beignets (french donuts basically) at Cafe Du Monde.
 Waiting for our food.

One morning we passed the steamboat as it was playing music. It was really loud, we heard it from pretty far away, and you could even see the lady on top of the boat playing the music.




 Making our way back to the hotel for Lilly to nap. She was pretty tired so she was resting her head on top of Christian.

We also went to the Aquarium while we were there.

Lilly loved watching the penguins. She is pretty much obsessed with the Happy Feet movies.

She also really like the sea horses.


They even had an area where you could go and feed a bunch of parakeets. We thought Lilly would like it but before we could explain anything to Lilly, a bird landed on her hand and she freaked out. She didn't want to feed them after that.


This is her penguin she picked out at the Aquarium. She named him "Happy Feet" (I told you she loves the movies). Sadly we think he is now lost. Oh well.

Taking over our bed to play her fishing game that she got for Christmas.

We also visited a sculpture garden at the Museum of Art.

Our last day we went on a swamp tour.

Sadly during the winter most big alligator are hibernating or something like that.
 
 But it was still cool to go around and see the swamp. We saw a couple little alligators in the water and some birds too. The most exciting part was the baby alligator that the tour guide brought along.

Lilly wasn't scared in the least. She really liked holding it. Though she sometimes calls it a "Crocogator".


Riding the big daddy.



After the tour we headed back to Houston for a couple days and then back to Lubbock.
And look where we stopped on our drive back to Lubbock. In-N-Out! Thank you Dallas!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Post Christmas

A couple days after Christmas we headed up to the new ranch. It has been Christian's dad's labor of love since he retired.

It's about an hour and a half away from their house.

This is Bay, their new horse.

Lilly loved going for ATV rides.



She also liked to sit on top of Bay and pretend she was riding her.




And here is evidence that I gave riding the horse a go, but she was not having it.

Checking out Opa's Christmas gift, a telescope.

We were at the ranch for New Year's Eve and brought out the fireworks.

We did some sparklers with Lilly before she went to bed and then saved the rest for midnight.



One of Lilly's favorite things about the ranch was the armadillo she saw. Sadly, there is no picture.
 We also headed up to Dallas one night to see a NHL hockey game. It was fun but sadly Dallas lost.
Next up, our trip to New Orleans

Thursday, January 12, 2012

December

December was a crazy month for us. While Christian was finishing classes and studying like crazy for his finals we managed to fit in some Christmas (and non-Christmas) fun.

First, we visited Santa at a nearby model home open house thing and got this picture.

Lilly also got to decorate a cowboy hat.

 And we also got free hot chocolate, chili, and cornbread.

Next up, we got a little bit of snow.  And it even stuck around for a couple days instead of instantly melting.

And Lilly played in it with Christian and made a mini snowman.

We also had some friends over for gingerbread house making. We did it on a much smaller scale this year, since last year they turned out soo big.

Christian opted for the graham cracker train.

We decorated the Christmas tree.

Lilly played Guitar Hero with Daddy (even if it wasn't always connected to the Xbox)

Lilly learned how to wear her blanket as a cape!

We had an Advent Calendar (that I actually finished before December began!)
 
We went to Santa Land. We didn't actually see Santa there because the line was ridiculously long but we did walk around and see all the lights.






As for things we didn't catch on camera, we also:
-made snowflakes
-made and decorated sugar cookies
-Lilly painted some ornaments for the tree
-went to the Ward Christmas party
-drove down to Houston
-drove around to see Christmas lights
-did a lot of shopping