Surprises

This weekend had a few surprises....the first one was on Friday. We were having some friends from church over, and I was making chicken parmigiana. I went outside to get some fresh basil and parsley, and much to my chagrin, sitting on my front porch was a huge black snake. The girls were watching t.v. since Dave was running late, and I was trying to get dinner made. Luckily they hadn't followed me out. The snake didn't stick around or anything though. It slithered off quickly into a bush in our front yard and then disappeared. I fell back onto the side of the house and screamed my head off. Oh, the joys of reptiles. Yuck!!! Mental note....check porch and yard before allowing girls to go outside at all!!!!

The second surprise was much more fun. We don't eat much lunch after church on Sundays. We just sorta snack on crackers and fruit on the way home, trying to keep the girls from going to sleep in the car. (If they go to sleep in the car, they won't nap in their beds. My mom-friends know this isn't ideal!) ANYWAY, we had dinner early. We were done by 4:55, so we decided to go out and explore Sugarland a little bit. Dave got his hair cut, and then we drove around a little. As we were trucking along, we saw Oyster Creek Park. I had been wanting to go there, and check it out...so we stopped by. They had a ton of great stuff going on! They have free live-concerts on Sundays starting at 5, as well as, free face painting, a magician doing magic tricks and juggling, and free access to an inflatable jumper and inflatable water slide thing. They had food for sale, but there were also many people out there with coolers, and even their own grills. They also have 2.25 miles of walking/running trails and a great playground. There is a ginormous, beautiful man-made water feature, and there is also Oyster creek, complete with turtles (and other reptiles, I'm sure). There were people flying kites, and blowing bubbles. It was sort of picturesque. The place is beautiful, and we plan to go back. I mean, it's a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. And the best part.....it's only ten minutes from our house.

Below is a picture of Julia showing off the "tatoo" on her arm. (The lady doing face-painting also did arm-painting.) She was very adamant about getting it on her right arm. It's already faded a little in this picture, but the lady painted it to match her dress and even added glitter. (We had to wait to take pictures of her because we didn't have our camera along.)

Below is a picture of Dave and Lydia after our fun evening. I was getting pajamas on Lydia, when Dave and Julia came up to see us. Sorry the pic is blurry...but not adding it just wasn't an option.Well, thanks for catching up on what we did this weekend. Were any of you surprised in the last few days? Any of you have a solution to snakes coming too close for comfort? Please, let me know! Thanks for reading, y'all! Love, Texas Amber