Odessa - August 2011

Now that my brother Steven & his wife Sarah live in Texas we get to see them a little more often. The kids and I left Sunday around 11:00am and got there in time for dinner. It's a 6-hour drive. Max was so excited to see "Su-nana." He and Savannah are good buddies. The boys love Max but don't love playing with toddler toys so much. So they spent a lot of time on the Playstation.

On Monday we went to a fun jumping place. We were the ONLY people there and the kids loved having the entire place to themselves. They played a great game of hide and seek. We had so much fun that we went back on Wednesday also, after we found out that the pools had just closed for the season.

Landon loved climbing on and trying to walk all over the inflatable stuff. He did fine as long as he was alone.

Connor enjoyed watching kid shows with Max & Sarah.

For cub scouts Zach needed to do some outdoor cooking. We don't have a grill so Uncle Steven let him help make some dinner. This picture is the closest Zach actually got to the grill though. It exploded a little bit at the beginning from some grease and he was too scared to go near it when open. Thanks for letting him help Steven!

Odessa also has water restrictions because of the drought. Twice a week when they can turn on the water outside Steven fills up available container for Max to play in during the week. The kids LOVED having a huge water fight after dinner one night.

Sarah is pregnant and due in January. She enjoyed snuggling with Landon. Race track crowns.

On Tuesday we went to a sprinkler park. This is an oil town so they had this huge oil rig thing. Every 4 or 5 minutes a loud fog horn would go off and then it would dump this enormous bucket onto a waterfall. The older kids all thought that was the best thing ever. In this picture Jacob is running towards it and is almost under the water.

You can find all four kids in this picture, waiting for the splash to come.

One of Landon's new favorite activities...unloading the dishwasher while you're trying to put the dishes in.

As we were leaving on Thursday we stopped by Steven's patrol area to say good-bye. We followed his cop car for a few miles before we got to the Interstate.

Thanks for letting us visit Steven & Sarah!