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Today, Grace was eating lunch and decided towards the end of her meal that she would line up all her cheddar cheese cubes on the table and count them.

She counted all the way to 12 all by herself.

Normally, her counting consists of 1, 2, 6, 7, 6, 7,...you get the picutre.

Needless to say I was so extremely proud of her! :o)

5th Wedding Anniversary

Jeff and I celebrate 5 wonderful years together on July 24th. We started the weekend out by dinner at Jasper's, in the Domain. I started out with a heirloom tomato and mozzarella salad and for my entree I had blackened flouder with a lemon garlic shallot sauce with shrimp served on top of a bed of rice pilaf with andouille sausage. Jeff had a full rack of baby back ribs served with a baked potatoe salad. For dessert we had rocky road ice cream sandwiches which had chocolate cookies filled with gooey marshmellow creme chocolate and caramel rolled in candied pecans. The food was fabulous!

Saturday, we slept in and then headed out for our couples massage and foot relexology at Viva Day Spa down on 35th street. We both desparately needed it and enjoyed it tremendously. Then we headed for Trudy's for lunch and a quick stop at a Dance shop to look for Grace some dance clothes for the fall. Now, the biggest task of the day...looking for bedroom furniture! Jeff and I have different thoughts on this, but what couple doesn't. ;o) We first stopped in at Star Furniture and looked around and found a bedroom set that I liked. The only problem was that the price for a 4 piece set (king bed without mattress, 1 night stand, and a dresser with mirror) was about $6000. We still needed a matress and box springs, 1 more night stand and a armoire. So needless to say we decided to look at other furniture stores.

After, such a full day we decided to go pick Grace up early (meaning Saturday evening, instead of Sunday morning) from my parent's house. We went to eat with them at Five Guys down on Guadalupe and then headed to ride the train down at Zilker Park. Big mistake! The hillside theatre was in full swing and there was a line of cars on Barton Springs just to pull into the park. We decided to find a playground for Grace to play at and ended up at Amy's Ice Cream off Burnet Road for ice cream and a little play time. Such a GREAT ending!

P.S. Mom & Dad - thanks again for watching Grace for us! :o)

Happy Anniversary to my husband, my soul mate, my best friend, my one true love, my rock, my confidant. I love with you with all my heart! ~ Lauren

Birthday Festivities!

This week we celebrated my brother and sister-in-law's birthday. They both turned the BIG 25 on the same day! We celebrated Chad's birthday on Monday by cooking dinner at our house and watching "The Bachelorette." We ended the night with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. So yummy! Then on Wednesday, I took Tracey out to McCormick & Schmick's in the Domain for lunch. The food was great! Then, we spent the afternoon at a teacher store. We had such a wonderful time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to both of you!

We wish you many, many more.

Love,
Jeff, Lauren & Grace

Calling all modeling agents...

This morning my mom, Jeff and I finally took Grace down to Zilker Botanical Gardens to take her 2 year old pictures. I think they turned out pretty cute if I might say so myself. I see modeling in the future! LOL Just kidding! See what you think...

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Wordless Wednesday: Shaving Cream Delight

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Fourth of July in Rockport, Texas

We decided since we had so much fun in Rockport on our beach vacation...we would go back for the 4th of July!



As a kid, my family spent many 4ths down at the coast. Some of my BEST memories as a child!



We had a little bit of a difficult time finding a place to stay in such a short time period and the fact that it was a holiday weekend, but thanks to Jeff and all the traveling he does...he was able to find a hotel room for all of us!



We arrived, ate lunch a deli called Apple Dumpling (Great little place...reminded me of The Kitchen Door here in Austin), checked into our hotel and attempted to get Grace to take a nap before we headed out for dinner. 30 minutes went by along with a couple of spankings...still not asleep. 1 hour went by more spankings...of course not asleep. 2 hours went by and 1 more spanking...I decided at this point a nap for the day was a no go and decided to let her get up. Boy, was she excited, but I was dreading dinner because I felt like she was going to be a bear. Little to my surprise, she was the BEST little thing at dinner. We ate a place in Key Allegro called Paradise Key and it was fabulous! I highly recommend this place to anyone going down to stay in Rockport. It's such a hip little place!



The next day, we went to the famous Art Festival they have every 4th of July weekend. We walked half way through the booths and Grace decided she had to go to the bathroom. Against my better judgement...my mom and I took her to one of the Port-o-Potties. Thankfully, my mom had brought some Lysol wipes and used those to sterilize the bathroom as much as I could. Leave it to my mom to think of everything! ;o) At this point, Grace had about enough. It was extremely hot and the breeze was not able to blow through the tents because the sides were down due to the vendors set up. So, Jeff and I decided to take Grace back to the car while my parents went through the rest of the art booths. Once we got to the car and got cooled down, Grace was a happy camper. We grabbed some BBQ sandwiches for lunch and then headed to the hotel pool. After swimming for a good while, it was time for Grace to take a nap. My mom gave her a bath and put her down for a nap. This time nap was breeze.



After a little nap for Grace, we all got dressed and mosied over to a Mexican restaurant to eat dinner. The food was not that good (we've eaten here many times before and the food has been fabulous) and the air conditioner was not working very well. We ate quickly and got out of there. We won't be going back to this place to say the least. We drove around town looking at properties for sale and then decided we better settle down for the firework show. Once the fireworks started, Grace decided she did NOT like them. She started to cry and ended up in my lap asleep for the rest of the production.

We had such a terrific time! There's something MAGICAL about fireworks over the bay! :o)

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