Tag Archives: family

Balloon Festival.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Family day, love, Outdoor Fun, summer, tantrums, weekend and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

We decided to have some fun this morning and headed to the balloon festival after breakfast. I was so excited to see hot air balloons for the first time and I knew Gray would love them. We got there and there were no hot air balloons! Apparently we missed them by a hour or so and they will be back later tonight so we headed to the carnival. And he had FUN.He did NOT want to get off the horsey.Next up, the airplanes.The slide was next. It was a hit. And once again, he was NOT happy the fun was over. And then I got to take my baby boy on the carousel again. We have had a pretty good day so far. I love that we are able to do these things as a family. Making memories is so important to me and even if Gray can’t remember this when he gets older, well at least I will have these memories to share with him. I know it sounds corny but I get this warm, fuzzy feeling in my tummy when I see him laughing and smiling because he is doing something that he enjoys. He is starting to embrace new experiences and it is so exciting to think about all the things we will be able to do with him as he gets older. Now I understand why my parents were always so eager to do things with me and why my dad was the first one to volunteer to go down the big slides with me. They wanted to see that expression of pure, uninhibited joy on my face and now I get to see that on my son’s face. And that is just one of the amazing parts of motherhood.

2 years of wedded bliss.

Posted by agochneaur11 in love, marriage and tagged with ,

Well we made it two years and we didn’t strangle each other although we did come close a few times. I kid, I kid.

I didn’t know it was possible to love my husband more than I did a year ago, but it definitely is. This year of marriage was another one full of big changes and we survived. We worked together and we supported each other and we grew closer through it all.

There is not a day that goes by that we do not laugh with each other. I look at our son everyday and I see my husband in him and I am so thankful that God put him in my life to be my partner and the father of my children.I love spending my life with this man and I couldn’t imagine not growing old with him.

I love you sweet husband of mine.

XoXo.

Our weekend.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Family day, iphone, Outdoor Fun, summer, weekend and tagged with , , , ,

Our weekend was spent at home for a change. Saturday AND Sunday. Friday night the hubs and I had a little dinner and movie date. Then the rest of the weekend was all about getting stuff done around the house.

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Sunday we laid in bed for an hour and watched cartoons with our baby boy. I can’t remember the last time we did that. Then we all took a two hour nap later in the day. Glorious.

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We need more weekends like this one. It seems as if we are always playing catch up and always have something to do or somewhere to be. It’s nice to just stay at home once in awhile.

Estes Park, CO Part 3

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Outdoor Fun, summer, vacation and tagged with , , , , , ,

We made the most of our last day in Estes. It started out with breakfast at Big Horn of course. I had to have waffles one last time, blueberry this time, sadly I didn’t take a picture of their amazingness. We timed breakfast so that we would finish just about the time that the Rodeo parade started. Grayson’s first parade and he loved it.

I wish I could properly explain to y’all how excited Grayson was when he saw the horses. He was more excited than I have ever seen him. The sounds that were coming out of him were hilarious. The men and women on the horses stopped and said hi to him which got him in more of a frenzy.After naptime we headed up to the park one last time. We ended the day at a cotton candy party. George, the owner of the cabins, made cotton candy for all the kids. Needless to say, Grayson was a fan. After he was finished indulging on his cotton candy, he of course had to do something with that sugar high he was on. And that was our trip. The perfect combination of relaxation and adventure. I’m ready to go back. Like now.

Estes Park, CO Part 2

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, childhood, Family, Outdoor Fun, summer, Uncategorized, vacation and tagged with , , , , , ,

I’m here with more photos of our vacation. These are from the 3rd day of vacation. We started every morning by making coffee and drinking it outside while Gray chased chipmunks. We would give him peanuts to give to the chipmunks and as soon as they were in his hand, they went straight to his mouth. The chipmunks never got a peanut from this guy

Our cabin sat on top of a pretty big hill. Wild Man loved to take off while we were drinking our coffee and head for the bottom, sometimes with a stick in his hand and always yelling.

Daddy taught our son how to stick out his tongue. He said he taught him where his tongue was. I’m pretty sure he taught him because he thought it was funny. And it is. Probably won’t be when he is sticking it out at us to be a butt, but right now we like asking him, “Grayson where’s your tongue?” and getting this face in return.
I went on a hike by myself (Mom was not too happy about that) while Gray was napping and the hubs was getting a little work done. While it was so peaceful to only hear the birds and dragonflies flying around me I was a bit scared that a bear was going to run out of the woods or a snake was going to bite me. I watch too many survival shows. Anyways, I hiked the same trail that we did before but this time it wasn’t raining which was great.

We went into town and walked around after nap. It’s such a cute, quaint little town with ice cream shops about every 10 feet. I remember thinking that the town was so big when I was a child. Yep, my hubs is babywearing. In the words of Paris Hilton, that’s hot.

We went to the Stanley Hotel (think The Shining, Jack Nicholson, Redrum, “Here’s Johnny!”). It’s a gorgeous hotel and the views are amazing.

That evening Graham and I took a ride up to the park on a mission to see some wildlife. I had missed out on the elk sightings and I was determined to see one. The mountains in the evening are gorgeous. It’s crazy how different a place can look once the sun starts setting.

We didn’t see anything until we went “off roading” in our Ford Fusion rental. Then we saw this guy eating away all alone. They have these pull off look out points throughout the park and we found one with a great rock we could climb and watch the sunset. It was breathtaking. I feel like the pictures don’t really do it justice. Maybe if I was a professional photographer I could have captured that feeling for yall. At least when I look at these photos I am able to recall that feeling of awe.

Seeing these photos makes me want to be there right now. It’s so serene.

By the way, I finally did see some elk on the drive out of the park but it was getting dark and all the photos turned out pretty blurry. They are so massive even from a distance!

I’ll be back tomorrow with our last day.

Estes Park, CO

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, childhood, Family, Grandparents, Outdoor Fun, summer, vacation and tagged with , , , , , , ,

We are back from vacation and it was wonderful. I don’t think I ever felt a hint of stress while we were there and that is a great feeling. Grayson did amazingly well. He was in his element, outside all day unless he was sleeping, chasing chipmunks and playing at the playground. We were both pretty anxious about the plane ride to and from Colorado. The last time he flew he was 8 months old and slept the entire time. We expected a few meltdowns and we weren’t sure if he would sleep at all, which he didn’t, but he did play and watch cartoons the entire flight. No meltdowns. It was glorious.

I was really excited to share this place, Estes Park, with Grayson and Graham. We spent almost every summer there while I was growing up.  I had not been back in over 10 years so I was eager to see how it had changed but also stayed the same. I have so many amazing memories of feeding chipmunks, hiking and looking for wildlife on the ride in the Rocky Mountain National Park. I was able to share all this with the men I love plus make more memories. I was so glad that Graham loved Estes just as much I as I do. It’s a very special place to me and I hope that it will be a special place to both of them as well.

I took almost 700 pictures while we were there. I know, I know. That’s a bit too many pictures but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to catch every single moment of this vacation. This will be the first of a few posts of our family vacation and will obviously be pretty picture heavy which I don’t think too many people will mind.

These deer were right behind our cabin. We saw them as soon as we pulled up and got out of the cars. We were really happy that Gray slept so well while we were there since there is an hour time difference. He stayed up a little later than he normally does but didn’t get too cranky. Anyone that knows and has seen Grayson when it’s bed time knows that this is a wonderful thing.

Amazing breakfast. I was really looking forward to eating here and kept talking about how I remembered how good the waffles being.And they were just as amazing as I remembered. I restrained myself and only had one instead of a whole stack.This was our little cabin. I know I already posted a photo of it, oh well. This is the little bridge that goes over the river. It comes out in this little wooded area by the playground.This is Fall River which runs right in front of the cabins. It is the most peaceful sound ever. Graham and I would walk down to it after Gray was asleep and just sit and talk. This where Gray was the happiest. He would sit in that swing forever if we let him. These little chipmunks are everywhere and they are not afraid of people, well most of them aren’t. They will come right up to you and take peanuts out of your hand. Gray would get SO excited when he saw them and point while making this hysterical laughing/grunting sound. We had never heard it before this trip but he made it every time he saw an animal. He would chase these little guys around yelling at them. They would go in their holes and he would lean over and look for them like what the heck? How did they just disappear like that?There are all sorts of little hiking trails around the cabin and we went every chance we got and walked them, Grayson included. There is a great hiking trail right behind the cabin we stayed in. This is the view from the top. Amazing. You may think you are in decent shape until you try to climb a mountain. Holy moly. This same day we took a drive up in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The first couple of days we were there it was raining off and on. I still got some neat shots though.Sidenote: Gray did not want anyone but his Daddy the entire trip. When I mentioned before that his attachment to Daddy was crazy I wasn’t lying. He was in his Daddy’s arms or playing with Daddy or crying for Daddy almost the entire trip. Gray wasn’t really into the views like we were. Imagine that. He did surprisingly well during the car ride though. Thanks to the ipad and some Bubble Guppies and Mickey Mouse. See, totally happy on the swing.So that was our first two days in Estes Park. I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of the trip.

Our Weekend.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family, Grandparents, love, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , ,

It seemed like this weekend went by faster than normal. I think it’s because we spent some of that time traveling from Texas to Louisiana. We went to visit my Boo, that’s what I call my grandpa. Where that name came from no one knows, but it stuck. This was a pretty special visit for us. I hadn’t seen him in awhile and we really wanted Grayson and him to meet.  An added bonus, he got to meet my Great Aunt Ava, or Graunt as she says. (Get it, Great Aunt, Gr-aunt.)

Little dude wasn’t feeling the greatest Friday so we were really hoping he would be up for the road trip in Saturday. Friday night we laid low and watched some Rio.

Then he took a ride around the house in his shopping cart. And then he got mad because his ride was over.  We made it to Louisiana Saturday afternoon and Gray was a little wary of the new people. He still doesn’t do well around strangers. We hung out outside and he ran around Boo and MeMe’s house demonstrating how loud he is and how he can find things to get into anywhere he is. Gray stood at the end of the hall yelling in excitement. I got up and looked and he had found this dog doorstop. They hung out the rest of the day. He warmed up to Aunt Ava towards the end of the day and they had a good game of catch going before bedtime. When she scratched his back he was done.We went to visit my Boo in the hospital today. Unfortunately, last night he fell and had to be transported to the hospital. 4 generations are in this picture. As you can see, Grayson was super happy about having his picture made. Naptime + baby afraid of strangers=Meltdown. While this weekend was great, it was a real emotional roller coaster. I debated on whether or not to write about the emotional part of it and if I should post the photos of my Boo. I asked my husband what he thought and he said I should, it would be good for me. Since we left my Boo I have been kind of in a weird mood. I’m happy I got to see him although I wish I wouldn’t have waited so long to go for a visit. The last time I saw him he was in good health. He was spunky and moving around great. He joked and picked on my dad and he still had that smell that I grew up associating with him, he always had a tobacco pipe in his shirt pocket. I would spend a week with them in the summer and we would always be doing something. We rarely sat around. Every biography I had to write throughout school, I wrote about him. I remember sitting across from him several times at his kitchen table interviewing him about his life in the Navy and every time he was excited to answer the same questions. He is one of my heroes.

I had prepared myself for seeing him. I know his health is on the decline. I have been through seeing a grandparent who was full of energy and always happy to see me to slowly becoming someone who didn’t recognize me. I knew he was not close to that point and he still had a lot of fight left in him. But then I walked in and saw him sitting in his chair and had to hold back the tears. He didn’t recognize me right away, I think he thought I was my mom. I hugged him and said “Hi Boo” and then he realized who I was. We talked and he tried to get Gray to play with him even though Gray wasn’t too sure about him. He did love his walker though, pushed that thing around the house of course. He had taken a tumble that morning so he was a bit sore but in true Boo fashion, he made jokes about it. He just watched Grayson playing and running around his house and would smile every now and then. He was tired so we let him sleep and went and had some good Louisiana seafood. After dinner we went to my Aunt Ava’s and later got a call that he had taken another tumble and was headed to the hospital. He was fine but they kept him over night. When we went to see him today he was in a great mood. He recognized me right away and was smiling the whole time we were there, even when Grayson was having a meltdown. He wanted to hold Grayson even though Grayson didn’t want to be held by anyone other than his Daddy. I gave him a hug and he held my hand and told me to come see him again. I asked when he wanted me to come and he said, “As soon as you can.” We left shortly after that and headed back home.

I’m sure many of you can relate, it’s not an easy thing to see someone you love in such a fragile state. It was a shock even though I thought I had prepared myself pretty well. I know I may have made it sound like my Boo is about to leave us but that is not what I think at all. I know my Boo and I know what a stubborn, strong man he is. He is going to be with us for a while longer, giving us hell every chance he gets. The weekend didn’t go as we had planned of course but it was a good weekend nonetheless. Grayson may not remember meeting his Great Grandpa Boo but I will and I will be sure to tell him. This weekend made me realize once again just how important family is. They are everything. I can guarantee you we will be making another trip as soon as we can to see my Boo. I told him I would and I plan on keeping my word. Maybe the next time Gray will actually play with him.

A little trip to the community pool.

Posted by agochneaur11 in baby boy, Family day, Outdoor Fun, summer, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

It is so hot outside and it’s not even July yet. It’s ridiculous. Texas is welcoming us back with a sweltering summer. This is a great excuse to spend as much time as we can in the water. Daddy left work early one day last week and we headed up to the community pool. They have a little spray park and to say Gray loved it is an understatement.