Howdy, Ya'll!

Howdy, Ya'll! Today we returned from a quick little tour of the Lone Star State! Jared's cousin, Kristina, married Bobby Brown (not the one involved with the Whitney Houston drama, but I'm sure he gets mistaken for him all the time:). The wedding was in New Braunfels, which is near San Antonio, and the day after the wedding, we did a little (very little) sightseeing of San Antonio's Riverwalk and the Alamo. After a morning of sightseeing, we headed north to Huntsville (just north of Houston) to visit Jon & Staci Sheptock and their girls. Jon was one of Jared's best friends in high school and he sang in our wedding. If you didn't hear him then, go to his website, have a listen, read his story, order his CD (or ten), and contact him to sing at your church. (Jon, we'll be expecting any royalties from CD sales that come as a result of this blog post... I think all of 5 people read it:). After a visit that seemed impossibly too short with them, we were up early this morning to head back to Jacksonville. It was a fast and jam-packed trip, but we had a great time!

On Saturday morning, we saved putting Charlotte in the van until the very last minute, thinking she would fall back asleep on the way to the airport and snooze for a little while more. Wishful thinking. But she did quite well on the plane ride there.

She munched on her breakfast...

Enjoyed the air vents blowing on her...

And played the "Hmmm" game with Daddy

Gavin had already been in Texas for a week or two visiting some friends, but he met us in San Antonio and rode to the wedding with us. Charlotte adores her Uncle Gavin. I think it could be his dapper dress uniform.


And here are lots of pictures of the wedding for the Rollinses who were not able to attend...

Michael & Krista


Some random woman's hairdo, with a blurry Jeff & Mackenzie in the background. Mackenzie just had their son, Jayden, two months ago. Doesn't she look fantastic?! She's one of those women who has lost nearly all of the pregnancy weight already. My instincts tell me to hate her for that, but she's just too sweet to.


Jamie, the maid of honor, with Bobby's brother, the best man


Kristina & Uncle Mark, who also performed the ceremony


Kristina & Bobby, listening to "I Will Be Here" sung by Bobby's father. It doesn't get any sweeter than that! His dad's band played at the reception too. They were so much fun!


With some Texas scenery in the background


Kristina & Bobby had a choreographed first dance that was soo fun! I got a video of the last half, which I'll try to upload later.


Father-Daughter dance


Jeff dancing with Charlotte


Gavin dancing with Charlotte :) She's a dancing fool!


On Sunday morning, we had a short amount of time to see a couple of the highlights of San Antonio (about half of that time was spent looking for a bathroom for my pregnant bladder)...

The Menger Hotel! Aaron, my brother, was called "Menger" in high school. I, therefore, ended up being "Lil' Menger".


The Alamo. We didn't end up staying too long. Charlotte decided to have a screaming fit. ::sigh:: Traveling with kids is a whole different experience.


A tree at the Alamo that should really be in our yard. I would have had the best time climbing on this thing as a kid!


If you don't have a large, orange, foam, 10-gallon hat in Texas, everyone will know you're a tourist. We like to act like the locals when we travel.


We went on a boat tour of the Riverwalk. It was beautiful! We had plans to eat at a place called Boudro's that I read about on Southern Living's website, but Charlotte was quite grumpy on the first half of the tour, then fell asleep for the second half, and we just decided to get on the road and drive for as long as we could in peace. (Our ride was not peaceful for as long as we had hoped...)




We had a lot of fun visiting with Jon & Staci. Their girls, Anna, Sadie, and Chloe are adorable! Charlotte had so much fun chasing them around the house and they were so sweet to her.

Anna and Jared playing Wii tennis. Jared and I also tried the dancing game, but both of us were horrible. We have videos of that, but I'm not sure they'll ever make it into cyberspace :)


Jared and Jon playing tennis (or baseball). Jared might tell you otherwise, but Jon whooped up on him!


Charlotte and the girls had fun playing in the pool...




Then Charlotte took some driving lessons


Then they enjoyed some ice cream and popsicles. Some of it actually made it into their mouths!


Texas sunset... Look at that orange and blue sky- God is, indeed, a Gator fan!


Charlotte helped me get all of our things packed before we headed home


Loving on Daddy in the airport. See those red spots on her face? She has three more on her arms. And I'm pretty sure they're all the work of the same stupid mosquito. Poor thing.


And we ended our trip with some authentic Tex-Mex :)