"Little Matt's" Wedding, Meeting Evangeline, and Hamilton Pool.

...and a bunch of other stuff. We went to Liberty Hill about 2 weeks ago for Matt Parker's wedding, and I'm just now getting the pics up. We drove down on Friday, met Evangeline (the kids were all quite taken with her!), went to the rehearsal dinner, and then left the kids while we squeezed in a date. On Saturday evening we all attended the wedding. Congratulations Matt & Bev!
On Sunday evening, we attempted a trip to Hamilton Pool. We arrived at 5pm only to find out it closes it 5:30 (we thought it was 6:00). Epic fail. So we ended up at the Iron Cactus at Bee Caves. And after dinner, the kids played in the little sprinkler park area nearby.
On Monday morning, Matt & I had our 2nd prolotherapy treatment with Dr. Fullerton. Then we finally made it to Hamilton Pool as it was on the way out towards Llano. The stop was worth it!


The kids love their new cousin.

"Little Matt" is a married man.



Baby V at the sprinkler park

Mercedes & Baby V







The babies at Hamilton Pool

This was not a planned part of our trip so some of us are swimming in clothes!

The waterfall was just a sprinkle overhead, but the spring-fed pool was seemingly bottomless.

Abilene Trip (and bonus videos!)

We have a couple of pics from last weekend's trip to Abilene. The kids enjoyed their first Grandma Motz style shopping trip. You can bet that made a big impression on them!
Also included in this post are two somewhat recent videos that have already debuted on FB, but are now making their official blog appearance. We have the one of V "praying" and demonstrating a few of her words, including Morgan, Emma, oh man, and obey. And then the video of Morgan & Emma's Psalm 19 recitation. We worked on this for over 2 months. There are still a few bugs to works out, but I wanted to get it on video before it was too late.

The great grandparents

Grandparents

July Vacation

We just got back from a week in south-central Texas. Our first stop was in Uvalde, where we visited some important Matthews/Griffin family sites. From there we went to Concan to spend the next two days with the entire Griffin tribe. The river looked pretty sad, but the swimming hole at Neal's still provided lots of fun. On Tuesday evening, we left for phase two of the vacation: San Antonio. There we took in the zoo, kiddie park, hotel pool, a few restuarants, Tower of the Americas, Imax theater (Cars 2 in 3D), and the Alamo.


Outside a restuarant in Uvalde.

Morgan looks like he's ready for battle with some river creature...

Morgan loves his cousin Sylvia.

All the kids from Emma on up got their own walking stick...all of which had to be promptly confiscated.

the baby girls...



Viola, loving the water as usual.

I couldn't believe Morgan mustered up the nerve to jump off.

...Since he did it, I had to follow.



This is my favorite! Look at that pose.

Uncle Jimmy & Aunt Aggie (from Jan's side of the family) were passing through, so we met for lunch.

The kids had at least as much fun on the tubes out of the river as they did in it...

Seriously, we're talking hours of fun in a pile of floaties.

A little bit of coloring time







We're looking at the hippos underwater.

Proof that daddy was here...

...and again at the Tower of the Americas.

We've all kind of had it here, plus the kids aren't loving all the pigeons hovering all around.

We killed a little time at the Disney store before the movie.



Unfortunately, the random stranger we selected didn't know how to focus the camera.

Recent Fun

Here's a little photo & video compilation from the past month. We've had a busy summer, and it's going to get crazier from here on.


Here we are enjoying the Griffin nacho tradition on our 2nd night of watching The Fellowship of the Ring.

Emma & Viola are really close...here's Emma reviewing the ABCs with V.

And here they are in action, feeding the baby.

Emma graduated to a booster seat soon after her 4th birthday. It makes the car seem much roomier.

The kids have been doing a lot of swimming, and they usually dry off with a little time on the "relaxing swing" as they call it.

Here we are ready for our 10th anniversary date.

Swim Lessons

We took the kids to the COM center for their first swim lessons. They had a 30 min class M-Th for two weeks. They were both a little bit scared. Emma was especially afraid at first, and spent most of the first lesson clinging to the teacher's neck. After that, she warmed up a little. She ended up passing the first level and Morgan passed three levels. They both had a great time, especially on "pirate day", the last day of class. They got to jump off the diving board and swing on the rope swing. They''ll definitely need a few refreshers courses, so we plan to go for another round in September.


kicking with the dumbell

Morgan learning to float

Emma's toes say it all...she's a little freaked right now!



Morgan refused help and jumped off like he'd been doing it all his life.

Emma had to be dropped off the edge every time...

...but she always came up with a huge grin!

Baby Talk

I got a video sample of V's baby talk yesterday. She sounds a lot like Morgan did at this age. I've tried to capture her praying, but that hasn't worked out so far.