Nana & Tata's house

Last week the cub and I drove to Kingwood for the whole week to visit my grandparents. We hadn't seen them in a while so it was great to see them. 

Jackson had a fun time getting lots of hugs and kisses from my grandparents, aunt, uncles and my mom was in town helping out. His absolute favorite thing we did (daily) was feed the turtles. 

The bridge/ditch is a few yards away from my grandparent's house so we would walk there with leftovers daily. He was in heaven...                

 He loved running back and forth on the bridge...

 And he was enamored with my Tio Ito. Tio told him there were burros in the backyard and sang/yelled/jumped up and down the entire way to the turtles. The cub and Tio are now BEST friends.

 We hope to be back more often as we truly love spending time with Tata & Nana, Tio Ito & Tia Sheila. 

Playing with fire

We didn't get to play with real sparklers for the 4th of July so when I saw some at a toy store the other day I couldn't resist buying them. Jackson was way more into these than the "fireworks" he saw at my parent's house.

After the cub went to bed Jack and I had some fun of our own with the sparklers...nothing crazy--just fun with the camera. We were trying to make shapes/letters with  the light. If you ever wondered what Jack and I do for fun--I play with camera settings and Jack makes spreadsheets. If you're ever bored, you know where the party is ;)
                  
Clearly it didn't work as well as I had hoped. I never could make a complete star and God only knows what Jack was doing....

Sweet times in San Antonio

This past weekend we decided to go visit some friends in San Antonio since Jack was away at a bachelor party. Tia Karla and Tio Tony were FANTASTIC hosts. They wanted to practice being parents, so they happily and generously applied their knowledge on our Jackson cub.  

Our day began with a trip to the San Antonio Zoo. Jackson had a fun time seeing the animals and the exhibits but his absolute hands-down-favorite were the monkeys.

Surprised? Yea, neither was I. Besides 'burros', 'monos' are Jackson's next favorite animal in the whole entire world, so he took his Tia Karla through the exhibit about 1/2 a dozen times and she's too nice to say no to him.

 Tony then showed our lion cub how to fish. The boy thought it was VERY cool and it was air conditioned so we spent A LOT of time here...
                   
He had some lunch, and then began to get sleeeeeeeppppyyyyyy so we decided to call it a day and head home. This kid doesn't have a long attention span so getting about 2 hours out of him at the zoo is what I call SUCCESS!

Once at home Jackson took a nap and then Karla and I took the boy swimming. Recently the cub has decided to forgo all of his learned safety rules concerning swimming and has instead decided to dive bomb into the pool and wished he could hold his breath for minutes (impossible) at a time. It made for a CRAZY pool experience and I'd show you pictures but Karla and I were too busy trying to keep this kid alive. 

 So I bring you instead a very calming and sweet picture of our boy enjoying his time with Tio Tony. He LOVED his tio and I've NEVER seen Jackson sit still (for almost 30 minutes mind you) for anyone. Maybe it was the fact that they were watching movies, but still. Amazing....

 Our night ended with a lovely dinner with more tios and tias (thank you for joining us Reg & Robert!). Our boy was so exhausted he was acting out a bit so I had him throw boulders around to release some energy. Made for one TIRED lion cub!

All in all a LOVELY trip. We are excited to visit again soon and to have them come visit us in Austin! As for their parenting....Karla and Tony are going to make AMAZING parents, and we are excited to meet Jackson's newest amigo early next year! CONGRATS friends!

Gordo Fish

Have you ever seen a gordo fish? Perhaps not. Well if you haven't, here's your fist glimpse...

Looks like those swimming lessons are paying off. He is very confident in the water, can hold his breath for seconds at a time and most of all understands the importance of using the stairs. 

We got pretty tired of hanging out in our bathing suits all day long so there was many a time at my parent's house where we just let the cub go in alone. With Achilles as a lifeguard of course and his people not-too-far-behind. I say this because it makes Jack (aka Mother Hen) feel better. Enjoy! 

4th of July

Hope everyone had a great 4th! Ours was spent in El Paso--relaxing, swimming, eating and playing...

 ...It's what we do best when we go to my parent's house. The days were glorious with some cooling rain that actually made it cold (for me) at night...in the desert....in JULY! Not gonna lie, it was awesome.

It also brought out some butterflies! The cub enjoyed chasing them around. 

 

 I wish I could tell y'all he was equally as interested in the fireworks his dada bought him but sadly he was not. We debated taking him to see professional ones but 10pm is WAY past his bedtime.

Jackson didn't mind the lack of firework activity though, he was happy enough with the 'water park' the grandparent's have going on in the backyard...

 

A Picnic with Peacocks

 Jackson likes to take power naps in the car, so we find ourselves in some pretty random neighborhoods/places/parking lots A LOT.

Our most recent venture out landed us at Mayfield Park. Mayfield Park is in the center of the city and is absolutely beautiful. It's very quiet, tranquil and FULL of peacocks. When Jackson woke up it was lunch time so we thought it would be fun to show him around and feed him amongst the birds.

He didn't even notice them at first because he was too preoccupied with his food but then he realized they were kind of scary.

 then he decided to warm up to them...

 and fed them even though you're not supposed to. 

 These peacocks made a new friend in our cub.