Our San Marcos Trip

Monday we took a little "staycation" trip to San Marcos. Grant and I wanted to eat at a couple of our favorite restaraunts, so we decided to make a day of it. We ate lunch at Alvin Ord's, then headed to Wonder World. Some people say you "wonder why you went" when you leave. Actually the girls really enjoyed it. We walked through the cave, which was very difficult at times because the "ceiling" was low and the terrain was rough. Then you take an elevator out of the cave all the way to the top of the tower that overlooks San Marcos (and beyond). We also toured the Anti Gravity house and rode the train to the petting zoo to feed the deer, which the girls really enjoyed also. Since we wanted to stay for dinner, we spent some time on the Texas State campus. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and the girls enjoyed running around. Our dinner at Herbert's was wonderful and worth the trip! Here are a few pictures and here's a link to more if you're interested:

www.julielawrencephotography.com/sanmarcos/index.html

Jaedyn on top of the Wonder World tower, with the university in the background.

Girls in the cave!

Sharing our Christmas!

Another Lawrence Christmas is in the books! Once again the girls were spoiled beyond belief. Grant and I sat on the floor tonight (after unloading bags and bags of gifts) and opened ALL the gifts and rescued the toys from their twistie-tie entrapments. Notice the Sara Grove lyrics about Toy Packaging...very funny, and so true. ALSO, who thought to make toys with SO MANY TINY parts??? Obviously someone who has never vacuumed up a Polly Pocket shoe because it looked like dust! To illustrate, I found the 4 smallest parts and laid them next to this quarter:

1. Ponyville shoe

(yep, each pony hoof has a teeny, tiny shoe. 6 total ponies this year, 24 teeny, tiny shoes)

2. Polly Pocket sunblock bottle

3. Polly Pocket shoe
(we have tons of these, because apparently Polly needs flip flops, boat shoes, and dress shoes on her boat)

4. A dot from the Pixio art thingy

(1500 of these!)

And here are the toys responsible for the tiny parts, now safely inside Ziploc bags (until morning when the girls wake up and the bags are never to be used again!)
Here are most of the gifts (couldn't get them all into one shot) after Grant and I opened all the boxes. Some favorites this year were:

Jaedyn-roller skates, Leapster, Geo Trax airport

Mallory-Yo Gabba Gabba dolls, Wonder Pets Flyboat, candy!

Mommy and Daddy-the silence of this night

Some of the toy carnage:

The girls did great this year and LOVED Santa's visit on Christmas Eve. Jaedyn broke down Christmas night about 7:30 and went into major meltdown mode, but when I tucked her into bed that night, with her eyes still closed she smiled and told me Merry Christmas. Then she sat straight up in bed and announced that it wasn't a school night and she could watch TV. So much for tired....

Last story...We took the girls to our church's children's Christmas service and they had these big camels "walk" in and the people "walking" the camels sprayed the audience with water like the camels were spitting. The service was beautiful and meaningful and I tried to explain each part to Jaedyn as it happened. Later that evening, I asked her what we celebrate on Christmas. According to her, "Baby Jesus was born, the wisemen came, and the camels spit".

I hope everyone had a wonderful day and stopped to think about the TRUE meaning of Christmas!

Now, go to the next post and enjoy our video. It's about 3 1/2 minutes, but worth it to see J's meltdown at the end!

The Christmas Video!

O Christmas Tree!

These are far from perfect, but I think they're beautiful for many reasons. I hope they make you feel the warmth and HOLINESS of the Christmas season.