Guess What?

Happy New Year! {2012}

We had a great time celebrating New Year's with Robert's family this year. The evening started out with a pretty intense tether ball tourney.

Of course the kiddos had to get in on the action! ;)

 Elena got to spend some quality time with Abuela ~

 and quality time with some of her cousins ~

Robert fried a turkey and some chicken legs too (yum!) 

Most of the night was just spent enjoying each other's company.

 We got to make smores - my favorite!

and have some of Abuela's famous hot chocolate. :)

 Robert held a countdown on his phone so we wouldn't miss midnight - lol. Then we got to enjoy watching the sky light up from all the fireworks (Texans treat New Year's as a mini 4th of July!) Robert also took a little horse ride into the night. He was gone for quite a while and it turns out the horse took off on him down the road and then got tired and didn't want to trot back! Ha ha! Only Robert.

Happy New Year!! Can't wait to see what 2012 brings!

Enjoying the Beach.

Because the weather was so nice in Texas, and because Elena loves the water so much, we decided to take a day trip to South Padre Island. It is just a short 30 min drive from where Robert grew up!

We stopped and ate a restaurant called Dirty Al's. It had some yummy fish and shrimp that we all loved! (and some funny decor too!) 

Then we let our little fish hit the water! :)

She collected shells -

and played and played and played! 

It was a nice day but it was still a little breezy and cool. But that did not stop Elena!

We pretty much had to drag her out of the water! She would have stayed in all day! (Blue lips and all!)

We hit up a couple souvenir shops on the way home and scored an adorable pair of shades for E -

I think this little day trip was definitely one of the highlights of our vacation for Miss Elena!

December Vacation.

The day after Christmas we headed down to Texas to visit the family. We hadn't been since August '09 so this was a needed trip! We arrived the following day after a overnight stop outside of San Antonio and had a wonderful time catching up. Nothing better than family chatting around a bonfire!

 Elena instantly re-connected with her cousin Katelynn and they were inseparable most of the trip!

Elena also had a blast playing with her cousin Julyssa - she adored everything Julyssa did and constantly asked her to play with her. :)

 

Elena even slept in Julyssa's bed - quite a milestone I thought! She has never slept in anyone else's bed except for ours and her own. Can someone please stop her from growing up?!

The next day we went fishing with more cousins that we hadn't seen yet. It was so hot! (Well like 80 degrees but after coming from freezing temps it was quite the heat wave!)

We had never taken E fishing before and she absolutely loved it!! Guess we will have to start doing that more often!

Since we didn't have any fishing equipment Robert decided to take a machete and make a fishing pole out of bamboo. It was actually pretty impressive, but no fish were caught with his creation.  

Here is Elena with her cousin Randy. What a couple of silly kiddos!

Who thought it would be a good idea to give 2,3 and 4 year olds foam swords to fight with? Yup, definitely Robert - as you can see below!

Elena event got to try out a Wii for the first time. And her Tio Pete even got in on the dancing action!! It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen! ;)

Well, that sums up the first part of the trip. Part 2 includes the beach, New Year's Eve and

 some serious tether ball playing! More to come soon!