A Temple Weekend

My sister, brother-in-law and sweet little niece got sealed as a family for time and all eternity in the San Antonio temple this Saturday. It was a lovely weekend with so many sweet memories made.

Love this girl!

My family! It was awesome to be all together at the temple!

Rylee loved being with her Honey, aunties, and cousins!

She started preferring Honey or Aunt Aley or Auntie Halie over Mommy!
Which it totally fine with me!

This pretty much sums up Rylee's relationship with her cousins!

Uncle Richard had a couple light sabers, and Rylee loved them!

I was having to defend myself from this baby Jedi!

As always, we wish we had more time with everyone, but we treasure the moments we did get to have!

End of Summer 2014

It's still 95 degrees out, but the word is that it's actually fall. Here's what the end of our summer looked like!

We hit up the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday over in the Woodlands.

I branched out and tried a new one, Chris's Outrageous Cheesecake. Yummy!

Best part of my birthday!

 We also went over to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. It was Ryan's first time and we all had a good day!

The Houston Temple is closed for the month of September, so we went the last day it was open and took turns with Rylee outside.

My brother Travis came for Labor Day and we spent a fun day in the sand at the beach in Galveston.

She sat and played just like this for most of the day.

I thought both their faces were way too funny!

We had one exhausted baby!

Alas, now it's mid-September. How did that happen? Maybe soon we'll get some cooler weather and it will dip below 80! We had a great summer!

Sixth Wedding Anniversary

Ryan and I celebrated our sixth anniversary on Saturday! We had an amazing day. My in-laws came up to watch Rylee for the day, bringing me a key lime pie(my favorite) and homemade spaghetti sauce for my freezer for quick meals since I'm going back to work. Rylee adores her grandparents!

Ryan and I kicked off our festivities by seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, because nothing says romance like Marvel Comic Book movies! Then we went back to the Museum of Fine Arts and had a much more enjoyable time without a screaming toddler in tow(who wanted to destroy everything last time). They had this exhibit called "Soto The Houston: Penetrable" which consists of 7.5 tons of plastic tubing suspended from the ceiling. Pretty neat! 

We had dinner at a place called Hugo's and ate on their patio where it was quieter. The neighborhood we parked in was so cute and nice! I really want to live there. It's nice to dream. 

Dinner was delicious(interior Mexican cuisine) and it was really nice to enjoy my dinner without having to have octopus arms and juggle Rylee in a highchair!

We had second dessert(I got a special three course meal, so we shared chocolate crepes at Hugo's) at the Chocolate bar, a fun little chocolatier/bakery/ice cream shop.

We debated going to see a second movie or going to a jazz festival, but it was getting late, Rylee hadn't fallen asleep without me, and we were both pretty tired, so we decided to call it a night.

A perfect day to celebrate our anniversary! Can't believe I've been married to this guy for six whole years! Love him with all my heart, mind, soul, and being!

Family Camping Trip

Ryan's firm is closed the entire week of Fourth of July, so we decided to plan a big camping trip! We wanted to go up to the Lincoln National Forest near Cloudcroft, NM where we could camp at a cool 9,000 feet. However, so extenuating circumstances arose, and instead, we camped at Enchanted Rock and Colorado Bend State Park. There is a reason why I don't go camping between May-September in Texas. IT IS HOT!!! So our week long camping trip turned into, "let's be back for the fourth" and that turned into "it's hot, lets go home" after three days! Seriously though. Our tent was stifling, as it didn't cool off till after midnight. Cassie and my dad had the right idea in their hammocks, but we had Rylee, and I was terrified she would run off in the middle of the night if we slept out on the ground, or have some *insert nocturnal creature* slithering/crawling over her, so we stayed in the tent.

Dead to the world after a restless hot night!

Running around camp eating pebbles.

Camped at the foot of the smaller dome.

View of Enchanted Rock from Moss Lake

Rylee's first time up at the top of Enchanted Rock! Unless you
count the time I hiked up there at 27 weeks pregnant.

Gorman falls at Colorado Bend.

She kept tossing her hat off, so I tied my bandanna on her

Eating dinner in her new chair from Grammy.

Shortly after this picture, she tried to shove mac n cheese into her belly button.

It was a fun trip. Exhausting from the heat and chasing after our cute little explorer all day every day, but fun.  We came back Wednesday evening after a day of hiking and swimming. Thursday we checked out the new playground at San Gabriel Park and took Rylee to the Brushy Creek Splash Pad.

 Rylee loved fireworks again this year, and wasn't at all bothered by the loud noise.

Hope everyone had a fun Independence Day and took some time to think about the sacrifices that have been made to protect and defend this country.

Galveston Beach

We took our new car on its first adventure! Stuart beach at Galveston Island.  Even though we were all suffering from head colds, we decided to go be miserable at the beach instead of being miserable at home all day.

Checking out the sand.

The sea gull was not really about to eat Rylee, even though it looks like it.

 Rylee "helped" Ryan build a sand face.

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Rylee absolutely loved the ocean! She ran gleefully into the waves with no fear. It was a little windy and cool outside, so she got cold fast and her teeth started chattering. We forced her to stay out of the water for awhile to warm up. Needless to say, she threw a big fit!

Mother's Day Weekend 2014

We had one incredible weekend! Should I start off with our favorite part? Meet the newest member of the Campbell family!

Our brand new, 2015 Kia Sorento!

We are so in love with our car!

Friday Rylee and I picked Ryan up from work and headed to Austin in our very old Honda Civic. To quote Ryan, it was the "worst drive ever." No cruise control, radio broke a long time ago, and the baby was screaming for a good chunk of the time. We had stopped THREE times within fifty miles of Houston! We eventually got to Austin with the car all in one piece and with a sleeping baby.

Saturday, we took that little Civic to trade in and spent ALL day car shopping. It came down between the Kia and a 2014 Dodge Journey. Finally, after a gizzlion hours of deliberation (for the record I had come to a decision, but Ryan was still deciding), we ditched the dodge dealership and got the Kia. We got a great price for it and have loved every second driving it!

We left Rylee-roo with her Campbell grandparents and headed out to Lago Vista(in the new ride) to see my sister play Queen Susan in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." It was really cute and she did great!

Cassie is the taller girl. How is she old enough to play Susan over Lucy?!

My brother and I caught in the act of taking selfies on his phone.

I love this girl! That's Dad in the background with the white beard
playing Father Christmas.

"What does the fox say?"

On our way home we stopped and got Torchy's. My favorites are the fried avocado and the Crossover(brisket taco).

Sunday saw us at my family's ward. Rylee was pretty tired, but we had to take a last minute Mother's Day picture!

My brother is the King of photobombs.

So we took another. I was trying to distract her with a cupcake and at least get her to smile.

She's looking at the camera at least.

We had a yummy dinner that Dad made. Salmon with parley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. He called it his "Salmon and Garfunkel." Ha...ha...ha. Rylee and I took some better Mommy/daughter pictures.

She loved eating cheerios with Abuelita. Best seat in the house apparently.

Cassie came and spent the night with us in Georgetown. We watched some Captain America in 3D.

Monday came too quickly and we had to head back to Houston. But it was exciting to pack up our new car(which has so much storage space) and drive it home!

Happy Mother's Day!