Christmas Season Activities

Lauren and Davis in front of the Trail of Lights entrance.


This is the "Zilker Tree"--it goes almost to the ground and stands VERY tall..you spin underneath it for a crazy time!











Davis, Madelyn, and Lauren on the Yule Log...

























This is our year to do holiday activities with the kids that we have not done in years. Last weekend, we drove over to Burnet, Tx to see their production of "Little Town of Bethlehem". This is an outside area designed to look like Bethlehem the night Jesus was born. They have camels, goats, Roman soldiers, people dressed up and acting just like the townspeople back then. "Shalom's" are heard as well as people talking about the coming of Christ.

The drive up is a little over an hour then we waited 1.5 hr. to tour the "town." It happened to be a chilly night, 50 outside, so that made the wait drag on a bit. Davis had never been and Lauren went when she was 3. So this was a good time to see it again!

Last night, we drove downtown Austin to see the annual "Trail of Lights" the city puts on in Zilker Park. This is over 42 companies that come into the park and decorate the trees and a certain "area" in a theme. We saw everything from Spongebob to Snoopy, to the 3 Wise Men.

Camp Tex-Lake

Camping with Troop #328!!!











(Back L-R) Taylor, Ashley, Cayla, Micaela, Kristin and Kara. Lauren in front

We spent the weekend at Lone Star Girl Scouts 500+ acre camp site. We went there last spring and had a blast and decided to go ahead and go earlier this year for the girls and mom's to really get to know each other earlier since we had a few new members.

It was a chilly weekend, but we made the most of it. We went to bed late, woke up early to an orientation hike. We learned to use compass', maps and how to direct ourselves while hiking. It
was very fun and the walk lasted about 1 hr.





In the afternoon, we went to learn how to shoot a bow/arrow in Archery. That was a blast and I think it was everyone's favorite part of the day!






















Lauren did great-she managed to hit the target all but a couple of times. She had very good aim!

When we finished there, we wenton another hike to look at Lake Travis because we were told we could not canoe due to the water being so low. Low was right.

Below you will see that the dry patch is actually where we canoed into the "cove" last May. Very sad how low our water level is in Austin.

















We rounded a great day out by having a campfire with smore's. Yum!

9th Birthday Girl fun...

Right: Davis, Kristofer, Haleigh, Caroline, and Tatum. Lauren in front. This is a special group of friends whom Lauren has known all of her life. Haleigh and Kristofer, friends from our Machado St., Caroline lived down the next street. Tatum and Lauren met when they were 3 in preschool and we live in their neighborhood!









Lauren went with 5 friends to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert tonight to celebrate her "9th" birthday . Each child got their own cheesecake, sadly 4 of the 6 all got original cheesecake with strawberries! But we all had a good time! Not sure why the "red eye" will have to look at my camera again...

Santa Saturday Fun!

Our 3 Elf's: Annabelle(L), Lauren(M), and Caroline (R)


Davis by the 37 1/2 St. Tree


Lauren by the 37 1/2 St. Tree!












Davis and Joe McDermott-signing his CD.





We had a blast on Saturday Morning with Joe McDermott, local Austin children's artist. Lauren and her friends were elf's this year. After attending this event since Lauren was 2, it was very surreal to see her as an "elf" and not a little girl dancing around on the floor.

Joe asked for the girls (the 3 elfs on the floor by him) to come up on stage---Annabelle, lauren and Caroline all were delighted! They danced 4 songs with Joe and the band and had a giggling time!

Getting ready for Christmas!

For the past year, I have worked with 75 wonderful women to help raise money for the City of Austin non-profit organizations through the Junior League of Austin's A Christmas Affair shopping extravaganza! This week all our hard work came to fruition and we opened our doors Wed PM with the Austin Entertain's Premier Gala.

Amy, Jenifer and I worked as team members for 4 parties, including Wed PM. We also hosted a Brunch on Thursday AM; a Girls Night Out on Thursday PM, and tomorrow night, we will have host a Dinner /Dance with local Austin Band, Gizzenslaw's. The three of us worked like crazy organizing the food, the drinks, and the entertainment.

I got myself sick on Tuesday with a sore throat and ended up sick in bed all day Friday with a migrane and stomach ache.

I'll be back with pictures Saturday AM of Breakfast with Santa--Lauren will be one of Santa's Elf with her girlfriend, Caroline.

Here is a picture of Jen (L) Me (M) and Amy (R). Jen is my friend in Austin who I have know the longest time! Amy, Jen and I all had our girls together and they will all be elfs tomorrow together!

Davis joined Karate about 2 months ago and really loves it! Here he is getting his orange strip belt!

Foster Dog #2

Right: This is our 1st Foster, Toby. He spent almost 3 months with us! He was very cute!












Hunter...loving the ball...


We are on our 2nd Foster dog for the Austin Gold Ribbon Rescue for Golden Retrievers. This big guy, all 90.5# is HUNTER. We took 2 days to name him and he seems to respond well to it. He has massive paws, loves to snuggle and has huge cheeks that he loves to have scratched!

We believe that since he is so awesome and healthy, he won't be with us very long!

Happy Halloween! What a great day to trick or treat! It was a chilly 64 outside, but no rain this year! We met up with our good friends Caroline and Samantha and trick or treated over in our old neighborhood. We got to see a lot of old friends and visited all of our neighbors from Machado! It was great fun!

Lauren was a rock star and Davis was Jack Sparrow from Pirates of Carribbean.

The second 2 photos are a few of my favorite Halloween decorated homes. I loved the pumpkins and the ghosts!


10/31/06: Today was also the 50th day of school, so the Kindergarten classes has a "50's Sock Hop".. this is davis and his friend Haley and Davis with the boys from his class being goofey!

I managed to "rehang" my photos on this wall and added a shelf. The pictures still "appear" crooked on film, but I think it's because some of them have the stand on the back which pushes them up from the wall. I also need to find my 8X10 of davis under 1 yr so I can change out the red frame to match the black.

I have not figured out what to put on the wall shelf--suggestions anyone?

The continuing Paint Saga...

Here are some new pictures of "before" and "after" of the kitchen...I added the Island Sand from the hall into the kitchen. I think it looks great with the cabinet color and makes the room warm and inviting. I also now LOVE it with the brown paint on the bottom that the previous HO had painted.

Baton Rouge-Wedding

Cousins from Conneticut: Brynn and Christian.


We spent a wonderful 3 day weekend in Baton Rouge, well actually a VERY small town called Springfield. One of my eldest cousins, Dan, got married at a gorgeous plantation. Here are a few picture's I thought I'd share:

The cousin's who had never met all had a blast together! The resort had a heated pool which was most fun!

I absolutely LOVED Dawn's choice of "fall" decorations. She did a fabulous job of incorporating all the elements that we love about fall, from the pumpkins, gourds, to the mums. The coloring was dynamic! Plus, they were married under a huge tree with moss just dripping from each branch! It was so southern!


The cake was delicious..it was a different filling per layer!

Inks Lake Continued

Can you believe we camped with this MANY kids under 13?

Saturday Afternoon I took the kids canoeing and Jason took them paddle boating. I was not the greatest navigator, thank goodness for some of the kids who paddled better then me!

Aren is with David and Ranger--this picture was so cute because Aren's hair is the exact color of Ranger and they are both so adorable!! :)

Inks Lake Camping

We had an extremely busy week as a family, but we managed to get away with our wonderful church "reaLife group" that we meet weekly with for almost 4 yrs. They are a wonderful group of families and Nicole planned a great weekend campout at Inks Lake in Highland Lakes Area.













We arrived about 4:30p to 4 "expert" tent installers who had our tent up in about 10 min! We were amazed and totally excited as neither David or I can pitch a tent! We had smores, a night walk, countless rounds of "spoons", and good laughs! Needless to say--the Shimer's did not get much sleep in a tent, on air mattress' with a DOG and an almost 9 yr old sharing your single mattress!



Isn't this view amazing! Thanks to Jason-who arrived at 12p, he scoped this great site out next to the water with plenty of room for the 17 children to run!



Yep! It's up....Ranger was not sure what to make of it!




Saturday AM, we woke to David, Nicole and Jason preparing our breakfast of scrambled eggs/sausage over a gas stove! How cool-and YUMMY! Then we went for an awesome hike up some big rocks...

Painting again...

Okay---Thanks to a quick stop in New Braunfels on our way to the zoo Monday-I found the color I LOVED for the hall walls, and potentially the family room (shh..don't tell david!) Thanks DAWN!

It's called Island Sand-and it has a rich, almost pumpkin coloring to it, but yet when it dries on your body-it's khaki! Not sure why I hung my pictures crooked, chaulk it up to 6am!

ZOO FUN!

We spent our "no school-Columbus Day" holiday at the San Antonio Zoo. We went with Lauren's good friend, Kristofer and met up with Aunt Erin, Dylan/Wyatt. A good time was had by all....





I think this is our 2nd photo in this exact position with the lions and with Kris..I'll have to look for the other photo and post it just to see the changes in height/teeth!






Just "quackin' around" in the petting zoo! Lauren was into "goofy" faces today!

Petting the goat...it was cool mom! And Wyatt..Boy--he hung like a champion and did not cry or complain once-loved looking at the trees!