Our Staycation

With the recession in full effect and a new addition to the family that is currently not ready for some long distance travel, the Vacek's ventured out for their usual May vacation. Rather than those far away places like Italy, Great Britain, France or Spain, Kristen, Emmy and I packed up the car and headed out into the throws of the state of Texas. Kristen and I had thought long and hard about what we would like to do (on a budget) and figured on a wonderful Texas landmark, the Blue Bell ice cream factory. Blue Bell is not open during the weekend so it took taking a day off work to get to see the excitement of making ice cream.

Once we arrived in Brenham, hungry, we were greeted by blocked streets and hordes of Brenhamites swarming downtown. We had just so happened upon the town during Maifest, a little known German festival that envelops the entire town. Nothing says German heritage like hip hop music blaring from a low rider as girls in booty shorts throw candy to the olds and small children lining the street. Yes...Maifest has apparently changed over the years...

Just in case we forget where we were, and thought we had traveled to Europe...

After enjoying the Maifest parade, Kristen, Emmy and I bolted for an early lunch at a local restaurant known as Volare in downtown Brenham. Thanks for the suggestion Aunt SuSu. Nto only was the food good, but it was cheap! Real cheap! An appetizer, two entree and two drinks at an Italian restaurant for $25. Where have you been all my life Brenham!? Kristen and I actually began to joke that this day might actually make a great episode of Rachel Ray's $40 a day. The lunch was only the beginning of the fun. We left Volare and headed back to the car for a quick trip to the factory. I will let the pictures do all of the talking. Funny thing, you cannot take pictures on the tour itself. Trade secrets? Illegal workers? Nope. I am guessing they don't want all the flashing to bother the executives since you walk by their offices as they talk on the phone, type on the computer, etc. I bet its fun to have the diverse population of Texas roaming outside your door every day at work. Something else I thought was funny. On the your, you walk past the break room/dining area for the workers and their are large windows so you can look in on the employees relaxing. The disappointing thing was that none of them were eating ice cream. I for one felt that all employees eating in front of the large windows for the tour groups to see should always have to be eating ice cream. I mean, come on...Kristen told me I was acting immature...and that Blue Bell was not Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory...and that everyone that worked their did not always eat ice cream at every meal. While reasonable, I felt it destroyed some of the magic of the place.

Notice how the hats fit normal heads (Kristen)

The cutest person ever to wear a paper hat at Blue Bell

I am definitely the luckiest man on Earth...

It was pretty hot outside so Emmy could not touch/eat Bell the cow as her bronze skin had reached the boling point...

After enjoying our complimentary ice cream, which Emmy slept through, we headed to downtown Brenham in search of some shopping. After five minutes of "shopping" we got back into the Tahoe and headed to a nearby winery. Kristen and I have been to wineries before in France, Spain, Italy, California and here in the great state of Texas, but nothing prepared us for what we pulled up to that Friday afternoon. Again, the pictures will help better explain our surprise and help you understand our laughter.

Just in case you are confused, on the left, the "winery"...on the right, the home of the people that run the winery...

We asked the man that tended the winery if Emmy was the only baby ever to enjoy a wine tasting...he was nice enough to tell us no...whether or not that is true is another question...

Just because Emmy is 5 months old doesn't mean she should not have a beverage...

Although small and out in the middle of nowhere, we left Windy Winery outside Brenham with two bottles of a great little wine known as Saucy Red. Actually, for the price, it was terriffic. The man at the winery even gave Kristen her glass, tasting and a truffle for free. Again, cheap entertainment on the staycation. Two glasses of wine, two tasting, one truffle and two bottles of wine for the ridiculous total of $36. This is where I started to tell Kristen that we may never leave Texas again on vacation. We were having a great time, with Emmy, for basically nothing. Times...they sure have changed...Windy Winery was so much fun we decided to give another winery a try. Feeling nostalgic, Kristen and I made the short trip to College Station and Messina Hof. I had only been to Messina Hof once before. Kristen took me while we were still in school for my birthday...a long, long time ago...Another winery, another tasting and some great conversation with an older couple from Idaho that had come to Texas for a bike rally in Kerrville the next day. They had made their way to the Bush Library on campus and loved the area. Fun couple...huge, huge Republicans...held back nothing about how they felt about the current political regime...wonderful...Kristen thought it was funny that they looked nothing like bikers. "Bikers are supposed to look like your superintendent Richard" she says. These people looked more like my grandparents, not my superintendent...

Me and my baby girl

The "PeePaw" face

After enjoying some more wine and visiting Post Oak mall in search of Emmy a new A&M shirt, we made our final stop of the day at a restaurant that holds a special place in mine and Kristen's heart, Cafe Excel. For those of you that don't know, I took Kristen here on our first date and on the night I asked her to be my wife. And now...we are sharing that magic with the most important part of our life, our baby girl. It truly was a whirlwind day filled with many memorable moments. It will be a day that we will not soon forget and a vacation that we could share with our family's newest addition. Maybe next year we will venture a little further. Until then...

The happy family at the end of a long day...Don't tell anyone that Kristen is only minutes away from throwing a very poopy diaper into some poor college kids personal trash can at their apartment on NorthGate...awwwwww memories...

Thursday Visitors

Some fun visitors came over on Thursday to visit Emmy. First Mom's good friend from high school Leah came over with two of her beautiful girls Carys and Carson.(Clark stayed home since this was a girl's party.) Betsy and Caroline also came over and we had a lunch date. I got a little cranky because I don't quite understand why I can't crawl over and join the tea party all the other little girls were having. Everyone else got to crawl around while the mom's were eating lunch and I got stuck in a bumbo on the kitchen table.

Caroline, Carys, Emmy, and Carson

(We almost gave Emmy an honorary C name for the day just so she'd fit in)

Then we got a suprise visit from Great Grandparents Maw Maw and Paw Paw and Great Aunt Jane. They came all the way from Corpus to visit.

Rolling Right Along... Emmy Bear is 5 months old!

"I've been asking nicely when I was going to get some of my birthday cupcakes...well I finally decided to just get them...mmmmmmmmmm...icing!"

Captions by Blake

My first Stros baseball game. Daddy syas its a big part of my development. Hey...Where's Daddy? Remember the flooding rains in Houston? Daddy is parking the car in them. What a good Daddy?

There is no doubt I am part Sansom. The chin, the cheeks...look to my left...

Daddy told me that grown men dressed up like animals at a baseball game are sad...very sad...and don't normally have any Mommy's in their life.

My cousin Brandon is getting a little "too cool" for pictures. The weirdest thing is Daddy was more into Transformers than all the little boys...Optimus Prime? How old ARE you Daddy?

My first easter. My family is beautiful. They have to be. Look at me.

I don't quite understand the concept of candy inside the eggs. Wait, there is no candy inside these eggs. Maybe if they were filled with bland runny peas. Then I might try to open them. UMMMM...bland runny peas...

I love my Mommy. Daddy does to...he tells me all the time...

What is Pops doing? The Old McDonald farm employees are going to ban him from all further events at the park for these indiscretions...

Bogey? You've changed.

What the (beep) is that?

Mommy. I am 4.5 months old. This is a pig. Have you been watching the news?

Veggie Tales

It's been a while since we've posted. The days just keep going faster and faster as I countdown to going back to work. There's only two more weeks left, so I'm trying to make the most of it. That's involved a lot of long lunches sitting outside with Betsy and Caroline, playdates with Ann and Benjamin, several happy hours, hours of roaming around the mall dressed in cute outfits, and many naps in my lap =) It's not conducive to losing weight, getting a set sleeping schedule, or a clean house, but it sure is fun!

The String Bean was in the 10-20th percentile in weight three weeks ago when we took her to the doctor at 4 months,weighing in at around 11 pounds. Three weeks later, she is LOVING her bottles, chugging 7 ounces and then screaming for more. She's got the formula chunk and is now weighing in at almost 15 pounds. After we had such success with carrots, we plowed through the other veggies. These are my favorite pics, so I had to share our food journey with everyone. You can see she's pretty excited about it now and can't wait to "help me" feed her by grabbing the food and pretty much gagging herself! We will be eating lots of green beans and carrots, but pretty much if you put it in front of her, she's eating it! She wants to stick her fingers, toes, arm, bib, spoon, AND food in there all at the same time.

Rice Cereal.. yep we waited a week to try anything else....(you can see how much she's chunked in a few weeks)

Oatmeal is just eh... but it's SUPER fun to rub all over your face.

More Carrot Fun (After this we started dining a la nude)

Check out the carnage on the Bumbo... Sweet potatoes (Round II)
There were too many good pea pics to pick just one.

Major Green Bean Dribble

And our closing thought: Green bean poops look amazing similar to green beans... On to fruit!

Today's Menu... Carrots and Toes

We tried solid foods for the first time two weeks ago. Rice cereal was first, which smells a little like wallpaper glue. I could barely stand putting it in her mouth, and she pretty much felt the same way. Poor thing looks like she's saying "Help me please..." (The video is kind of long but full of funny awful faces. )

Video Coming....

After three days of this face.....

I thought, maybe she's just an advanced baby and prefers fine veggies over wallpaper glue, so we decided to give sweet potatoes a try. That fared just about as well, so we put up the baby spoons, which I have been wanting to use for so long (they're so cute!), and gave it another week.

For lunch today we were having carrots so we decided to let Emmy try some. She liked it! She even helped me put the spoon in her mouth, which meant there were carrots just about everywhere!

Then for desert she decided she needed to have some toes. This is her new favorite snack. She prefers the sockless variety and will eventually pull off her socks to get to the raw stuff.

As you can see, she's getting a little bit chunkier! She's even got a few rolls there in her tummy!

Easter Pics!

It's taken a while to get the proofs back from Emmy's 4 month photo/Easter shoot but here they finally are! We drove all the way to Kingwood to take pictures with real live Easter chicks and ducks and then ended not not ordering any of them (of course), but she sure was cute in her Easter dress!! We managed to capture her in her new favorite pose. She discovered her feet and loves to eat her toes.

Remember Us?

Ever since Emmy was born, we haven't had too much time for the lost members of the Vacek fam, Bogey and Wat. Bogey's had that "Goodbye Cruel World" look on his face for about four months now.

Since the boys have spent the last few months contemplating the best way to jump off the bench in the backyard, dig under the fence and run away, or how to break into the medicine cabinet to overdose on Heartguard, we decided to treat them to a doggie Spa Day. Ok....they needed their shots, they hadn't had a bath in a LONG time, and their nails were reaching lethal status. They look so cute in their Tiffany blue polka dot bandanas (our vet is apparently very high class now) I had to give them their five minutes of fame on the blog. As you can see, Watson still hasn't forgiven us. I can't wait till Emmy's old enough to play with them! Can we say BASSET RIDES!!!!!!

It's Tax Day!

Happy Tax Day everyone! (and Day of Freedom for Boppa the CPA) We should add a "Not much of a..." to the beginning of Emmy's onsie. Who has a kid and still owes? Oh well, at least we tried ; ) Think if we sent in a picture they might give us a cuteness exemption?

Its a Tea Party!

So, Emmy cannot quite pick things up with her hands but she is working on "raking" everything towards her. When you add this skill with a Bumbo, tray and a small plastic tea set you get a very funny surprise. Evidence that my daughter may not like tea parties...

Rolling Right Along...Emmy is 4 Months Old!

"Mom? Dad? What happen to those cupcakes in all of my monthly birthday pictures? Oh really...someone owes me big time when I can finally stick them in my mouth!"

Bluebonnets!

This picture pretty much sums up our bluebonnet picture taking experience today...

What we learned today is that when you can't sit up, it's damn near impossible to take pictures in bluebonnets. Add it to my lists of things that probably aren't so smart to do with a three month old. It's a LONG list (and I have pictures of all of them). We lugged our random chairs up to Brenham to take pics.

It was kind of hot, the sun was in thier eyes, and bluebonnets are itchy (but apparently tase pretty good). That adds up to lots of screaming fun in the sun but we got a few cute ones!

The Week in Pictures

I swear I got bigger. This chair is just really big.

This monkey won't quit looking at me. I think he must think we're related.

I'm officially rolling over now and tummy time isn't SO bad anymore. Now will I let my parents catch me rolling over on video? Hell no!

My social schedule is quite full. I have to see all my friends. I had dinner with my best friend Caroline and my Godparents Aunt Betsy and Uncle Collin. My panties were hanging out a little bit and you can see my newly acquired Budah Belly. I also refused to wear my shoes and drooled all the way down the front of my shirt, so I was looking overall hill-billy. Dad said I was never allowed to wear this outfit again. Hooray! Something actually got too small.

I also had dinner with my new friend Brayden and his parents Shannon and Danny. It was Daddy-Baby match day but Blake's pink shirt and polka dot pants were dirty =) This is me telling him hi. Mommy told me afterward that even though I thought Brayden was very cute it's not very lady like to show him my panties and belly on the first date.

I went on a Girl's Day shopping trip with Aunt RaRa and Gigi in all the boutique stores in Kingwood. I just chilled while they brought me clothes to approve and sang and danced for me. Shopping is fun when someone holds or entertains you the entire time.

Mom bought me some sunglasses so I could be "Hollywood" but forgot about the gigantic head I was born with. Pops said I look like Elton John....

And finally, I saw the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny needs to call Mom to fix their picture taking process because it took over an hour to wait in the seven person line to see the radioactive looking bunny. I decided not to cry and scream, not be happy just not scream, even though every single kid in front of me did. Then their parents starting crying when they found out the bunny was charging them almost 20 bucks for one 5x7....He also stuck a oscillating fan in his lap after every kid.... nothing like staying in character...