Harry Potter

So when the girls came home, we ate..Thomas doing the grilling again..he is so good at it, the girls laying the table etc, and then Allan and I took the older boys off to see Harry Potter as well, they did not sit with us, but we all met up at the end and had an enjoyable evening.

When we came out of the cinema it was gone 10pm and the temperature was 97F..this iss till very novel to all of our house guests.

The Mall

So the girls went off to The Mall to check it out...I kept their purses..tomorrow is the day they go back with money...

they also went to the cinema at The Mall and saw Harry Potter, so their afternoon was packed with shops, popcorn and Abercrombie and Fitch








This is outside the Mall, the beauty of the mall is it in all inside, AC is on and you can forget the temperature outside is sooooo hot.

















Then because they are girls I suppose they tried on glasses, posed and generally took weird photo's, but here is a selection for you.

Kayaking and the Zilker Zepher

So this morning we all went kayaking..well Thomas and Jack went in a canoe due to having Tex witht hem for the first time.

I think Tex did well for her first time, jumping in, swimming between kayaks and canoe...she had fun...we all kept expecting to tip us out into the lake .

we have four kayaks and the canoe so made quiet a splash on the lake.

Cara then did a run home with the older boys and Tex and I took Alice , Ellie and the younger boys on the small train that runs around Zilker park.

These pictures are from that trip, I will get some of them on the lake..to day was not the day.

I bought them cotton candy to eat and Alice and I had some chocolate and vanilla twist ice cream as well.

Alice and Ellie are here!!! Yippee

So here they come, a bad picture I kn ow, but you have to believe me when i say how relieved I was to see them...They took AGES to come through. I was starting to worry and pretending to be Ok with the parental text messaging that was going on..when asked what had taken so long...well queues...not only Britain that queues obviously !!!!


we were waving at each other as soon as I saw them from a distance and then they were running, but the doors closed, so I think they had to stop there trolley ( or carts) pretty quickly.

Then it was time for hugs and relief on my part...the thought of rescuing one of them from customs was not pleasant..and starting to be a real worry for me..and how to phrase it for texting to UK!!!

On the way from the airport, they took loads of photos, so i will put some of them on the blog tomorrow...excited is an under statement...

they have already had their first 'Whataburger' experience.

Thomas..The best griller in Texas

So Thomas enjoys cooking and we have used this fact shamelessly for the last few weeks by asking him to grill for us...Allan most probably is paying him just so he does not have too....and that is saying something.....

He is enjoying the whole grilling part not sure he is enjoying the sheer heat out side when he is trying to actually grill...seriously hot

The steak house

so we took them all out to a steak house owned by Willie Nelson. the teenage boys both had a 18oz T bone steak..jack of course a bot disappointed that we insisted he had vegetables as well!!! Alex had a baby rack of ribs and Ben had chicken tenders and then proceeded to eat my medallions of steak, I have carnivores for children.

alex and ben both ahd the camera for ages, so I have a lot of strange photos on it, especially the waitress, as Alex decided he liked her.







You can see our peanut cans on the table, you can eat the peanuts and put the shells on the floor...A and B like that idea!!!













I played with the camera and look what i found I could do!!!

The teenager toobing!!!

This is Cara, she was driving the boys and Issie to the tubing down the river!!



Isabella... were is your hat!!!!!



Ahh a hat...I promise they all went with them...very relaxed pose.


Cara enjoying the river getting the kids somewhere....



Thomas with his coosie!



Jack going with the flow


Feet galore, I wonder how much coordinating it took with the river flow to hold that pose for the camera!?

Issie



Thomas again with the cooler tube, we paid for them to have a tube specially for the cooler so they could take food and soda's down the Guadalupe River. Cara had the pleasure of being in charge of the cooler, they found black string half way down and then tied it to Cara's tube. the route was over 3 hours long, next time they will go for the 5 hour route!!! more peace and quiet in the house.