God Bless America

Here's a quick update, and then a lot of pictures from Texas. As mentioned in the last post, I came home on Tuesday while Rachel and Evelyn stayed in Houston. I spent my time working with Habitat for Humanity, tying up loose ends with my research, and working my job at the medical school. I also studied a lot for boards (which sort of freak me out).

Meanwhile, Rachel was having fun with Deanna and Dave and their kids. The highlight of the week for her was the Nature Museum, where they had all sorts of exhibits, a cool movie about the Galapagos Islands, and a "butterfly room" where there are thousands of butterflies that fly all around and land on you and stuff. It sounds pretty neat. She also went swimming a lot and watched movies in their theatre room which features a large projector screen and surround sound.

Rachel came home on Friday (the 4th of July), and after such a long flight was a little worn out (and Evelyn was really worn out) so we went home and had a relaxing night. On Saturday we celebrated Independence day. In the afternoon we went to the beach at Lake Erie and had grilled hamburgers, watermelon, and apple pie. Then we went to Crocker Park and watched a concert from the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and watched a firework show afterwords.

About the fireworks...The show was awesome. The fireworks were lower and closer than I have ever experienced- so close that some people got hit by the sparks. It was pretty exciting to say the least. Also, Evelyn loved it. We were a bit apprehensive to see how she would react, but she handled it great! She smiled and laughed through the entire show and was mesmerized by all of the lights in the sky. After the show, all the people around us mentioned how cute she was, some even mentioning that they had more fun watching Evelyn than the fireworks. The only sad thing about the entire thing was that we forgot to bring our camera.

Anyway, here are a lot of pictures...

Here we are getting ready for Eva's first swimming experience. The top picture is a classic Evelyn pose. She loves to have her hands clasped in front of her with an innocent expression on her face. She is proudly modeling the swimming suit from Grandma Hazard (Thanks Grandma)!

Evelyn didn't show much reaction to the water in the beginning, but as time went on she became more interested and really enjoyed kicking her feet.

Evelyn played hard and soon became tired. She almost fell asleep in the floaty, and she cuddled up in the soft warm towel.

As long as we were in Texas, we had to do something "cow-boyish." Here's me and Evelyn riding a bronze donkey (this is one of Rachel's favorite pictures).

Here is the Nature Center where Rachel went. The top picture is in the butterfly room, and the bottom one is Ashton and Savanna by a rock formation (God is a great artist, isn't he?)

Evelyn is becoming mobile. This video was shot a few weeks ago. Now she is all over the place. It is not uncommon to come into a room where we left her on the floor to find her hiding under a table, or stuck in a corner, or even in an entirely different room. It's funny to watch her move, because she doesn't use her arms at all. They sort of just hang there and she scoots along on her face using her legs to push.

Here's a cute video of Evelyn being happy. She was giggling just before the video was taken, but she became a little camera shy and resorted to happy shrieking (like a bird) instead.