Merry Christmas (Christmas Day version)

For Christmas we had a delicious meal of Caesar salad, rice pudding and steak. Mmm.

Addilyn didn't care much for the rice pudding. This is probably the only bite she tried.

Erin made some DELICIOUS french silk pie for desert.

Afterwards we took this picture. Then we opened presents. More on that in a later blog.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas

Here's a little taste of the true meaning of Christmas from arguably the worst movie ever made.

Snow in Houston

Houston is a little weird. For one, Christmas is supposed to be 75 degrees and rainy. Yuck. Snow is once-every-four-years rare. It snowed the other day and we really enjoyed it, but it didn't really change our evening. The snow started around 7pm one night. We watched it for a while and then went to bed. The next morning there were snowmen everywhere and I'm pretty sure every kid in the city was up until midnight playing in the snow in the dark. Never even occurred to us that it likely wouldn't happen again for years. A few nights later we went to look at Christmas lights. Living in the fourth largest city in the US makes this a daunting task. A website listed some of the more impressive displays and we chose a neighborhood that was a little far, but supposedly worth a drive. Once we got to the area we noticed that traffic was backed up and there were many police lights. It turns out that when you look at Christmas lights in the city you must park your car and walk through the neighborhoods. Since Addilyn was already asleep we drove home. Weird.


Here are a couple of videos to slake your Addilyn thirst. The first an attempt of a somersault. The second is one of her new favorite games. Riding on Daddy.







Merry Christmas to all of you and if you have snow and don't enjoy it I'll find that to be quite offensive.

Oh Christmas Tree

We went to get our Christmas tree this past Saturday. It was a little different trip than last year in Maryville (no sleet, no coats). In fact, it was whole new experience to be driving along with a tree strapped to your roof and the A/C on. Again I say, Texas is weird.

Nonetheless, we got our tree and spent Saturday evening decorating it. Addilyn was a happy helper throughout the process.

Here she's helping Daddy arrange the lights.


And here she is participating in her first assembly line. Tyler would get out the ornaments and attach the hangers, then Addilyn would bring them to me to put on the tree. She seemed to enjoy her role immensely.


So here is the finished product.

Little Drummer Girl

Thanksgivingness

Hello everyone. I've decided to change things up a bit in this post. Instead of writing the usual much-too-long entry detailing all of our adventures up north over the last week and a half (as we have for every major vacation or holiday since the inception of this blog), I will retell this near fortnight (again, much too verbosely) in reverse order. It's a brilliant idea that will hopefully breathe life into the lackluster blog (ignore the fact that the pictures were uploaded in reverse order and I'm too lazy to reorganize them; this is really a breakthrough idea!!).

So let's get started! Here I am at the very end of our 10 day trip. As you can tell, I look relatively happy and am thoroughly enjoying my car ride due to a new companion in the form of Daddy's old monkey friend. This monkey even comes with it's own monkey puppet. It's like two toys in one!

The last three days of our trip were spent at G & G Johnson's house. Here Daddy is helping Grandpa set up the Christmas tree on Saturday. I really enjoyed looking at the tree. Although I'm still a little confused as to why I keep getting yelled at for trying to grab the balls off of it. I thought balls were for throwing and kicking, not looking at.

I really enjoyed playing with G & G Johnson and Aunt Kendall. Here I am playing on the floor with Grandpa J.

On Friday we had Thanksgiving dinner number two for our family (number one for the rest of the Johnson clan). My favorite part: the stuffing!

On Thursday we celebrated with the Butts' at Thanksgiving dinner number 1. We actually got to spend Monday evening through Thursday lunch with them in Kearney. This picture is after the meal. I look happy and not about to go pass out so I figure the meal was a success.

Thanksgiving meal numero uno was a bit different than your typical Thanksgiving feast. It involved steak and baked potatoes (not to mention cheesy green beans). It was satisfying and delicious nonetheless.

So this is Belle, G & G Butts' basset hound. I didn't know what to think of her at first (because, let's be honest, she's bigger than me and could easily eat me in just a couple of bites), but after a few days I got fairly comfortable with her. In fact, at one point I even tried to ride her (much to Daddy's delight).

So we discovered this trip that I don't really enjoy sleeping away from home (especially since the first 4 nights of our trip were in different houses). I guess it's all the changes, but I really put up a fuss when Mommy and Daddy put me to bed or down for a nap. With all of that fighting and screaming, I wore out pretty quickly which resulted in some interesting sleeping positions. When Daddy found me napping as pictured below, he said that it looked like I was dead.

So before we got to G & G Butts' house, we went through Great G & G Diamonds for a day, Manhattan (which included stops at the K-State game, Java, and the Floersch's house), and a very quick stop at G & G Johnson's (we got there near midnight and left around 10 the next morning).

That brings us back to Seabrook before our trip. Other than a lot of packing and a crazy 18-hour work day for Daddy, the days leading up to our trip were fairly uneventful. I mostly played and laid around as illustrated in the picture below. I thought the little red wagon was sufficiently comfortable for my pretend nap, but Mommy and Daddy marvelled at my ability to enjoy a cold, metal bed. I don't see what the issue is really. Maybe Mommy and Daddy are just getting too old to enjoy sleeping wherever they please. Too bad; it's pretty fun.

As it is well past my bedtime, I will say, "Night, night." Maybe later this week I can post some of the videos taken on our journey through the plains.

Until then,

Addilyn Elise

Jumping Around

Hello all. I've been quite busy over the last week or so. I'm learning all sorts of things and exploring my world in lots of ways. I'm getting more and more independent and adventureous (as the videos at the end of this blog display).

Here is a picture of my newest hairstyle. Mommy has been tying my hair back so I can eat my yogurt without getting it all over in my hair. I think I look pretty cute like this. Don't you agree?

Here is a picture of me after my bath in my super cool penguin towel.

And here I am in my pajamas. I was given these last Valentine's Day and I just got big enough to wear them. Mommy and Daddy said that they make me look so grown up. I just think they are soft and comfy (and they have some pretty buttons all down the front which I love).

I would say I'm a happy person. Unlike Mommy and Daddy I generally wake up pretty happy. Lately when I wake up, I get really excited and greet whoever comes to get me rather exuberantly.



This is a video of me as I tried my version of cliffjumping this evening. I climbed up here myself and tested Daddy's reflexes. (This was my fourth or fifth trip so Daddy is a bit more relaxed than the first time around)



Until next time,
Addilyn Elise

Addilyn reads a book

"Now baby, this book is called Pajama Time, by Sandra Boynton"

"I CAN'T TURN THE PAGE WITH YOU SITTING THERE!"

"As I was saying, We can all pajamy in whatever we've got"

"The end, wasn't that a good book?"

"I think I'll have a bath now."

Squirmy worm

Hello everyone. Meet Johnson baby #2.

Happy Halloween!!

In case you're bored

Bisquikilicious

Umm....do you still check this?

Well, I'm back. I have to apologise for the absence. I've been fussy.

In the past two or so weeks a lot has happened. Aunt Kendall and Uncle Joel came with Oliver last weekend. We had so much fun that nobody on this side took any pictures. I'm sure the Smiths have some on their blog (see list on right). While they were here Mommy and Daddy took advantage of the free baby sitting (again) and went to the K-State vs. Texas A&M game in College Station with Daddy's friend Don.

As you can see from the picture K-State won in a overall good looking game until the end of the fourth quarter where A&M was able to score two touchdown in about two minutes of play.

This week they play Colorado in Boulder, check it out on FSN at 6PM.

I won't be watching the game as I would like because Daddy and I will be flying to Kansas City tomorrow. Last year Daddy decided on a whim to compete in Choon Lee's Tae Kwon Do tournament in KC. He happened to win (barely) and was dubbed Light Weight Grand Champion and now he wants to defend his title. I get to come along and see Auntie Courtney and even Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. If anyone else wants to show up and say hi we'll be at Kansas City Community College - all day.

Back to last weekend. While the Smiths were visiting we went to IKEA. When I woke up the next morning this was waiting for me.




I like it a lot. Ollie and I had fun with it. I think Mommy has some plans for it. Check back in a while.

Oh and guess what. BUBBLES are awesome.

Tonight Daddy made steak on our $10 charcoal grill. It was good. I even got my own piece.

Well I have to go sleep, I have a busy day tomorrow. My first plane ride!

I leave you with these thoughts:

Does using the word pedantic make you pedantic?

Does using the word Sesquipedalian make you one?

NI-NI,

Addilyn Elise

Video games with Daddy

Addilyn plays video games (actually just Mario Kart) with her Daddy. The activity seems equally pleasing to both parties.

Our last couple of weeks and such

Hello all. I know it has been quite some time since we actually updated you all so we will now take the opportunity to do so. If you are really out of the loop (and apparently have no access to TV or internet), you might have missed that Galveston and Houston got hit by Hurricane Ike nearly 2 weeks ago. Tyler watched this storm diligently from the time it was clear out in the Atlantic (especially since we recently evacuated for Gustav) so we were pretty on top of things. So after Tyler and I heard that Ike could bring with him a 15 to 20-foot storm surge to our area, we packed up our most prized possessions and got out of Dodge. We left two nights before Ike actually hit (and at 11:00 pm) so we missed all of the bad traffic on our trip to the Johnson's. For the next week and a half, we enjoyed much time with family and friends as we watched the storm and the aftermath and waited for the power to be restored to our apartment (luckily there was no major damage to our apartment). Here are some pictures we took of Addilyn (because we all know that's really why you're reading) during the trip.

Here Addilyn is enjoying a speech by Barack Obama in a chair that she latched on to (and drug all over the house).

Addilyn has finally gotten over her inability to sleep in our van. Hooray!!
She spent a lot of time hanging out with Daddy. Here Tyler and Addilyn were cuddling on the couch and "napping."
Addilyn looks super cute playing with the toys at Grandma & Grandpa's house (also if you look closely you'll notice that her stitches/scar are healing quite nicely).
This is actually a picture from after we got back to Seabrook. We finally received a package of books Grandma B sent that included this lovely polar bear (which Addilyn hugged like crazy then promptly fell asleep on).
We got back to the Seabrook area on Sunday afternoon and endured 2 sticky, miserable days before our power was turned back on. We had been told it might not be turned on until Thursday or later so we were very pleased to receive early relief from the heat and humidity. Other than getting the stink out of our refrigerator (we've tried/are trying just about everything), our lives have pretty much returned to normal. It will take quite a bit longer for others in our area.

Here is a couple of satellite images of the area we live in. The orange circle indicates our apartment. The red line shows where we were driving in the first video. The blue line is the second video. The green box shows a marina near us, which is where a bunch of our pictures are taken.

New church promotion

As you may or may not know the church we have been frequenting was starting by a core group of people out of southern California. The pastor and most of the worship team as well as a couple of other core people all grew up in So-Cal. The church is nearing its 1/2 year anniversary and is planning a big shindig for the day. They've been promoting it in various ways and their latest is this music video. This is a pretty good representation of the praise and worship time at our church. Tell us what you think about it and if there are things about it you would change to make it a more effective outreach. We gladly accept any "constructive" criticism.

Thanks,

Tyler

Ah politics

Gustav

We live right around the middle of the red circle. Earlier today we were on the edge of the projection cone. This projection is from 8/28 at 10pm.

IT'S COMING!


So here is how a couple of Kansans prepare for a hurricane in our second story apartment.
First put thing up high when you don't want them to get wet (20'+ storm surges are possible)
Second, hide bicycles in the bathroom.
Thirdly, put heavy things in front of windows when convenient.
If heavy things aren't readily available a mattress will do.
We are heading north this weekend. K-State vs. North Texas! Whoo Hoo!
OH yeah and family and such. So if a huge hurricane comes we will be safe. Probably. And as you can see our stuff will be safe too, probably.

AMMENDMENT 1: 8/29 6:30 am

Ahhhhh,
it is projected to get closer than it previously had been projected to get.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH Blub blub blub

A veritable Blockbuster of videos

Addilyn enjoying spaghetti

Listen carefully, those are beastly frogs that keep Erin awake at night

(Dad) Can your van do this?

Hello there!

Hello sports fans. We welcome you back to all things Johnson (Houston division). When last we left you, we had just made an announcement about an addition to our Johnson clan. Without much further ado we present to you Homer. Isn't he lovely? I would tell you about all his wonderfulness but I think Tyler might feel kind of gypped if he didn't to expound about the coolness of this new vehicle to anyone willing to listen. (If you are willing to listen and have yet to get the complete rundown of the features of our new Honda friend, please call (281) 636-0022. Tyler will be standing by.)
This being our first full weekend with Homer, we decided it would be a good time to head out for an adventure. With wide open roads as our goal, we settled on a journey around the bay as our task. First stop on this "odyssey" of sorts (aside from Quiznos of course) was the ferry that takes you from Galveston to the Bolivar Peninsula. Since neither Addilyn nor I (Erin) had ever been on a ferry before, all parties were duly excited for this journey into the unknown. This first picture is of our wait to board the ferry. If you look closely you can see two ferries docked (although I'm not sure if they were loading or unloading at this time).

Here is Addilyn enjoying her much improved view as we waited for a ferry. Addilyn has actually so enjoyed the view that she has yet to fall asleep in the Odyssey (even when we are driving at night).
This is the view from the observation deck of the ferry. Ooo look, there's Homer!
And we are leaving the shore at last. The ferry on the whole was a pretty fun experience. While it probably took 20 minutes to get from point to point, we were able to see many ships, some dolphins and what appeared to be the ruins of an old shipwreck which were all pretty cool. After getting off the ferry we took a long, peaceful drive up the coast of the Bolivar Peninsula. The peninsula was as desolate and unpopulated as any section of rural Kansas we've seen (which was a wonderful break from the constant city we've experienced for the last 3 and a half months).

Here's another purchase we've made recently. Addilyn's feet have finally started growing and she was in need of some bigger shoes (especially since our favorite pair are starting to get holes in the toes).

Here's a closeup view of the new shoes. They are her first lace-up shoes and she's pretty excited about them.

And finally, we leave you with a picture of Addilyn showing off her Lego flowers (which she had stuck on her fingers and was waving around.)