We were in Houston for the wedding of John’s cousin, Shane to his long time (what is it with these Sampson men?) girlfriend Tina. Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, given by Shane’s parents at a country club. The night was FULL of speeches, some funny and some really touching.

Here is John and I. I wanted a picture of our outfits, but this is all we get.

Mom and Dad were tearing it up.
Grandma and Butch
I think they might kiss… no, seriously.
Shane seems to have had enough embarrassment.
Baby Blake got special privileges to come to the party. Isn’t he sweet?!
And of course, with this family, all events end by going to the bar. This looks about right.

Never mind the fact that he is 19 months and hasn’t been in the pool yet. Hee hee. Its just not convenient out here. Putting that aside he seemed to really like it. I took him in and he was great getting in. He kept wanting to be let go. Not sure he grasped the concept that he would then sink. Still we had a lot of fun.

Here he is taking the plunge.

Rhys decided to hang back on the side of the pool. His intense swimming (actually the weren’t swimming but survival) classes made him a bit hesitant to get in. He went in for a minute but then wanted back out. (He gets back in the next day)

Two more shots of Myles in the pool with family and having a good time.

So we’ve just come off of having visitors for a whole month. The first week my sisters Kelly and Katie were here with Kelly’s daughter Rylee. We had a great time while they were here. We went to see a Giant’s game. We took the kids strawberry picking. We went up to Sausalito and out to a beach. And just had a great time hanging out. Dropping them at the airport was sad. I didn’t have too much time to cry about it though; after I dropped them off at Departing flights, I looped around the airport to Arriving flights to pick up John’s Mom and Dad. They were here for 3 weeks, that seemed to go by too fast. Week one of their visit felt like a lot of waiting for the baby to get here and finally she was born on 6/16. We got out some with the parents, to the zoo, Baby Loves Disco, and out to eat, but for the most part it was great to just have them around. The boys especially LOVED having them here .

So now here we are all alone once again and going a little stir crazy. Adding to that fact that we’ve all been sick this week and haven’t made it out of the house much at all. We are looking forward to a good 4^th of July weekend!

Rhys seems to be handling having the new baby around like a champ.  Maybe it’s because he’s done this before.  He has been very gentle and curious.  He came over while Lis was holding Brinley and put his hands on either side of her waist and was pulling her (gently) to sit on his lap.  We told him not yet, but soon (he still has a bit of a sniffle we wouldn’t want him sharing) Still it was very sweet.  He keeps asking, “Where is the baby?”, and checking on her.  Myles will point her out and say “baby”.  He didn’t seem that pleased when I was holding Brinley for a while though. 

Lis and Todd had their baby yesterday. She is a very chunky 9lbs and 7 ozs, and 20 1/2 inches long. She is doing very well. Here are a few pictures of my newest niece:

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while.  We’ve had lots of out of town guests and I’ve got very behind.  I’ll try to catch up.

Ring around the rosy…

A pocketful of posies…

Ashes…

Ashes…

We all fall…

down!

It’s amazing the absolute silence that can be achieved by the simple act of putting food on the table. Only moments before it was complete mayhem. And although this experience is short lived, those few moments are oh, so enjoyable.