Grandpa Kurtz Visits, PART TWO!

Sunday, we had breakfast, hung out with Grandpa, then went to church.



After church, we went to the nearby lake marina with our old loaves of bread and burger buns... to feed the fishies and duckies!

There are soo many fish, the water looks like it is boiling.

The HUGE fish DID catch DJ's eye... but I think he preferred eating the bread!

These last three pictures were of DJ flirting with a few ladies that were walking by... he sure can get himself a lot of attention!

Monday, we hung out with grandpa before he had to catch his flight back home to Oregon. We are soo lucky that he took some time to come see us!

We love you grandpa and miss you already!

Grandpa Kurtz Visits!

We were so lucky to have Grandpa Kurtz come visit us! We picked him up from the airport around dinner time. We typed "Italian restaurants" into the GPS... and we were on our way to the nearest Italian restaurant. It is always a little bit scary when you've never been somewhere to eat before and in a city that you've never been to. We lucked out, as it was quite yummy!
The next day, we took Grandpa to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It was amazing! There was soo much to see.

There were tons of plants with pretty colorful flowers.



More bright and colorful flowers!

...beautiful trees (including this horned tree... we saw one of these in Costa Rica)

HUGE leaves!

This pond had turtles in it. The turtles liked me best cuz I gave them (DJ's) snacks!
There was also a rose garden and many waterfalls... it was truly amazing!
The last part that we saw of the Botanical Gardens was the Japanese garden... and HOLY MOLY that place is beautiful!! Peaceful! I want to live in there!
Don and his dad next to a Japanese building.
Don and DJ walking across the steping stones.
We fed the fishies and duckies!
We were there for a few hours... and DJ held up like a champ! Here are a few shots of him... eating his fingers since I gave all his snacks to the turtles...

...and trying to escape from his stroller! :)

Happy Mother's Day! 2

Not sure if this is going to work, but if it does I want to say that I am lucky to have married such a wonderful wife and mother and am very glad she does all of this because I have no idea what I'm doing here.

Happy Mothers Day to my wife and to my mother.

I love you both.
Don

Happy Mother's Day!

What a wonderful day to think about the blessings of motherhood! I have been blessed with MANY mothers in my life that have had a great impact on my life through their love and examples! THANK YOU! XOXO

MOST OF ALL... I want to post that I love my mother soo much. She is amazing. She has always had the answers I needed. She has alwasy made me feel secure and like I am on the right path. She knew exactly what I needed to hear when I dealt with my lame teenager issues... and my even 'lamer' young adult problems... hehe ;) She was such a joy to have around last week... while DJ is going through some super fun growing stages! My mom taught DJ how to pinch cheerios and feed himself! :) She sang him lots of songs. He LOVED his Grammie's songs! :) DJ even got a huge smile on his face when he heard my mom on the speaker phone after she left. :) My mom is an amazing mother, teacher, wife to my wonderful dad and a great friend! WE LOVE YOU MOM/GRAMMIE!

Happy Mother's Day to Gramma Judy! Don's mom is a very wonderful and amazing woman!! She has four children of her own that are all such good people! We truly enjoy the chance to spend time with her, but are sad that it is not very often due to how far away we are! Most importantly is that I am truly greatful for the wonderful husband I was able to marry because of her! :) Don is truly amazing and I feel blessed to be his wife! We LOVE you Gramma Judy! xoxo

Last but NOT least!!! It has been such a wonderful last 9 months being a mommy to our little DJ! :) He is soo much fun! He has truly blessed our lives! We love him sooo much! We love watching him learn and grow! This morning when I woke up, DJ and Don had given me mother's Day cards and my favorite yellow roses. :) DJ's little card has his cute picture on it and I was so impressed that Don used my stamps on his card!! Here are some pictures!! THANKS HUN & DJ! I love you!

The Alamo, The San Antonio River and Fredericksburg

This is The Alamo. It was really neat to walk through it and hear about the history of all the battles... there was only one room in this whole building that had the original roof on it, where the women and children were saved during the battles. They had a lot of very neat things to see and interesting information inside, however... we were not allowed to take pictures inside the building.
This picture of all us of except Don (who took the picture) was taken outside the Alamo... a really pretty, covered sidewalk. It had pretty arches, was very shady and cool. :)

This was the end of the San Antonio River. There was access to the mall here with several shops and restaurants also along the river. We got on the river boat not far from here.

While on the river boat tour, we saw several bridges and people walking along the river, doing "The River Walk". What a neat idea to make this river in the middle of town to connect businesses (hotels, restaurants, city buildings, etc) to each other! They even have taxi boats!

There were a LOT of plants and trees along the river. It was very lush, cool and shaded.

During part of the boat tour... we would be in the sun. This was DJ's least favorite part! I guess not many of us like to be in the direct sunlight for too long unless we are trying to get a tan! :) BE PROUD! I, Tiffany Foulk Kurtz, who neglects to wear sun screen and has burned and blistered my entire body on more than one occasion, wore sunscreen this weekend and didn't burn at all! (EVEN in the heat and sun of southern Texas!! I know it is not summer yet... but still) ...and Don and DJ were also free from sunburns! (Don actually gets the credit, he bought the sunscreen! THANKS HUN!)

By the end of three days without naps, lots of driving and walking around... DJ sticks his tongue out to anymore walking around! We got ice cream then went to the hotel. :)

DJ smiles just a little bit later when he gets to take a bath before bedtime!

On Monday, May 4th... we headed to Fredericksburg, Texas on our way home. Fredericksburg is another quaint old town with TONS of shopping of all kinds of shops. Antiques, linnens, clothing, Texas memorabilia, FUDGE (which I got some of!), gourmet food tasting shops (got some of that too!), candy shops, kitchen gadget shops... and of course yummy restaurants. We had such a good time strolling down the sidewalk! See... even DJ was strolling with a SMILE! :)

We put DJ on this little horse and with a few quarters... I swear DJ was having the time of his life! :) I could've watched him on that horse all day long if I had enough quarters... OK, well maybe not... LOL but it was super cute!


This last photo is of Mike, Allison and my dad just before Don, DJ and I had to say goodbye. My parents stayed in San Antonio for a few more days with Mike and Allison and unfortunately we had to head for home. What a GREAT trip and weekend! THANKS MOM, DAD, ALLISON and MIKE! Thanks Hun for all your driving!! Thanks DJ for being such an awesome boy for not getting your two naps each day! Successful trip!

Sea World, San Antonio

I have LOVED Sea World since I was a little girl and always wanted to be a killer whale trainer. (I am wondering why I never did it!?) Is there still time to accomplish that dream? My mom said there is time in the next life! :) I was so excited that everyone else "agreed" to go to Sea World on one of our few and already full-packed days in San Antonio! :) (THANKS FAMILY!) Here are a few pictures of us on our Sea World Adventure. First we got a picture with Shamu, the killer whale and a darling dolphin... not sure what her name is. I think DJ loves Sea World too, with his grin from ear to ear in this picture!
We went to the Dolphin Pool where you could lay on your tummy and watch the dolphins swim around. :) You could purchase food to feed the dolphins if you wanted, so we did. DJ was able to be so close and was so excited! We got this awesome picture of him next to the dolphin! Too bad you can't see the excitement on his face! :)
Next we went to Alligator Alley to see the alligators and turtles. There were 19 alligators in this pond. We learned that one of the differences between gators and crocs is that one has a V- shaped nose and the other has a U- shaped nose. Don't ask me which is which, I don't remember.

Here are the turtles swimming around in the other end of the alligator pond. I also LOVE turtles... if I ever have a pond in my back yard, I will have turtles in it!

Here are the three Dons watching the gator keepers feed the gators. Grammie is there too behind the lady with big hair and tan visor. Gators eat once or twice a week... so not all of them eat each time they are being fed. Gators hibernate during the winter, so they don't eat during that time.

Not far from Alligator Alley is the stadium where they have the beluga whale and dolphin show. Here are 3 dolphins spinning during their show. I also would've liked to have been a dolphin trainer!
Here is a beluga whale and it's trainer. Oh how that looks so fun! (could've been me!) If you LOOK closely, you can see the tail of a baby whale behind it's mommy! That baby was next to it's mommy the whole time. CUTE!
Last, but TOTALLY not least!! We saw the killer whale show! Although amazing to see these beautiful animals... I'm sad to say, that this was not the best killer whale show that I have seen! :( This show was mostly a video playing up on their big screen. :( I want to see the whales more! I want to see them swim real fast and jump out of the water!! I could watch tv at home.
How awesome to be this close to a killer whale! I would just LOVE to ride on the back of one and stand on it's nose as it comes out of the water! I guess I'm going to have to wait until the next life...

Off to San Antonio

While my parents were with visiting us for a few days, we went to Cabelas in Fort Worth, ate a lot of yummy food, swim lessons for DJ, stamped and we spent an afternoon in Dallas looking for family members in the Oak Cliff cemetary for geneology. We also drove down the street that my mom lived on when she was a little girl! After being in Dallas for a few days, we had plans to head south to San Antonio to see the sights down there and to visit my brother Mike and his wife Allison! I was so excited! My parents, Don, DJ and I piled in the car and began the 5 hour drive south! Before arriving into San Antonio, we met
Mike and Alli at a VERY YUMMY restaurant called The Grist Mill in New Braunfels, TX. This restaurant was located in a very old quiant town with many old shops, candy shops, antique shops, etc. Allison is from Idaho and loves the candy called the "Idaho Spud". This little candy shop had Idaho Spuds! (of course Allison bought one!) There was this really old airplane toy in an antique shop that was painted black and yellow, with a name on it saying: "Yellow Jacket". I HAD to put DJ in it for a picture! :) Don found this old cowboy hat... we HAD to try it on for size... of course. Darling Cowboy DJ! :)