The Meaning of Tia

Tia came to visit Carmen this week. She is Carmen's sister from Mexico. Although I don't know much Spanish and she knows very little English, I adore her and so do my girls. She visits a couple of times a year, and will stay for 2-4 weeks at a time.

I was asking the girls if Carmen's sister came to visit and they said yes. Then one of the girls corrected me and said, "Her name is Tia". I said, Yes, I know. Tia means Aunt in Spanish. Kaytlynn replied..."She's called Tia, cuz she makes good tortillas."

My side hurt from laughing so hard.

Moody Gardens

Dana and I took the kids to Galveston's Moody Gardens this week. We both bought memberships there, so hopefully we will get to go many more times, since everyone had a ball.

If you haven't been to Moody Gardens, you should! Their Rain forest Pyramid was closed down because it was still on Winter hours, but everything else was up and running.

We asked all the kids what they wanted to do by importance, so that we could try to get every one's favorite in. They all pretty much agreed on wanting to go to the Paddle Boat and the big park right in front of the paddle boat line. No problem. We were all pretty tired though, from the 2 hour drive and getting our membership stuff taken care of, so we decided to do the Sharks 4D movie instead. This is an absolutely terrific little show. It is considered 4D because not only are you wearing the 3D glasses so that things look like they are coming at you...you are being squirted with water when you "jump into the ocean", you smell salt water, you are poked from the back of your chair when something looks like it is going to poke you, and little plastic thingies (like that word?) slap your legs when going through seaweed.

The marketing for Moody is pretty smart in that you exit the movie through the gift shop! Kaytlynn just about freaked when she saw a big "rock display". As many of you know, she is REALLY into rocks. I promised her a rock at the end of the day...Then she saw the snow globe display...and as many of you know, she is REALLY into snow globes. I told her I would think about that one, but that I didn't want to carry around a bag of goodies all day. She would have to wait until later.

We tried to go see an IMAX about Sharks, but realized that you needed a reservation ticket to get in...That was fine. We went to the counter, reserved our seats for 5:00 and decided to go eat. We ate a great little restaurant and headed off to the paddle boat...only to discover that the paddle boat closes down at 4...and it was 4:30. We promise the kids that we will do that next time...right off the bat, apologize profusely, and make them happy that we can still play at the park that is right beside the boat. We decide to do that after everything else is about to close, since it is outside.

We head off to the Science Museum, where they are displaying an exhibit called BONES. It was fun. The kids played with xrays, identified objects by looking at pictures of their skeletons, put skeleton puzzles together that were life size. It was a very cool, hands on place.

We then decided to go to the Penguin and aquarium exhibits. They had this Passport worksheet for the kids to find different sharks throughout the exhibit...when they found it, they got to "stamp" their little worksheet. This ended up being such fun for K and D. They loved looking at the clown fish and screaming "Nemo! and looking at the rays and skates, and eels. They touched the pencil anemone which is cool because it closes its spikes around your finger. They touched a rock lobster...and weren't impressed at all with it. They looked at skeletons of different fish and whales. And then we tried to see how many penguins we could name without cheating, due to Kaytlynn's class learning all about Penguins this year.

Off to the Shark IMAX show we went. It was a 45 minute 3D movie about all of the different sharks there are. It was very informative...and beautiful to boot.

So we leave the theater, ready to head out to the park...and there we see a security guard, blocking the way to the park, pointing all people to the front doors...uh oh...We panic and think "souvenir shop" as we turn our heads simultaneously towards the gift shop...we see the worker lady at the doors...LOCKING THEM...In our heads, you could see us in slow motion yelling "NOOOOOOOOO".

We do more apologizing...more promising (not 1 but 2 rocks next time!) and they are completely okay with it, to both Dana and my surprise!

We left the building and what do we see...a park!!! So all was not lost.

It really was fun, educational, and different. We can't wait to go back.

Does the Toothfairy Believe in God?

Yep...that question came right out of Kaytlynn's mouth tonight. Todd didn't skip a beat..."Im sure she does, Sweetheart." Gulp.

Putt Putt golf...

I took the girls to a Putt Putt place. I can't even remember the name of it,but it was quite cool. It is done in black lights and everything is glow in the dark. You play through 3 themes...Dinosaur, Ocean, and Jungle. The art on the walls was amazing. I put the girls in Purple and white polka dot sundresses, so they really popped under the black lights. They thought that it was quite cool.

We went with our neighbors Dana, Ethan, Peyton, and Stephen Crenshaw. We all had a good time and tomorrow we are all heading to Galveston together again. It is quite nice having someone to toodle around with that has kids that can play with yours.

As a side note...we did not get our roof today. They ran out of our color of shingles and the new shipment won't arrive until tomorrow (Wed.), so they think they will begin on Thursday. The girls are sooo excited! No blue tarp anymore!!!

No Green Roof...

Kaytlynn is quite upset at our home owners assoc. because they won't allow us to have a GREEN roof. The salesman came out last night to discuss the color of shingles that we wanted. I was having a tough time between a slate gray/brown/black and pure black (I really wanted something in between). On the sample board he had many options including a green shingled roof with a few black specks on it, here and there. He jokingly offered it to us and laughing, I asked...does it just look green there? Does it darken up when you put it on the roof? He said...nope...grass green shingles. Kaytlynn immediately started begging. We explained it was against the rules of our neighborhood (had to blame somebody).

She woke up and called Nana today, still griping about it! Pretty funny!

I'm Getting a Roof!

Right now, I am feeling like I am hot stuff because I am going to have a roof on my house that is not full of holes. That's right...you read correctly. I, Judy Northrup, will have a new roof on my house by Tuesday. They rip off the old tomorrow and should finish with the new by the very next day. We are so happy that we just don't know what to do with ourselves.

Now that I am done with bragging, I am off to watch Pippi Longstocking with the family on my bed!

Spring Break!

We just started spring break and I am soooo happy! I went to bed last night at 10:00 and woke up at 9:00. I can't remember the last time I slept for 11 hours. I felt sleepy again at about 10:30, so I went BACK to bed and slept till noon! Why not? It's spring break! I deserve to be a sloth every once in a while, right?

Introducing Kaytlynn, By Kaytlynn

In the beginning of December 2008, Kaytlynn had a day in school where she presented a poster that told about her and her life. I let Kaytlynn go through all of the pictures we had on the computer and she chose which ones she wanted to print. From those pics, I allowed her to choose her favorites. I chose papers with red in it, since that was her favorite color at the moment. I then made a board and decorated it with those pics and papers. I labled each photo with what was happening.

At school, Kaytlynn's teacher allowed her to choose a pointer and let her stand in front of the hanging poster and tell about each picture. When she was done, each student was able to ask one question. Todd and I left work in the middle of the day to go hear her and it was so adorable! She wanted us to bring her McDonalds, and I actually think the food was the favorite thing of the day for her.

This is Kaytlynn's 1st grade class. Back 3rd row: Kaytlynn Northrup, Cameron , Jared, Bella

3rd row: Anna(with glasses on)

2nd row: Lena and Harrison Loftin

1st row: McKenzie Meece and Matthew Harrison