{"id":5020,"date":"2012-09-07T15:20:28","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T15:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/?p=5020"},"modified":"2012-09-07T15:20:28","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T15:20:28","slug":"griswold-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/griswold-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Griswold Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August, we went on our third annual “Griswold” Family Vacation with my parents, my sister and her family, and my brother and his wife.\u00a0 We had a blast!\u00a0 With the ages of our kids, we have found the easiest thing to do is rent a big ol’ house and just hang out together.\u00a0 We went to Mansfield and found a few local things to do for fun.\u00a0 We don’t need fancy!\u00a0 We went to Hawaiian Falls, The Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, The Dallas World Aquarium, and spent time swimming, golfing, playing dominoes, and just hanging out!\u00a0 It’s just nice to have a change of scenery…and to all be together.<\/p>\n

I am about to post 4 million pictures, but I had more on my phone…that was erased<\/a>…that our “forensic detective” is still trying to recover.\u00a0 Here are a few from my camera.<\/p>\n

Pretend like you are seeing several pictures from Hawaiian Falls like these pics from last year<\/a>.\u00a0 My HF pics from this year are in cell phone outer space for the time being.<\/p>\n

We went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and the grounds were lovely!\u00a0 It was HOT, but beautiful!\u00a0 We got to see two weddings, and there were 2 little girls super excited to see “princesses” at the Gardens!<\/p>\n

We took about 452,000 family pictures.\u00a0 My brother-in-law’s sister, Anne, took the pictures.\u00a0 Anne did a TON to help out the whole weekend.\u00a0 She came and stayed with us, which is always a treat…especially because the kids love Aunt Sugar!<\/p>\n

The big kids…Truett, AnnaLeigh, Preston, Lilly Katherine, Caleb\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My dad and sweet, happy Georgia!\u00a0 Look how white my baby is next to her Papa’s Italian\/Lebanese skin!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The whole crew!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mimi and Papa with all the grandkids.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>AnnaLeigh, Laurabeth, and Mimi<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My little (big) brother and Georgia.\u00a0 I can’t wait to hold HIS little baby girl in a few short weeks!\u00a0 He’s just a little excited!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Exploring.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is my family!\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ashley (the baby), Taylor (the middle), and me (the oldest and wisest!), my mom and dad.\u00a0 We don’t have a picture like this and I love how you can see that Ash looks more like my mom, I look like my dad, and Taylor is a mix.\u00a0 Genes…they are crazy little things!<\/p>\n

This is our newest family member!\u00a0 Taylor, Kelly, and their sweet baby girl.\u00a0 They haven’t decided on a name, but I’m pushing for the name Kate!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And this is how we got through the 1,000 degree photo shoot…FRUIT SNACKS!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And now, our little fam!\u00a0 In my mind we are going to take another family picture closer to Christmas to use as a Christmas card pic.\u00a0 Who knows if that will actually happen, since I am “that person” ordering my cards from Shutterfly on December 20, with rush shipping, optimistically thinking that I can receive them, stuff them, address them, stamp them, and get them back in the mail so they will be delivered the 24th or at the latest, the 26th (which of course people would assume it was late because the mailman just didn’t get it there in time!) \u00a0 But my point is that if this ends up on a Christmas card, pretend like you never saw this picture! :)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Laurabeth and Georgia<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My dear brother has never chosen the easy way.\u00a0 He is the middle child in so many ways.\u00a0 He went to Baylor, but did not stay long.\u00a0 He left there and went to New Mexico to “find himself,” then he decided he was tired of everyone telling him what to do, so he joined the Air Force.\u00a0 Ironic?\u00a0 That is Taylor!<\/p>\n

Taylor is smart!\u00a0 He can do anything that he puts his mind to!\u00a0 He knows random things about just about everything.\u00a0 He can talk to a wall…for hours.\u00a0 He loves animals, to the extreme.\u00a0 He is big and giant and goofy, but his heart is even bigger!\u00a0 He will be a great daddy!<\/p>\n

Taylor did not chose the easy way (nor has he ever), but when we were on vacation we wanted to celebrate him for a wonderful accomplishment!\u00a0 Taylor started going back to school while he was in the military.\u00a0 He got his undergraduate degree, and decided he was not finished.\u00a0 The boy who always hated school just got his MASTERS!\u00a0 I don’t know how he has done it, but we wanted to have a little redneck celebration for him to show him we are proud of him.<\/p>\n

My mom brought a (much too small) high school graduation cap and gown, and he was told to put them on.\u00a0 My dad played the “graduation song” and we did a fake ceremony.\u00a0 It was short and sweet, but fun to celebrate Taylor!\u00a0 Congrats little bro!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Turning the tassel<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And of course tossing the cap!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Congrats to my favowite bwudda! :)\u00a0 Love you!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>These maniacs didn’t know why they were proud of him, but they were fine to get a free hug!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On our way home we went to the Dallas World Aquarium…and apparently so did the rest of Dallas.\u00a0 It was amazing, and I want to go back, but Sunday afternoon at the end of summer is not the time to go!\u00a0 We still had a great time and saw some amazing creatures.\u00a0 The Lord sure is creative!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Look at those beautiful dark eyes!\u00a0 I love this baby!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We tried for another family pic.\u00a0 HA!\u00a0 AnnaLeigh was in quite a mood at the DWA.\u00a0 The picture below was probably her happiest moment and it all went downhill from there.\u00a0 I’m pretty sure there were some people ready to call CPS due to her out of control screaming, kicking, hitting, and flailing accompanied by my attempt to “train” and “teach” and eventually to just shut her up!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Long weekends make for tired babies, and AnnaLeigh was not the only tired child.\u00a0 Georgia toured the whole building just like this…and I loved it!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Preston’s favorite!\u00a0 The manatee.\u00a0 It’s a crazy looking thing!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But speaking of crazy…this Alice in Wonderland looking thing has the strangest looking “face” on the underside.\u00a0 How can you look at this shark and not know there is a GOD?!?\u00a0 A funny, creative, imaginative, orderly GOD!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We had a wonderful weekend!\u00a0 Thank you Diddy and Mama for everything!\u00a0 Thank you Anne for all your help and your sweet gift to our babies.\u00a0 Thank you Linny for all the fun toys for everyone!<\/p>\n

I just can’t imagine being more blessed!\u00a0 Thank you LORD!<\/p>\n

The End!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Kadiddlehop!<\/p>\n

-kate<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In August, we went on our third annual “Griswold” Family Vacation with my parents, my sister and her family, and my brother and his wife.\u00a0 We had a blast!\u00a0 With the ages of our kids, we have found the easiest thing to do is rent a big ol’ house and just hang out together.\u00a0 We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5061,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/5061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therealhousewife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}