All things BASEBALL!

This is what a baseball fan looks like after he has been running, is sweaty, and decides to play in the sand!

These are the excited spectators that were not playing in the sand, but were having a green snow cone! Doesn't J look excited in this one??
Thomas with his medal for participating in the district playoffs......
Thomas with his trophy for a great season......their presentation was at the waterpark.....thus, the swim trunks.
Grant with his mean old coach at his trophy presentation.
This is the team that Jill (bottom row right) was picked up for at the State Tournament in Holland. They got second....the other team from our town beat them by ONE point!

Jill's biggest fan...........her POPS!
Jill and her friend Cassie....they have been on the same team for 2 years.
The base runner!
The two teams from our town......first and second place in the state! Congratulations, girls!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (a few days late) JONATHAN!

Jonathan had a birthday last Friday. We got a peanut butter fudge cake from TCBY to help celebrate! Here are the boys helping with the trick candles!



My BFF's daughter has the same bday as Jonathan! This is taken at her party at the river on Sat night.
A stick that the boys brought for J..........
Isn't this lovely? This is a bow from one of his presents. It's a good look, honey!
We love you.....we appreciate all you do for our family......we hated that you had to work on your bday.........we hope you love the presents we got you!!! Dont forget to schedule your massage!!

More Europe pics.......

I know this is a long, drawn out process of the vacation pics........My patience with only being able to load 5 pics at a time is sometimes worn thin! Anyway.........here is J in Germany with a Smart Car. We decided that we would probably not be good candidates for this car because of our height! AND....where would the kids sit????

Even though this looks like bluebonnets, it is really a flax field in France.
This is part of the Benedictine Palace in France. It was beautiful and still has a distillery in it that is actually working. We got a taste of the liqueur.........I did not think it was all that great!
Some of the windows in the Benedictine Palace.

This is the ICE BAR in Hamburg, Germany. As you can see, it is made of ice! Before you enter, you are given a coat, hat, and gloves. I only lasted about 20 minutes in here----it was too cold for me!

The Netherlands........a month ago!

Sorry for the major delay........my patience with uploading the pictures is not so good!
Also.....the pics are a little out of order!
This one was taken while we were on the boat tour. The canals here were amazing.

This is a house that actually sits on the canal. Some looked pretty like this one, some did not.
I did see a sign in the window of one that said "Dont Mess With Texas", but was too slow to get a shot of it!
This was where I felt like Moses was leading us with his staff, except for our guides name was Peter and he was carrying a #6 instead of a staff! He taught us a lot about the architecture of the buildings.
We ate lunch here while on the tour......this place was meant for short people.
A living statue with a wonderful costume.......lucky for them it isn't hot there.
This is another self portrait before dinner one night on the ship.

A bridge in Amsterdam........more beautiful in person!!
In the Netherlands, you have to take a picture of at least one windmill! I also got a windmill charm for my charm bracelet!!
Instead of 3 story car parking garages, they have 3 story bicycle garages! This is how most people get to work! This may have something to do with why we did not see many overweight people......except tourists!
Another must for the Netherlands.........a wooden shoe picture!

London June 17-19

We left Paris and, instead of the usual flying, decided to be different and rode the underground Chunnel to London. We had a slight problem when we got to the Chunnel station. Our train was supposed to leave Paris at 11:15 am or something like that. We got there, after taking the metro with 3 suitcases and 2 carry-ons, with like 45 minutes to spare. NO problem! We had purchased our tickets before we left the US and had our voucher---all we needed was to trade the voucher for the actual tickets.
I sat with the luggage while J went to the ticket counter (that we found after we finally found someone that spoke a little English!). He was gone a long time and came back with a very mad look on his face. It appeared that we were about 45 minutes LATE for our train. We had set our watches ahead.......just apparently missed it by one hour. PROBLEM! So........they will credit 15% of your purchase price to another ticket.......isn't that nice of them?? J was so mad....especially when the exchange rate is 2-1. We were lucky enough to be able to catch the next train........but had to sit with the luggage. YES......the luggage! There were two fold down bleacher-type seats with the luggage racks for the late, non-French speaking Americans in Paris.
We survived.......and even laughed about it a little then. We made it though.........that was all that mattered!

This is a pic from the Tower of London. It was a very large place, but the pictures from here all look the same, so I just chose this one. While here, we got to see the Crown Jewels, but no pictures were allowed in there. BEAUTIFUL is all I can say about them! They looked very heavy though!

The guard outside the Crown Jewel Tower.
We saw Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre one night while we were there. It was awesome.
The ceiling at the Queens Theatre.
These really were there........I never saw anyone in one though.
We took the double decker bus tour and saw Big Ben........

some great cathedrals and palaces.............
the London Eye..........this "ride" takes an hour but you could see all of London!........
Parliament............
This was on some building........just thought it was interesting..........
We also rode across the London Bridge.......just like the song.......thankfully it did not fall down!

Caudle Family Reunion 08

We had the annual Caudle Reunion this past weekend in Abilene. It was fun and I think everyone had a great time----between shopping, swimming, eating, and going to the zoo----we were BUSY! Here are my mom's siblings......

My first cousins......Chad, my sister Cathe, Deeon, Shelley, me, Dusty, and Marc
Here are our children (minus Andrew and Taylor---we missed you!)
Branson, Thomas hidden behind Beau, Grant, Boston, Abbey, Lainey, Katelyn, Jill, Dacayla, Emiley, Garrett, Kameron, Whitney, and Brooklyn in the stroller in the front! WOW.
This pic is from my phone.....but is me and my glasses twin.....Miss Emiley
Jill and Brooklyn taking a swim!
Hopefully we can get together at Christmas, too!

Truly Blessed

The fireworks stand was a HUGE success! It is great when the people in the stand next to you dont have a clue. On the two busiest days, they did not even open until around 3 or 4 pm. Their delivery truck came on the fourth to bring them more products and they werent even there! We were loving it. Misty and Clay brought us more fireworks on the 4th.....they brought it from Lubbock and saved us a trip! THANK YOU again! We were truly blessed this year, as we have been every year since we started this business 10 yrs ago. Every year we have a goal....and have made it every year. We have truly been blessed.

**Jill's first district game got rained out last night, so we are going to try it again tonight!
**Thomas still has practice.....he has district next week.
**Is is sad if I am glad G's team did not make it? How would I do three districts all in different towns?

Paris....Day 3... Part 2

Does this site look familiar? This is the Louvre Museum in Paris. Its HUGE and BEAUTIFUL!
It was very crowded the day we went.....but I am sure its like that all of the time! This is the outside entrance.

I dont know the names of these next four pictures........just thought they were interesting!



This self portrait was supposed to be at the top of the page.....what did I do??

This, for me, was the highlight of the Louvre. I never ever thought I would see the actual Mona Lisa. It was not as big as I thought it would be. It was encased behind a glass.....most of the other paintings were not.
This is Winged Glory. I think it was sculpted around the 1400s. WOW is all I can say about this one.
Venus de Milo.......
I dont know the name of this one either.....just loved it.