Christmas 2010

This is up a little later than I planned, but here it is. We had a great time visiting Mom and Bob, Gran, Grandpa, Aunt Lisa, Brooke and Brad and the kids and all of our friends. Thanks everyone for the wonderful gifts. Claire had a great time. Check out some pics below.

Love,
BJC

Halloween 2010

We had a really fun Halloween this year! Claire had tons of stuff going on with two parties at school...one on Thursday and one on Friday. Then on Saturday our neighborhood HOA held their halloween party complete with petting zoo for the kids! Claire loved holding and feeding the animals. Our friends Betsi and Casey were celebrating their anniversary and asked us to watch their 10 month old daughter Alex for the night so we took her too! After the HOA party, Claire had a birthday party to attend for her friends and favorite classmates Cole and Garrett (twins). The party started at the fire station and then finished at their house which is just a couple blocks from us.

The fun really started on halloween though as Claire was very excited to go Trick or Treating! She went out with our neighbors Kyle and Michelle and their son Cole, and Giri and Zelinda and their son Naveen, and Jessica's friend Jenn and her daughter Juliette. Betsi and Casey came back from their anniversary celebration and took Alex along for some candy too. I stayed at the house and passed out candy. When they came back with Claire's huge haul of candy we had a little pizza party on the driveway. We had such a good time and are very lucky to have such great friends and neighbors. Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Love, BJC

Plano Balloon Festival

We had a great time at the Plano balloon festival last weekend. Claire absolutely loved the balloons. We went with our friends Jack and Cyndi down the street. On Sunday we went to the Stockyards in Fort Worth and walked around for a bit. Cool place. They do a cattle drive through the streets twice a day. Unfortunately we missed it, but will go back again. On the way home we stopped and at the Chef Point Cafe and had lunch. Guy Fieri was there a little while back for an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. The food was awesome. Here are some pics. We hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Love,
Brett, Jess, and Claire

Lake Palestine Trip

We had a great time at Lake Palestine last weekend with our good friends Stephen and Espy. They put us up in their condo on the lake. We rented a 2o' pontoon boat one day with a tube and had a great time! Check out the pictures below.

Love BJC

Memorial Day Weekend

We drove about 60 miles northwest of Round Rock to Lake Buchanan for the weekend. We had a beautiful spot reserved at the Hi Line Lake Resort on the north end of the lake. The weather was beautiful all weekend and we had a great time! On Sunday we drove around to the other side of the lake to take a cruise on a river boat up the Colorado river (Texas version) which was really fun. This was Claire's first time on a boat and she loved it! On the way back to camp we stopped at the Fall Creek winery for a wine tasting. We bought a bottle of their Riesling which was really good. We even got a couple of wine glasses with our tasting! Bonus!

We took Claire to the swimming pool a couple times and she sure loves the water! We met some really nice families around our camp. The people next to us were grandparents and really took to Claire. They made a point to show Claire the catfish they caught each morning and gave us a bag of really good peaches from the tree in their backyard.

We had a great time and will definitely go back to Lake Buchanan. Check out the pictures below.

Love,

BJC

Camping on the Guadalupe River

Last weekend we finally got to try out our new pop up camper. We headed about 75 miles south to the Guadalupe river at a campground just outside of New Braunfels. The place had full hookups so we had running water and electricity which was awesome. The river was flowing and people were tubing and rafting with their coolers in tow. We need to invest in some tubes for next time. We had nice weather and a cold front came in on Saturday and kept the temps down in the low 80's which kept the bugs away. We had some really cool neighbors who invited us over for a real Louisiana style crawfish boil on Saturday night. We had a great time. On Sunday we packed up and headed home. The new camper worked perfectly and the ole Rodeo hauled it without issue. This is the first of many trips for out new rig! Here are some pics.

Love,

BJC

Claire found the neighbors stash!

Caught with her hand in the chip bag! haha

Our neighbors and the Crawfish...38 lbs total!!

Our new favorite picture of Claire...she looks so grown up!

That is quite the mischievous look on her face...

Inside the pop up

Havin fun on the river

Our site

The rig!

Houston Rodeo

While I was working in Houston last month, Jess and Claire came out and stayed with me for a few days. We hooked up with Jessica's cousins and went to the Houston rodeo! We had so much fun and will definitely go back next year. Claire loved all of the animals as you will see in the pictures below! Click on the play button and enjoy!

Love,
BJC

Easter 2010

We had all kinds of stuff going on for Easter this year. Claire went to several easter egg hunts. We went to Betsi's dad's farm which is about an hour east of us. He has 800+ acres which we took a tour of in an old jeep. We had a great time and did not want to leave! Check out the pictures and video of Claire opening her Curious George book from grandma. She is so funny! We hope everyone had a great Easter! Love you all. BJC

Claire's first hockey game

We took Claire to her first hockey game on Friday night. There is a new AHL team called the Texas Stars who play in a new arena the city of Cedar Park built a little while back. It's about 10 minutes or so from us. Claire had a great time as we knew she would. Can't wait to go to another game!! Here are some pictures...

Love, BJC

Christmas 2009

We drove to Colorado Springs for 2 weeks over Christmas as we have done for the past 2 years. We stayed with Mom and Bob and had a very relaxing vacation....well...I did at least. I ended up with Pneumonia a few days into our trip and spent a large portion of it laying on the couch. That was a real bummer, but otherwise we had a nice time!

We had a night out with a group of our good friends and brought Claire so everyone could see how much she has grown in a year! We visited with Grandpa at his home. We went to the cabin for Christmas and had a great time opening presents and eating like it was going out of style. Everything was soooo good!

A new annual tradition has been developing with our friends Megan and Freeman. Once again we went up to Denver to do some wine tasting at Balisteri. Then for dinner we went to the Vesta dipping grill. The food is really good and it's a cool place to hang out and have a drink. We spent New Years with Megan and Freeman at their house. We had a great time!

After New Years we headed east to Witchita,KS to visit with the other Jessica and her kids Cheyenne and Tyler. We had a great time visiting and shooting nerf darts around the house. Claire and Tyler had so much fun playing together. I need one of those nerf dart guns!

It was great seeing everyone. Sorry it took me so long to get these pictures uploaded! We hope everyone had a great holiday season!

Love,

BJC

Claire wanted to say Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family. Click play on the video below.

Untitled from Brett Shug on Vimeo.

Halloween 2009

We had a great halloween this year! Jess took Claire out to a Halloween festival put on by the city of Round Rock. They had a bunch of games with prizes and gave out candy. Then Claire had a party at school that we were able to attend. They decorated their own pumpkins, ate cupcakes, and wore their costumes. She is having so much fun at school! Here are some pictures.

Pumpkin Patch

Here are a bunch of the pictures we took at the pumpkin patch this year. Claire picked out the pumpkin she decorated at school!

End of Summer

Here are more pics from the end of the summer including our ACL adventure!! Check it.

More Summer '09

Sorry it took me awhile to get these posted. Here are more pictures from this summer. We spent time on Galveston Island with our friends Stephen and Espy. We stayed a night in Houston on the way back with TJ and Yulie, Jessica's cousins, and had a great time. Jessica and Claire drove to Wichita, KS to visit the other Jessica and her kids. There are some good pictures of the zoo they visited.

We had a great summer! Check out the pics.

Summer '09

We've had a great summer so far. It has been hot down here in Texas (not quite Havasu hot) but still!! We've been getting out to the pool and enjoying it though. We had our 9th anniversary on the 4th of July and had an excellent evening out on the town. Had a great dinner and watched the fireworks go off downtown over the lake.

Jessica's birthday was on the 8th and we headed down once again with a group of our friends. We went to a Tapas restaurant and had some great food and excellent Sangria. Our next door neighbors and good friends Giri and Zelinda came with us and Naveen and Claire stayed with Zelinda's Mom. It was nice to go out with just the adults for once...then again!

We hope you all are well. Here are some pics from this summer.

Cabo Trip

We got home safe and sound from Cabo last night and had a great time. This was our first trip to Cabo and it is a beautiful place. This was our first trip out of the country with Claire and she was great. The flight from Houston is 2 and 1/2 hours. We flew out of Austin and changed planes with a layover which made for a long day. I think next time we will just drive to Houston and fly out of there as we can avoid the layovers.

We stayed at the Riu Santa Fe which is a new all inclusive resort. We have stayed at 2 other Riu hotels before and been very happy with them. This one did not disappoint. Claire loved the beach and the pools. She was very happy floating around in her new life jacket and was upset every time we took her out of the pool. She even got a nice tan even through the SPF 50 sunscreen that she was constantly being covered in!

Here are some pics. Hope everyone is well.

Love,

Brett, Jess, and Claire

Easter Pictures

I know the video will be tough to top but here are some pictures from Easter and a few other random shots.

Ok, trying to post a vimeo link here. See if this works.

We took some video tonight of Claire walking!! This has been really fun to watch her get better and better. Enjoy!


Claire Walks from Brett S on Vimeo.

Happy Easter

Our neighborhood HOA held its annual Easter egg hunt last weekend and Claire had a great time! It was a little cool and windy out but she didn't mind. She is getting so big. We had a big day yesterday. While on the web cam with Grandma and Grandpa Vine, Claire took her first un-assisted steps! It was very exciting. Soon she'll be running all over the house. She still doesn't have any teeth. Should be any day now! They say the longer they stay up in there the better anyway. The cutest thing she is saying right now is "Thank you". She says "gang que". It cracks me up. Check out the video of her Dance moves. She is such a little rockstar!

Hope everyone has a great Easter! (I'm makin a turkey....yum!!)

Love,

Brett, Jess, and Claire