Noah Singing High School Musical

These days, Noah is just as much into High School Musical as Shelby. We caught him today doing one of his performances with his toy drum. He likes to think he is Ryan since he is the character that likes to sing and dance a lot and he has blond hair.

Tamara and the Cats

Tamara has a magnet that draws everybody to her making them all crave her attention. If it's not Shelby and Noah fighting each other for who gets to be next to their mom, it's Lady and Tramp battling one another. As soon as the kids go to bed, Lady and Tramp come out and Lady always has to be sitting on Tammy's lap, while Tramp comes next to her and cries for some attention too. Tonight Tammy was working on her lesson for Relief Society and both cats had to make sure they were part of it. When we go to bed, Lady has to sleep not next to Tammy, but on top of her stomach. With the cats and kids all looking to get what ever attention they can get out of her, it allows me to be the lucky one that gets left alone.

Started New Cooking Blog

We just started a new blog titled Kolditz Cooking at kolditzcooking.blogspot.com. We are posting recipes that we try with our comments and pictures. Feel free to post a comment to a recipe if you ever try one and let us know how it turned out.

Tammy started weight watchers a couple of weeks ago and she is really watching her daily point intake. I have also been keeping track of what I am eating and was surprised how fast Mountain Dew and fast food really add up in calories. Just from keeping track of my calories, I have lost more than 10 pounds in the last month.

We bought a new cookbook called Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook. For the past month, we've been planning our weekly meals and trying not to eat out very often. I've also been getting up early to cook everybody a good breakfast in the morning. It's amazing how much energy we all have throughout the day just from that. Hopefully, this new blog will help us keep track of recipes we have liked and don't like as well as sharing with our family and friends some different meal ideas.

Summer Vacation - Day Six

We finally made it back home at around 10 p.m. on Monday. Everybody was ready to be back, but we all had a good time on our vacation building lots of memories. We went out our hotel room before 9 a.m. and already the heat and humidity was almost unbearable. We took a walk down the River Walk along the Mississippi River.

We then stopped for breakfast at Cafe Du Monde. It is well known in New Orleans for its coffee and beignets. The beignets are like fried scones covered in powdered sugar. They are really good but very messy. The kids had fun eating them though.

Afterwards, we walked through the French Quarter with all of its little shops and narrow streets. This picture of Tammy, Shelby and Noah is at Jackson Square with a statue of Andrew Jackson in front of an old Catholic church.

Here's me and Shelby with a narrow French Quarters street in the background and the buildings showcasing the typical style of the town with its balconies.

We were going to go to the Aquarium downtown, but it is closed on Mondays. So instead we went on a Swamp Adventure in Westwego, about 15 minutes from downtown. We took a guided two hour tour through the swamp and saw several alligators, birds, turtles, jumping giant fish and even a big crab. It was really pretty and a lot of fun. Before the tour, they showed some of the animals you could see. Tammy went up and held a big snake that Noah touched.

They had a baby alligator that Shelby got to hold.

And Noah got to pet.

Shelby looking for alligators in the swamp. It took a little while for us to find our first one, but after that, we saw several of them.

Shelby looking at an alligator swimming by the boat.

The tour guide would throw marshmallows out when we saw alligators and they would eat them all. The alligators could hear when one hit the water and quickly turn to snatch it up. The guide also put a fish on a string and held it above the water saw we could see the alligator jump up to grab it. It was pretty neat. Another time there was a six foot gator and a four foot and the guide threw a marshmallow in between them. They both went after it, but when they got close, the bigger one whipped its tail to show the smaller one not to mess with him. Below is a slideshow of all the tour as well as a video of one of the alligators.

Summer Vacation - Day Five

After saying our goodbyes to Jon and Corianne's family, we left for New Orleans, Louisiana at around 11 a.m. We arrived at our destination at around 5 p.m. at the downtown Hilton on the Riverwalk. We'll stay here overnight and walk along the river as well as touring the French Quarters district tomorrow. There is a free Ferry that takes you across the river to the old section of the city that we may do tomorrow as well. Then we'll head home to complete our six-day vacation.

We stopped at a rest area at the Texas-Louisiana border. They had a short boardwalk through a swamp that we walked. While on the trek, we saw the biggest grasehopper we have ever seen. It was huge. It was probably 10 times the size of the largest grasshopper we are all used to seeing.

Tammy and Noah waiting in line outside the Acme Oyster Bar near Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Shelby, Tammy and Noah after eating at the Acme Oyster Bar, a cajun restaurant. We were all stuffed. We ordered fried oysters and shrimp, a beef poboy and sausage withe rice and beans.

Here is one of the street performers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Tammy, Shelby and Noah after seeing all they could handle of Bourbon Street. Tammy said it made Las Vegas look like a family oriented city.

Summer Vacation - Day Four

We went to Stewart Beach today in Galveston, Texas, today. It is about an hour and a half outside of Houston off the Gulf of Mexico. The beach was as much fun as we had expected and more. The kids had a blast in the four hours we were there, and the water was really warm. Shelby and Kydan played most of the time in the waves and loved trying to ride them. The surf was a lot more than I had thought it would be and was a lot of fun. Noah, Paysen and Ceanna played mainly in the sand and in the water a short distance from the shore. The weather was perfect with it being overcast and temperatures only in the high 80’s to low 90’s. Even with the overcast weather and plenty of sun screen, we still all came back with sunburns and a lot of sand in our shoes. All of the kids are getting along great and it will be hard to leave in the morning. They’ve really been well behaved, for the most part, playing with each other.

Summer Vacation - Day Three

We went to the Houston Space Center on Friday. There was a lot there for the kids, so they all had a lot of fun. We spent about four and a half hours there. When we first arrived, we went into one of the theaters and watched a 15 minute video about the space program. Afterwards, you were allowed into a room that had some of the original space capsules and moon rocks.

In the brochure, there was an attraction called Blast Off. The description said that you would experience the spectacular sensation of a Blast Off. You would see and feel what it is like when over 7 million pounds of thrust push a 4 ½ million pound vehicle skyward. After your launch, you will go into the theater for a live update on the current shuttle missions as well as future explorations. It sounded really cool so we went to it. There was a big line for it and everybody was entered into this dark room with three screens on the wall. The Blast Off lasted less than five minutes and consisted of the screens showing a blast off and some smoke entering the room. It was nothing like the description. Then we had to go into the other room and listen for 30 minutes as some guy in a monotone and quiet voice talked about the current space shuttle missions. The kids kept asking if we were going to blast off pretty soon. They really tricked us into going in that one.

After the disappointment, we decided we wouldn’t go into any more theaters and we just let the kids play in the kid zone. They had a slide area with balls that you could shoot up that Noah and Paysen played on most of the time. Shelby, Kydan and Ceanna went to the adventure area. The kids went on an obstacle course where they were attached by a harness and had to go through a balancing areas such as rope steps and walking across a rope. Shelby was pretty nervous, but did all right even though she said her knees were shaking the entire time.

From there they went to this swing where they climbed up to a tower and held onto a bar to swing out and drop onto a soft cushioned area. To the surprise of us all, Ceanna actually did it after the working coaxed her into it at the top. She hadn’t made it through the obstacle balancing course previous to the swing and had to be carried across by a worker. The kids then went on a trampoline with a harness that allowed them to jump pretty high.

As we were going back to the car, we found a bunch of really tiny frogs jumping by the sidewalk. It had rained a little bit during the day, and the frogs were in the puddles. The kids were catching a bunch of them with Noah and Paysen squishing them in their fingers when they tried to hold them.

After the museum, we went swimming in the pool for a little while and then went to a parking lot across the street to light a couple fireworks we bought. When we asked the firework stand what some good ones would be for small children he had given us this no light fireworks that you struck like a match. All I had heard him say was they smoked, so I struck one and was holding it in my hand. Well, after it had smoked for a short time it exploded like a black cat in my hand. It scared Noah and Tamara really bad and burnt the crud out of my fingers. I don’t know how those were supposed to be good for little kids. I was a lot more excited about the fireworks than everybody else.

Today we are going to go to the beach in Galveston. The kids are all really excited to go. Jon took the day off, and as long as the weather cooperates, it should be a lot of fun.