At the Movies: INDEPENDENCE DAY!

The cast and crew:
Jackie and Judd Scott
Charlotte, Randy, Catie, and Elizabeth Byrd
Mat, Beth, Jackson, and Luke Hames
Steve, Jenny, Ben, and Little Megan Frame

and a cameo by Christopher Byrd



The Director




The Producer



The Leading Man



The Ingenue



The crew scouted the location.



The cast looked for their motivation.



Superman will do!



They enjoyed the craft service.



They found their marks and prepared for action...



There were stunts!



There was comedy!




There were special effects!





In the Big Battle Scene...



...the tanks of King's Country attacked the giant frog of Panther Creek...



and the frog won!



The crowd went wild!



They toasted the victory with banana pudding! (YUM! Extra bananas for me!)



Stay tuned for the sequel tentatively titled: LABOR DAY!



This production was made possible by our founding fathers. God bless America!

And that's a wrap.

Spain

We went to Barcelona, Spain a couple of weeks ago for the International Environmental Film Festival. The people from the festival were all extremely nice, and we felt like we made many new friends there. After the festival was over, we decided to explore the Costa Brava which is the coastline of the Mediterranean north of Barcelona. Because of our failed attempt to go to Mexico for our 10th anniversary, we decided this wouldn't be a bad back-up trip! Of course it was so beautiful, and we both loved exploring the medieval villages, cathedrals, monasteries, beaches, and learning all about the history of Spain.

The Spanish way of life is much different than ours, and that made us feel old at first because it was hard to get used to eating dinner at 11 o'clock at night! On our first night there our cab driver kept turning up the music and telling us it was too early to go home. By the end of the drive he was calling us "sad Americans" because we were tired and it wasn't even midnight. (It was too hard to explain that it was 7am to our bodies.) But by the end of the trip we realized we would fit in well in Spain since we are both night people, and we ended up staying out until 3:00am on the night before we were supposed to fly home. We only got three hours of sleep, but we just weren't quite ready for our Spanish holiday to end.

We took 991 pictures and movies on the trip. I'm serious. I've edited them down to about 350 on our Flickr page. For the one or two of you who are interested, it takes about 20 minutes to watch the slideshow. I've picked out just a few of our favorites.

A scene inside the La Boqueria market on the famous La Rambla pedestrian mall


An authentic bodega we were taken to with film festival people


Barcelona Cathedral



Sagrada Familia



Park Guell


One of the highlights for me was the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes



Sunrise in Cadaques


Roman bridge in Besalu (I met another family from South Austin in this town!)


Medieval Village called Peratallada


Medieval Village called Pals


Castle ruins in Begur


View of Tossa del Mar


The Born district back in Barcelona


Wine! It was everywhere...


This was an epic trip. I can't believe we were only gone for one week since we were able to see so much. I'm sure we'll remember our first trip to Spain for the rest of our lives!

Recent Quotes

The other night we were out to dinner and Lukey said, "What do you call that Food Teacher?" For some reason he has always called all women in authority "teacher." This time he was talking about the waitress.

Today at Costco the cashier asked me if I wanted to donate to the children's hospital. I said, "no" because I've been asked this several times recently. But Jackson kept trying to interrupt, "What did she say? What did the Costco teacher (haha) say?" Finally when I was finished paying I told him she said, "Do you want to donate to the children's hospital." Relieved, he said, "Oh, I thought she said 'do you want to donate your children.'" I asked him if he was afraid I was going to donate him and he said, "No because I already have a really good Mommy" and gave me a hug. Awwww. What a sweet boy!!

Hotel Pool

We stayed in a hotel recently in Houston when we went down there for the Leslie Family Birthday Extravaganza (more on that later). The hotel wasn't anything special, but I thought the tile and the lighting in the pool area made for some cool pics. Here are the boys along with their cousin Ben.

Saturday Morning

This is what I found when I went to wake up the boys. I think it's about time to get the bunk beds.

Pictures!

I sent my computer off to Apple Headquarters for a "Depot" visit to get some things fixed. So while it's off at the doctor, I decided to try to download our pictures onto Mat's computer and it worked! Finally, new pictures! These two go all the way back to when we were on our way home from Spring Break, and they were taken just a few minutes apart.





And these movies were on the same road trip. People fighting sleep always makes me laugh!





I couldn't resist posting this picture that we took on the way up to Dallas. Only in Texas...love it!

10 Years and Counting

I'm very proud to say that Mat and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary on Friday. I don't have words really to express the feeling that this milestone has given me. It's makes me emotional thinking about all we've been through. The joy and sorrow we experienced with our firstborn, Frances (the Vizsla). The love/hate relationship we have with our second baby, Alpheus. And every emotion known to man that came with the two amazing boys God has seen fit for us to raise. We've taken many memorable trips together, made hundreds of friends it seems like, and watched our extended family triple in size. Best of all we are still best friends after all this time. Here's how it all began!



If you are interested in seeing more...I scanned the photos we purchased from our wedding photographer and they are on Flickr. There were many more great photos from the wedding weekend in Round Top, but you will just have to come over to the house and look through the albums with me to see those.