Houston, TX

Our next stop on our trip was Houston, Texas!  Tyler's older brother and his family have lived there for a year.  Cameron, their oldest, was getting baptized.   Their youngest, baby Addison, was getting blessed. Plus, it was the fourth of July weekend!  Perfect for a Sherman family reunion!

Our van's A/C went out about 4 hours before Houston!  After a quick stop to a mechanic, we found our A/C problem was going to be labor extensive and costing plenty of $$$.  We opted to get the problem fixed once we got to Houston.  So we enjoyed traveling the rest of the way in the hot, Texas sun with windows rolled down! Once we got into Houston, the new mechanic gave us a courtesy check over our whole vehicle.  On top of the large repair with the A/C, the mechanic found two other repairs that needed to be done right then.  They were very large repairs, as well!  Not wanting to risk any problems as we traveled, we got everything taken care of.... $5000 later!!! We had the inconvienence of not having a car for 3 days, which was pretty much our whole visit in Texas.  We did a lot of shuttling with Scott and Errin's 2 cars, because we not only had our family to deal with, but we had 7 other people who flew into the airport needing rides.  We made it work and we were glad to get the repairs done (which some mechanic should have found a long time ago.) And that we got the van fixed while we were already planning on being in Houston.  It would have been mighty inconvienent if we had to have a 3 day repair done in the middle of no where as we were traveling. So we are counting our blessings!

So besides that little side story, we enjoyed our visit!  The kids enjoyed playing in the large backyard and with the swing set.  We had a water fight as well.  

 

 

We dressed everyone up festive for the holiday.  Mandy and I complained to each other about how our girls hate getting their hair done each day.  We decided we would try a fun hair-do on the girls and pretend like it's something we do all the time!  Ha Ha!  Lexi and Makenzie get along so well and were happy to be twins. 

Grandma, of course, needed pictures with her grandbabies!  

 Just the boys!

 Now the girls!

 The kids would gather to any electronic device that was on.  This is how we found them one morning when that was only thing they could access.

 

 Our Fourth of July got rained out!  (Same story as last year)  The rain was hit and miss in the evening, so we took the chance that the city would still do fireworks for us to see.  We went to view them at the church parking lot, and just when we were giving up, they lit the night sky. 

This is the whole Sherman Family (minus Mandy's husband who had to stay home and work)

I thought this was pretty cute.... our 2 little cat-nappers! Lilly did pretty well on the trip.  She would make her self comfortable wherever she found space.  Sometimes she would get anxious and meow, so we would put her in her crate. 
 

 

We took Lexi with us as we made the drive to Utah.  Everyone else flew home.  We had a packed car!!!  Just looking at this picture makes me so glad I am not in the car anymore!