HOUSTON

During the month of March, Nate had to work with his old client to finish up a project, so we all made a trip down there for a couple weeks to see old friends and Oma and Opa.

We took a nice Sunday walk at our old favorite park. We love the trails, the trees and the lakes here.

Spring was in full bloom in Houston with all the wildflowers everywhere.

Brystal picking some wildflowers.

And walking through the tall grass.

We took a trip downtown with Oma one day to Discovery Green park. We love this park and the weather was great!!

Boston loves to climb and had a great time climbing all over this park.

It is so fun to watch him discover the things around him.

And Brystal spent most of the time following around other little girls and chatting it up with them. Typical Brystal.

They have a giant water fountain right next to the park that the kids can play in. It was a little chilly, but Brystal braved it. Boston mostly just watched or, he walked around all the little fountains, careful not to get wet.

I have a picture of Brystal doing this same thing when she was a little baby here at the same spot.

Boston climbing on chairs and watching from a distance. We had a great time in Houston and loved visiting everyone.

DISNEYLAND!!!!!!

We're here!!! I was so excited I could pee my pants. We were all so excited to be here. I hadn't been since I was 4 and so this was practically a first for all of us.

They really had the place decked out for Christmas. It must have taken forever to decorate that place the way they did. In fact when it got darker, they would dim the lights and play a song on the speakers, then fake snow started falling from the sky! It was so magical I almost cried.

We started out with sleeping Beauty's castle, which ended up being really dark and scary and Brystal was begging us to get her out of there.

After coming out of the castle, we saw her... the moment we all had been waiting for. Brystal's favorite princess, Sleeping Beauty herself. When seeing her in person, Brystal was suddenly a little nervous about meeting her, but as soon as we walked away from her she said "lets go see someone else!!"

I could barely hang onto Boston during the Carousal ride. Actually that describes the whole day with Boston.

Next was the classic Dumbo ride. This was the first real ride we went on. I was pleasantly surprised that both kids loved it!

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Then we waited in line at Pixie Hollow for what we thought was going to be a crazy adventure, for about an hour. Turns out you just walk through some big grass and flowers to take your picture with Tinkerbelle. Anyways, Brystal was excited to see her. Here she can see her through the thicket of grass.

Boston kept us busy by trying to either run away, or climb on everything he could reach.

Before we met Tinkerbelle, we ran into her friend Fawn. She was really pretty, (that's what I was thinking anyways.) She had a little thing for Boston.

Once again, Brystal got a little nervous to get close.

Finally after waiting forever, we got to Tinkerbelle's house. She was so nice and polite. I commented on how cute her shoes were, then we tried to get Brystal to come get her picture taken with her. At this point I was starting to think that I was going home with a bunch of pictures of ME and all the Disney Characters.

Then it was the Christmas Parade! We saw all of our favorite people.

Cinderella....














Snow White.....














Belle and the Beast....














And Woody!

Brystal watching from a distance.

The finding Nemo submarine.

Our favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride.

In toontown we got to see Mickey and Minnie's house, and all the places they shop and play.

Mickey's laundry room.

And of course, I could not go home without riding the teacup ride. Before the ride started, Brystal sat there really still, I touched her arm and asked her if she was so excited, then without moving she says "Quit touching me." Ok.... I think she was just a bit nervous of what was about to happen. She ended up thinking the ride was fun, but her little comment was funny.

They finished the night off with fireworks and the castle had snow and ice cycles on it to give it that winter Christmas look. That is just a glimpse of how the day went but it was so much fun and so magical. I can't wait to take them back when they get older!

AMERICA'S FUNNIEST VIDEOS!

We had the opportunity of being chosen as a finalist on America's Funniest Home Videos! They called us up and I was so shocked and couldn't believe they wanted to fly us all out there expenses all paid for to be on the show. This was also Brystal's first time on an airplane, (well the first time she's actually known she was on an airplane.) She loved it and was great. She was so excited for this trip.

We got to our hotel and were greeted with an envelope telling us our schedule, and a big wad of cash for us to go out to eat. We felt like throwing the money in the air and rolling around in it. It was roughly about 750$, just for food!!

The kids were excited to just lounge around. We were 2 hours ahead, still on Houston time, so the kids went to bed at 6 and woke up at 5:30. Ya, hotel stays with kids aren't really relaxing sometimes.

We took a tour of the hotel grounds which were pretty amazing, Brystal laid out on the chair and soaked up a little sun.

We don't get out very much, as you can tell that this is very exciting for us.

Sunny California, wasn't really all that sunny while we were there. In fact most of the time it was overcast and a little rainy. But we made the most of it and went to the beach, actually we just looked at the beach from the pier. We were on Manhattan beach. We saw a few surfers, and just enjoyed watching the waves, which were way better than the waves we see in Galveston.

Me and my little babies. They had so much fun just walking up and down the pier.

Boston always loves a chance to get out and walk around by himself without mommy running after him and taking him away.

Brystal, well she's just cute.

Since we were 2 hours behind on time, the kids were exhausted by the time it was time for us to go to the studio for the show. We had to wait in the Green room the whole time since kids aren't allowed in the taping. Bosman finally konked out for a little while, but they were both still really tired.

Brystal was cute as always just chatting it up with all the AFV staff, she was of so cute and cheerful up until it was time to go out on the stage to announce the winners. So if you missed the show, you missed Brystal not being happy. I think she was just overwhelmed and didn't really know what was going on. There were bright lights and make up people, and the audience was all staring at us, it was overwhelming for me too.

Boston trying out the golf cart.

We didn't really have a chance to talk or get a picture with Tom Bergeron but I snooped around and found his dressing room and took a picture of it. That's as good as it gets, He was a really nice guy though.

In case you did miss the show, the Bennett's (us) won the 10,000 Dollar first place prize!!!!!! Woo hoo!!! We were so excited to have a little extra cash, and now it means another opportunity to go back and do it all over again for 100,000! We are just thankful for such a fun experience! Man it was such a long day of just waiting around for 5 minutes of fame, but it was worth it, obviously. And as Tom Bergeron says, "If you get it on tape, you could get it in cash!!!" And that we did.