We saw two more concerts in July of this year after the Hawk Nelson one.  The first was a band called Seventh Day Slumber.  They are a rock band that does praise and worship, general rock and even Spanish songs.  They are awesome, and their version of “I Can Only Imagine” puts Mercy Me to shame.

There was another good sized crowd at this concert, though it was a little more diverse because the band does Spanish language music as well.  It was an awesome concert and at the end the lead singer gave his personal testimony and story and it was great.

For a while we thought Attic Cat had disappeared, but every once and a while she will show back up and say high to our animals by teasing them and getting them all stirred up.  Can you find her here?  The dogs did.

Here we are at a very expensive free Astros game.
Kendra’s brother Matt, and his wife Jennifer got these great club level tickets for the game, and asked us if we’d like to come.  We said that would be great, it would be a good chance to hang out with them.  Then, on our way up there my car starts messing up about 5 miles from the stadium.  That’s about 25 miles from home.  Basically I was in the fast lane driving when it basically dropped to first gear speed wise.  I managed to get off the freeway safely and get on the side roads.  We stopped the car and looked but couldn’t see or hear anything major.  We drove it over to a Home Depot parking lot nearby at a whopping 10 mph.  That was the highest it would go.  We called Matt and Jennifer and they came and waited with us for the tow truck and then took us to the game.  We thought about driving it home to avoid the tow truck, but at 10 mph it would have taken a LONG time.

Matt and Jennifer were very nice to come get us and then to take us home.  They didn’t live very close to our house, so this added a lot of driving for them.  Of course a few weeks later they moved down to our area, and it would have been much simpler then.  My car repair was about $400 with the tow.  It needed a new cam sensor, which essentially kept the engine from firing correctly.  This in a three month span where I got new tires, a new cam sensor, new window motor and new car battery.  My car is pushing it.

Little did we know it, but the game we went to was Oswalt’s last to pitch as an Astro.  It was also the last time we may ever see Lance Berkman as an Astro.  Sad.

The next week there was another concert in Kemah.  This time it was a group called Superchick.

It wasn’t near as nice weather this time.

It rained before and even during the concert.  Loads of fun!

Here’s one of the Superchicks.

And the other with their guitarist

The bass and lead guitarists are funny.  They make faces while they play.  The lead guitarist is really good.  He did a solo that rocked.

Here’s our self portrait for the night.

The next weekend we had Levi’s girlfriend Olivia over.  Here he is playing inside Annie and Clarabel, the cars that Thomas the Train pulls.

And here’s Olivia.

We also setup the tunnel.  They were running through the tunnel, into the train and then back into the tunnel.

Sometimes they even took the balls with them.  We were having to hold the tunnel steady so it wouldn’t roll off.

Olivia’s mommy is pregnant, so she decided on her own to look that way too.  I swear, Levi had nothing to do with this, and he better not until he’s married.

After a busy weekend Levi decided to put Tyler down for a nap, covering him with a snuggly.  Then he took a nap on Tyler.

One of our friends has a little girl with Spina Bifida.  They have a fund-raiser bowling thing every year.  This year we joined in at the bowling event for Team Brooklyn.  Of course due to problems with the space station Brooklyn’s dad was busy and they had to move their vacation to the weekend of the bowling.  That didn’t stop us from coming, and Levi bowled for the first time.

Our friends Natalie and Will came with their little boy Nathaniel and bowled as well.

Here Levi and I return from a triumphant toss of the ball.

And mommy helps Levi take a shot.

This wasn’t a good release, but it made it down there.

The little boy next to us had a lot of problems from his condition, and it really made us realize how blessed we are with Levi.  We also weren’t aware of the variety of problems Spina bifida can cause.  Our little buddy Brooklyn has been blessed to be relatively healthy and she does a great job with it all.

Here’s Will, Natalie and Nathaniel. 

And our family.

And all of us together.

We went to one more game this year and actually got to see the Astros win this time.  Plus there was no car repair involved.

This was Levi’s first game for quite a while and he liked it.

He liked his free backpack he got too.

But most of all he liked the Taco Bell sauce packet races midway through the game.  He couldn’t understand why they only did it once and kept asking for them.  He still talks about them weeks later.

Rapt attention for the race.

Checking it all out.

Self portrait and one of Levi’s patented crazy smiles.

Luckily finally someone hit a home run so the train moved.  Levi loved that.  The Astros scored lots of runs, so he got to hear the train whistle, but that’s not the same as it moving.

Woo Hoo!!

My mom and step dad George go to case lot sales through the military every once and a while and get lots of good deals on stuff.  One time they got some steaks cheap.  We had them in our freezer because they ran out of space.  Just recently we had them over and grilled those steaks up.  Levi isn’t a beef eater, but the rest of us really enjoyed them.

I’m sure it will be a while again before I post.  Time just gets away when you’re busy chasing a 2.5 year old.