The Last and the First

Today was the last day of school, which also makes it the first day of summer!!!!  What a fun, long, exhausting day it has been! 

 

We started at 10:30 with watching the first grade awards.  This picture was taken as the principal officially declared them to be 2nd graders!  They all cheered!

We headed back to Ava's class to have pizza, cookies and watch a movie.  Ava and Levi were sharing a chair. (and without conflict!!)

Then around 11:45, we headed up to Elle's class for silly awards and more pizza.  Elle received the "Little Miss Sunshine" award for always being a "big-hearted, happy-go-lucky girl."  Character awards mean more to me than any A she could get.

Levi was in hog heaven.  This was his second round of pizza and in Elle's class the girls love to play with him and he loves when they give him attention. 

I pulled Elle away from the party for just a minute to take her picture in front of the 5th grade hall.  I teared up at least 3-4 times from the moment we parked the car at the school until we left today, imagining her graduating from elementary.  I need to get this crying stuff over with before she's actually there in a year or I'm going to be a big puddle of tears on the cafeteria floor! (p.s. today the kids were invited to wear their pajamas so please know I would have usually required both girls to dress a little nicer than this!)

And here's my Ava getting ready to head down the 2nd grade hall!  After this, it was about 1pm and we headed home for our last quiet moment until August!

When the girls came home today, I had a sign waiting for them!  I cheered them on as they pulled into the driveway.  They got so excited!  I love what each of them is holding.  These weren't props from me.  This is truly what they came home from school with!

Interestingly enough, within five minutes of getting home, a front blew through and it rained for about 20 minutes!  I don't think that has every happened on the last day of school!  The girls immediately headed outside to play in it and as the rain slowed down, Ava begged Shawn to come jump on the trampoline and spray her with the water hose.  It was so fun to watch both of them just enjoying the moment.

After dinner tonight, as is customary when we celebrate just about any occasion, we headed to Cherry Berry for our first cool treat of the summer! 

Let the fun begin!

An Aviator and A Honor Roll

Today was a fun day for Elle at school.  For an history assignment, the kids were given a famous (or not so famous) Texan to research.  They were suppose to be a living wax museum.  They had to dress as their character and give a 10-20 second speech every time someone pressed their "button."  Elle was Bessie Coleman.  You can call Elle or google her name if you really want info.  My job was to get her to look something like an aviator...Shawn helped with research.  Anyway all the kids looked cute and Elle did a great job giving her speech.  Later this morning, we went to Elle's end of the year awards ceremony.  We were SO proud of her and all that we she has accomplished this year!  Somehow she got A honor roll for the entire year!  I felt like Shawn and I should have been able to walk up there and accept the award with her, but I think she wouldn't have appreciated that very much.  And now....2 days separate us from having a FIFTH GRADER!

Camping

Well we have another camping trip under our belt.  It's a monumental effort every single time we go camping.  We pack like we are going to be gone for weeks.  It takes a whole lot to prepare for a family of 5 to head out into the "wilderness."  All I can hope is that my kids have good memories of these times together.  I think as long as I continue providing a steady diet of S'mores on these trips, everything will be just fine.

We started the trip by immediately spotting and killing a snake.  In hindsight, the snake probably should have been kept alive since it was harmless, but still I don't think it would have gone well if it had slithered into our camp/tent area.

After the snake incident, we began putting the tent up...as it lightly rained.  This wasn't a reassuring thing.  But it did make us put the tent up much more quickly.  And then all the "neighborhood" kids stopped by to check out our house.

Then I sent my kids to check out our neighbor's house.  The rain had pretty much stopped at this point, thankfully!

One of the families that camped with us brought their four-wheeler and took the kids for rides up and down the river.  The kids LOVED it!

Here's the group that braved camping with kids! (One family didn't stay that night, because they didn't have a tent big enough...lucky them!)

We woke up bright and early this morning.  When you don't have TV to watch, watching bacon fry becomes your entertainment.

And here's our traditional picture in front of the tent.  And Levi is crying hysterically, which I believe was caused by us asking him to quickly take a picture in front of the tent.

Remember the Alamo...in 4th Grade

Elle was in a play this week called The Alamo.  She was a dancing, singing, wooden gun-toting cowgirl and she sure did make us proud!  I am in awe of the music teachers and what they are able to accomplish with 10 year olds!

I love this picture because she does this with her lips every time she's nervous and has done this since she was very little. 

If you zoom in, she's almost right in the front middle.

15th Anniversary

Yesterday was our 15th anniversary.  We went to Europe.....back in October.  Then last weekend, we went to San Marcus.  But that just wasn't quite enough for us, I guess.  Even though we have celebrated in some major ways for this anniversary, I can't just let the day go by and do nothing!  So we got a babysitter and headed into Austin for a few hours.  It was a wonderful way to cap off all the celebrating!  Both of us are in shock.  We just can't comprehend that we have really been married for 15 years!  We aren't old enough! lol!  Here's the 65 more....

 

Elle took this picture right before we all left the house.

This was a great place to eat in Austin.  Yummy tacos and a really cool ambiance inside.

We passed this "famous" wall after dinner and thought it was the perfect time to stop and take a picture. This wall is iconic for lots of people who are taking couples pictures.  :)

Then we headed to Peter Pan Putt Putt golf.  We've gone here before, but only done the west side course.  Last night we did the east side.  I love both courses.  They are exactly what a putt putt place should be like!  This particular hole is the hardest one I've ever attempted.  Both of us gave it at least 10-15 tries before giving up and places the ball into the whale's mouth. 

This one was a little awkward.  You putt the ball facing the front of the rabbit, but it always seems to stop right at the bunnies booty. 

The moment of truth...adding the score and knowing it's going to be very close.

This is the face of a person that just realized they are the winner!!

....by a whopping 2 points.....it's a win either way.  All is right in the world and we can continue on in our marriage.

Summer is so close....

...and this is proof!  My blackberry vine is flourishing and we are reaping the benefits!

Bridging to Brownies

Last night, our Girl Scout troop had it's Bridging Ceremony.  That takes place when a girl goes from one level of G.S. up to the next.  Ava was Bridging from Daisies to Brownies last night.  This is a picture of our troop.  It is B I G.  We have 21 girls registered and almost all of them show up for each meeting!  It is a wonderful chaotic time!

I also am officially a Girl Scout Co-Leader!  I didn't realize we were going to do this, but I got pins and all!  I truly love working with this troop.  It makes it easy that the leader is amazing at what she does!

Here's Ava getting her bridging certificate and new pins...this means a trip down to the Girl Scout Store soon for a new uniform!

And here's Elle getting her pin for her second year in Girl Scouts.  She will bridge from Junior to Cadette next year and then things bump up a notch on service projects and patch earning.

I was also given an awesome huge tote with the girl scout emblem embroidered on the front.  It's funny because when Melissa, our troop leader set the tote on the table, I thought to myself how cute it was and wished I could have one...not knowing it was going to be mine!  :)

Here's Ava officially being lead across the bridge to become a Brownie.

And Elle escorted two Brownies who were bridging to Juniors.

Here we are in our friendship circle.  We sang "Make New Friends" and I wanted to cry.  I can still remember singing this when I was a Girl Scout.

Each of the girls also got a cutting from this plant that our troop leader had received during her first year of leading, back in 2007. 

My girls with their leaders!

Pre-Fifteenth

In a few short days, Shawn and I will celebrate our 15th anniversary! We knew we wanted to do some kind of short little overnight trip, but our anniversary weekend falls on Memorial Day weekend and we didn't want to deal with that kind of crazy, so we celebrated the weekend before! 

My parents, sister and nephew came in around lunchtime on Friday and we shot out the door pretty quickly after! We headed to San Marcos for the day.  We went shopping at the outlets and of course we had to have our course mapped out...couldn't waste any precious non-child time!

I sure did love this pink Levi's shirt...but I refuse to pay $20 for a T-shirt.

After shopping for hours, we ate dinner and then headed to the movie Godzilla.  It was cheesy greatness!  It was definitely more real that the original but still somewhat cheesy.

Saturday morning we spotted a Krispy Kreme and wouldn't you know, the light was on....we can't pass of a free donut...it's a sin to.

Then we headed to what I really wanted to do for our anniversary.  Sit and fish.  Yep, really.  I just wanted to sit quietly, watching a bobber and reeling in a fish every once in a while.  We had never fished at McKinney Falls so we gave it a try.

So, after about 8 casts and gale force winds and not.a.single.bite.at.all., I gave up and started reading a magazine, which was much more relaxing than watching a bobber do nothing except float downstream from the extreme wind.

 

So after being there for a while, we gave up altogether.  I looked at Shawn and said "I really need to catch a fish.  Let's head to Craig's!"  Craig goes to church with us and has a perfect shady fishing spot right in his backyard.  We headed that way and before the bobber hit the water, it was plunging under...of course the fish were tiny, but it was still fun. 

Shawn ended up using his catch as live bait and he kept catching large bass using the small fish on the hook, but could never get a bass to swallow the fish all the way.  It was still a great relaxing time.

And we have one more celebration to go.  Thursday, our actual anniversary is a planned date night!  Some years you just need to celebrate a little extra for all the hard work it took to get there!