Finally the First Day

This could very well be the title I use every single year for the next several years, on the first day of school.  The summer is so much fun...but sometime in early August, things just begin to turn sour....quickly.  We all were beginning to anticipate this day and it finally arrived!  All three kids woke up with bright eyes this morning at 6:30...WAY earlier than all of us are use to!  I know tomorrow will be a little harder!  This morning went so smoothly though.  Everyone fell right back into our normal school routine.  Elle did almost forget her lunch, but I reminded her!  Upon walking Levi towards the first grade hall, he began saying "Can you just hug and kiss me now?"  He really didn't even want us to walk him to class, but I insisted.  This is the joys and sadness of parenthood.  You want them to be confident and independent, but to some degree it hurts your heart when they are.  Anyway, once he walked into his classroom, he never even turned around for one last look at us.  Sigh.  At least I know he confident in himself!  So now I sit here in my very quiet house, and for the first time in 3 months, my brain feels just a little bit calm.  Yes, I am excited to hear all about the day with each child, and yes, I'm very excited to enjoy this quiet day to myself!

Elle didn't mind one bit that I took a picture as she got out of the car.  :)  I didn't get any pictures of the kids with their teachers because the elementary kids are too old (so they say) for that kind of thing....I'll just get it at the end of the year!

Tea for Three

Some of the older ladies at our church planned a mother-daughter back to school tea party and devotional for yesterday.

We got all spiffied up on Saturday morning not quite knowing what to expect.

As we got there, the ladies had prepared an area for us to play dress up and have our picture taken with our daughter.  I loved this idea!

I love these pictures.  :)

After taking pictures, brunch was served.  There were plenty of cute options.

They had plenty of tea options too.  I tried to drink one...but alas, I needed more sugar than I was willing to put in there in front of other people.  I poured it out and refilled with apple juice.

Cute table decoration

After we ate, most of the girls either lead a song or read a scripture.  This alone was extremely encouraging and made all the momma hearts happy!

Here are the sweet ladies that took the time to put this together for us!

And here are all the sweet girls that came.

One Week Left

Next Tuesday at this time, I'll be dropping kids off for their first day of school.  So what that really means is, I have 7 more days to keep kids busy!  Normally, we'd just spend the next week at the pool....but the oddest thing is happening right now.  We are having lots and lots of RAIN right in the middle of August...with really no end in sight!  This is such a very unusual thing especially for central Texas.  I am thrilled to end the summer with something other than scorching heat, but this means we have to get a little more creative about how to fill all these hours!  I currently have this quote up on my kitchen window.  I thought it was appropriate.

Ava and Levi took it quite literally yesterday and went to jump in the rain for about an hour.  :)

So here's where we are on the summer bucket list:

It might be too small to read so here's a list of what we need to accomplish by Tuesday, to check it all off! (Well, I did give up on the idea of taking the kids fishing by myself.  I just can't do the bait thing.  Also we had to give up on using the pop up camper 3 times....we had reserved a place at Inks Lake for yesterday...but rain, so that wasn't our fault!)

By the Numbers:

1 Artist Trading Card left to do

1 dessert to make

19 states to finish (this isn't going to happen because Elle declared she didn't care anymore and Ava didn't argue)

11 playgrounds to do

3 painting for Lads 2 Leaders

2 Hula Cowgirl shaved ice coupons to use

3 kids going to HEB to help me pick out their lunch stuff

I CAN DO THIS!!

Waterlogged

I am getting to that point where I can barely drag myself to the pool now.  We are almost out of sunscreen, our towels are worn out and crunchy most days, our swim suits are faded, our hair is overrun with chlorine, our skin stays wrinkly and we are so very tan....yep, it's summer swimming.  Our goal was to go swimming at the pools here at least 16 times this summer and we just checked off the 16th box a few days ago....with still a week to go.  The kids beg every.single.day.  I am super thankful for these pools, since they are our only relief from the extreme heat, but I'm really just over it.  The only thing that makes it better is meeting friends there and we try to do that just about every time.  Here's a few pics I was able to get at some of our swim dates with friends.

All the kids decided to wrap their heads in their towels on this trip.

Valerie and her kids got to come in one afternoon and swim with us!

I miss this baby!

8ish more days of sunscreening to go......

We went to Paradise

Earlier this week, the kids and I took a roadtrip to see my sister's new house in of all places, Paradise, TX!  The name cracks me up.  Unfortunately there wasn't a city limit sign or we would have definitely taken a picture!  My sister texted me directions for her street and said "You'll see a sign that says Emoclew."  I just figured that her phone had autocorrected what she'd meant to spell....Nope....she bought the sign at Target and took it out to use and it had been strung backwards.  

We spent the first day just hanging out and letting the kids play.  We also went up to Brent's work to see where he worked.  On Tuesday we headed to do some hiking at the Fort Worth Nature Center and explored Greer Island.

Levi and Brooks found some walking sticks that looked like canes so they spent their hike acting like old men.

Sweaty sisters

They also had a buffalo reserve so we got to see two tired hot buffalo sitting under some trees.

We also had to get an official cousin picture at Laura's place.

After the hike we headed to downtown Fort Worth for lunch and a little water fun.  We took them to Cheesecake Factory and then to a fun candy store called It's Sugar.  They had a box of just marshmallow cereal you could buy....it was $12 so I had to turn it down.

After coming home, we let the kids roam freely while we recuperated from the hiking and all that goes along with managing five kids.  The kids ended up at an old shed on the property, making homes from scrap metal.  They proudly proclaimed, when we came to check on them, that they hadn't even found a snake yet.  

We ended the evening with making S'mores in the new fire pit Laura built!  It was SUPER hot so we didn't last long.  The kids had a great time and it was fun to spend a few days in Paradise.

Beach Friends

Although are dear friends moved away right before camp, the only ray of sunshine was that they were moving to the beach, only about 3 1/2 hours away!  We immediately planned a short trip to see them after we got back from our July travels.  We had such a wonderful time with them and it was good for the heart...all 10 of them.  (We both have family's of five :)  We also got to use our pop-up again which I love to do!

So let's just start right here.  I have never felt this greasy and sweaty in my whole life.  It was like the rain forest.  My senses were overloaded with the feel of greasy sunscreen, sticky sweat and sand every.where.on.me.  It was a lot, but it was worth it to be with our friends!

The kids had no complaint.  They spent HOURS collecting hermit crabs.  We had to break their sandy little hearts numerous times reminding them that we were not bringing any pets home.  They also handled jellyfish! like troopers.  They were mild stings from what I could tell.  I barely got in the water because most bodies of water that don't contain chlorine, scare me badly.

As I said before, we got to take our pop up and stayed here at site #141.  It was such a pretty campsite and was nice and secluded and barely anyone was there.

After the beach, we all got cleaned up (I use that term loosely...remember the rain forest reference) and headed to our campsite to roast hot dogs and S'mores together.  See, it's so pretty!

They were such troopers to come hang out with us when it was SO humid and there were plenty of bugs for everyone!

After sweating about 2 lbs off, it was time for bed.  Our pop-up A/C was GLORIOUS!  I have wanted a pop-up camper for so long for this exact reason...weather will no longer defeat us!  The next morning we took our time getting up and had simple cereal together on our picnic table.  It was S'Mores cereal.  :)

Then like anyone visiting the Rockport area, we were told we had to go see the "Big Tree." So we did.  And it was big.  And old.  Like 1,000 years old.  Moving on.

We then picked up a pound of dead shrimp and headed to the ocean to try our hand at fishing.  The fish were popping up all over the place and something was eating our bait, but the only luck we had was a crab that I happened to snag around it's pincher, with my hook.  I was pretty excited to pull this in.  Too bad we didn't pack a pot to boil him in.  He lived to see another day (unless the next fisherman kept him.)

Pretty fishing picture

After that we had all had enough of the ocean and headed to a fun pool in town.  Lauren, her baby and I spent the next 3 hours floating in a shady spot and it was glorious!  We did take a break to jump off a high dive to prove we've still got "it"....but we almost lost "it" upon entering the water after that jump!

We headed back to our respective homes and got cleaned up for a good dinner out.  We headed to Paradise Key for a yummy meal and sweet baby time.  I've missed her more than I can explain.  She makes my heart so happy!

Another family groupie!

We went and got icecream together after that...which is always a good idea.  Then we hugged and hugged some more and dragged out our goodbye way too long because it's hard to say goodbye and then hugged some more and finally we had to actually get in our car and head back to our camper.  Our tummies and hearts were so full.

We woke up bright and early Wednesday morning and had breakfast in the camper...and from sitting so close to my kids that early in the day I realized that they were really stinky, but I love them anyway and made a mental note to give them all extra time in the shower when we got home. 

It was a wonderful trip.  I can't wait to see what the next adventure will be in the pop-up and also can't wait for the next time we get to spend time with the Minzys!