First Summer Swim

It seems that my childrens entire summer days will revolve around the question "Are we going to the pool today?"  Even though it's been overcast and chilly in the water, I've taken them to the pool twice already.  It's only been open 2 days this week...

I officialy DON'T have to get in the water anymore with Levi...thought I'm still not completely positive he would be able to swim in deep water...which is why he stays in the shallows...and I catch up on some reading.  (I was interrupted at least 9 times while reading one chapter.)

Here's to good ol' summer pool passes!

Pedernalas, Take 2

Summer and Camping; two words that would not be possible for me, without our sweet little Pop Up.  We picked the kids up on their last official day of school and headed straight for Pedernalas Falls State Park with a car full of firewood and marshmallows...and a few non essentials. 

I tried a new recipe for dinner called Tex Mex White Bean Chicken Foil Packets.  They were pretty good....I'd tweak it a few ways next time but they made us full.  

The girls brought their hammocks which were wonderful and miserable the whole time.  "Who touched my hammock."  "Can they share with me?"  "Get away from my hammock!"  sigh.  

Levi entertained himself with the shovel and tried to entertain himself with the hatchet, until he almost hit Elle in the head with it.  Not ready.

Here I am on Friday morning making my favorite camp breakfast.  It's called a Breakfast Burger and we like to add grape jelly!

After breakfast we headed down to the Pedernalas river and it was wonderful.  The river was lined with Cypress Trees and there wasn't a soul in sight.  It was overcast and perfect for playing in the water!

Elle and I even had a little time to talk.  She likes to talk A LOT lately and just wants to feel like we are listening so I gave her my undivided attention.  Later she said this was one of her favorite parts of the campout.  :)

Ava was proud to say that she was the only one that got ALL the way in the water.

Campsite #7 was wonderful!  We attempted this trip at almost the exact same time last year.  This is when Elle and I got SUPER sick and after Shawn put up the pop up, had to turn right back around and take it back down and drive us home.  That was a bad memory but this one has definitely made up for that last one!

If only the self timer had taken 3 more pictures....as soon as this picture snapped, wasps tried to attack Shawn, Elle and Levi.  Levi F R E A K E D out completely, running and screaming and crying and just totally losing it.  By the way, no one was stung, but I guess it was traumatic nonetheless!

This is our 6th adventure in our Pop Up!

Our Marriage Can Vote!

We went on a road trip for our 18th anniversary and it was wonderful!  Shawn took me on a Painted Church tour in our area.  We drove around 250 miles through towns like Flatonia, Schulemberg, Warrenton and ended up in Round Top by way of the Blue Bell Factory in Brenham!

These churches are in tiny towns and yet look like they belong in Europe!

This is the smallest active parish in the US!  It was TINY inside!

We headed to the Blue Bell Factory and of course, I earned my Blue Bell patch.

Can you guess which cup is mine?  It was a hard patch to earn, but I worked hard and did it!

After filling our bellies with icecream, we headed to our Bed and Breakfast called The Prairie.  It was wonderful.  We stayed in our own little cottage called "Faith" and it was so so so cute inside!  It was perfect!

For dinner we ate at Royers in Round Top and it was DELICIOUS!

Saturday, we headed back into Round Top to do a little shopping.  Round Top has two really big weekends where people from all of the US converge to antique shop.  Those weekends are in April and September or October.  Otherwise it's a pretty sleep town, but we did have fun browsing in Junk Gypsy's store.  I bought another patch of course.  :)  It said "Not All Who Wander Are Lost."  Love that saying.

Also found the perfect sign to hang in my house!  ;)

Shawn did a WONDERFUL job planning this entire trip and I now have sweet memories to go with #18!

5 years of Girl Scouts

Monday, we celebrated another fun year with our Girl Scout Troop, and that makes FIVE years we've been doing Girl Scouts.  Both girls have agreed to do at least one more year....and then I'm not sure!  But we've had the best time and the year to come promises to be our best year yet!  

The highlight of this ceremony, at least in my opinion, was me leading our troop in a loud singing of This Girl is on Fire, which I like to sing to them every night at bedtime, when we go camping.  :) 

My Day

For Mother's Day this year, I told Shawn that I just wanted to go do something fun with our family.  He planned a trip down to Austin, which seems to have endless fun activities!  We picked up pizza at my new favorite pizza place called Via313.  You MUST try their pizza.  Then, we headed to Zilker park.  That night in Austin, we were able to go watch an outdoor play of Shakespears, A Comedy of Errors.  We sat our blanket down about 2 hours before the show and had our picnic pizza dinner.  Then we headed across the parking lot to Barton Springs.  We've been a few times, but always without the kids and they've been begging to go.  It is SOOOO cold, so we haven't ever taken them before.  They LOVED it, though Ava was the only one of the kids that got all the way in.  After showering off, we headed back to Zilker Park and waiting for the play to start.  At 8pm, it got underway and Shawn and I realized that we aren't very cultured because we had a VERY hard time following the words....we stayed until intermission and then headed home a little after 9.  It was the perfect Mother's Day for me!

Another Field Day in the Books

You know it's almost summer when field day rolls around.  We got to spend a few hours in the hot sun with our 2 youngers on Friday.  It may not be my *favorite* thing in the world to do, but both of them sure do love having us there!  I did get to play the most odd game of putt-putt I've ever played.  When you have 100ish 4th graders running around, it makes a civilized game of putt putt kind of hard. ha!

Easter!

Shawn asked me last night why I never posted Easter pictures....I thought I did!  I could swear I remember posting them on the blog....but there's no post with pictures so here we go!  Our Easter from this year forward will be a little different.  We will always be at the Lads to Leaders convention so Easter has to be done a little different.  

After worship on Sunday, we headed to a cute little historical home, that's open to the public and took some family pictures!

After that, we began the journey home!  The Easter bunny had visited!

We also brought home an extra kid for the afternoon!  The Easter bunny even left something for him!

And me!!!

Then it was time to hunt Easter eggs!!