Peach Pickin Time

We made our yearly pilgrimage to San Marcus in June to pick some peaches and spend time with Uncle Cliff, Aunt Sylvia and Cousin Scotty.  We LOVE going to see them!

Learning to drive...if only cars were this slow and this heavy....we wouldn't worry so much about letting her drive son!

Scotty is so patient with the kids and was showing leaving how to drive too!

Sure do love Uncle Cliff!

When you can't quite reach, it's Scotty to the rescue!

And when your legs get tired, even if your a big girl, he gives you a ride!

I love trying out new tools.  I got to use a torch while we were there to try to melt off a whatamacalit from a doohickey.

On A Mission

For this summer's mission trip we headed back down to Wharton/El Campo to continue helping with the clean up from Hurricane Harvey almost a year ago!  They still have so far to go, but hopefully our little powerhouse of a youth group gave hope back to a few families!

We spent most of the week sanding and prepping walls for texture, repairing, taping, and floating dry wall, cutting and installing drywall, texturing the walls and finally painting as much as we could get done!  We worked hard and learned many new skills!  

Each evening, we came back to the "boys" house and swam and played games together.  The kids grew so much closer together and everyone had a great time!

On the last afternoon, we made the drive to Matagorda Beach with the kids.  The waves for scary and I spent the whole time counting heads...it was easy when they were buried in the sand!  

Talent(?) Show

We did our 2nd annual talent show to kick off summer!  Ava is fully in charge of this amazingness! I'm not sure if you could call it "talent" but it was definitely entertaining!

I started this evening.  I was a french painter that was going to paint the kids portraits.  I started off painting them and then threw it down and told them I hated it and wanted to start again.  On the 2nd canvas I had already glued famous portraits and had props for them to put on to look like the portraits.  I painted a bit and then turned it around!  They were mesmerized and then realized it was stuff I had printed off.  They actually liked the 1st one better and Levi has it in his room now! Ha!

Elle lip synced to something I can't remember....but I swear it was memorable. lol

Ava lip synced and made up an interpretive dance to go with it. Also lol

Levi showed his contortionist skills!

Shawn mimed a rather disgusting digestive issue. LOL

Elle lip synced another song but made an outfit to go with it!  This was actually pretty good and I think it was a Beatles song.

Then everyone cast their vote.  I came in a respectable 3rd place!

Potty Humor came in 2nd!

Elle's sergeant pepper rendition came in 1st!  We have all grown to love this talent show.  It's so fun to be silly together!

50 is OK

 My brother, sister and I hatched a plan to whisk my parents away to Beaver's Bend, OK to celebrate their 50th anniversary, at the end of May!  We planned this for over a year!  Everyone was so excited to be a part of this and to truly celebrate F I F T Y years of marriage for my parents!!!

We headed up a day early and stayed at a cute little motel with a pool.  Our kids were in heaven from the get-go.

After everyone converged on our amazing cabin called Turning Leaf, we began exploring Beaver's Bend.  It has great hiking trails!

I could have hiked for a week and not gotten tired of the scenery.  

Here's Nikolai giving a knife demonstration...he is ALL about knives and how to sharpen them!

This was our first vacation as a family since all of us left home!

I tried fishing...but figured out after buying a license the only kind of fishing that caught anything here was fly fishing. Now I know for next time!

One day, we decided to do a little canoe trip with whoever wanted to go.

 Here's how we split up in boats.

Everything was hunky dorey....until we came upon a drop off.  We are all pretty terrified!  Ok, not my dad and not Shawn but yes to everyone else.  We didn't realize they had a camera set up at this exact location to catch the look of sheer panic on our faces as we entered this waterfall!

We didn't tip but it was SCARY!

This picture cracks me up and is opposite of their usual dispositions.  I didn't buy the picture of my sister and brother's experience...but there's was the worst.  They definitely crashed and lost stuff to water and thought Grayson was going to go for a swim.  They both had bruises on their legs, but we did save all their belongings.....not sure if everything survived the waterlogging though.  

On our last night there, we had a special dinner and cupcakes with toppers the kids decorated and ended by playing the Not-So-Newlywed Game with my parents.  It was quite hilarious!

After going through their wedding album, my mom pulled out her wedding dress and veil which had never been out of the box(!) and let Elle try it on.  My mom was absolutely tiny when she got married!!!!

It was a wonderful trip and hopefully they know how much we appreciate them sticky together through all those difficult times!  What an example!