Summer Fun: Week 6

The theme of last week was “Beating the Heat”.  Well, this week we spent the week hiding from the rain.  The rain is much needed in the area right now and I am grateful for it.  You just always hope that God blesses you with bright sunshine on the weeks when the kid’s have swim lessons.  Luckily, the rain managed to come mostly in the late afternoons and evenings so the kids only had to endure one make up swim lesson for week 1.
Getting ready for swim lessons to start…

I had warned them that morning that because of the recent rain, the water might be a little cooler than normal.  Can you see the excitement on their faces about the thought of having to crawl into the cold water in just a few moments?  I remind you these are my children who OFTEN wear sweatpants to bed in the middle of summer.



Addison is learning about pool safety with the class.

Practicing her “scoops” around the pool….

Shortly after this photo was snapped, I was asked to put my camera away which is why I don’t have any action shots of Dalton.  Apparently the Y has a policy against posting pictures of kids in bathing suits on the internet and has asked parents to refrain from taking photos which I completely understand.  These pictures didn’t seem to compromise the integrity of  any of the children, so I felt okay to post them on our “somewhat” private blog.  However (and this is somewhat of a rant), perhaps someone should let the Y know that the Y is posting pictures of the kids in their bathing suits on their facebook page.  (Okay, rant over and moving on!)
Since rain was in the forecast for most of the week, we took advantage of yet another Groupon (have I mentioned I love all those coupon sites?) to visit one of the many inside play lands around our great city.  We met up with some friends there.  The kids had a great time playing and I enjoyed catching up with some ladies I don’t see often enough. 

Friday the 13th rolled around and we celebrated the day by scoring some free food at our nearby Chick-fil-a. 


In years past, I’ve only dressed up the kids for Cow Appreciation Day.  This year I decided to join in the fun and made myself a costume as well.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), there wasn’t anyone around to snap a group photo.  We did get several chuckles and a few compliments on our cow costumes.  I felt pretty silly walking in at first, but the excitement on the kid’s faces quickly helped me to get over my feeling of embarrassment.  Hopefully the day earned a place in the memory of my precious children.

Summer Fun: Week 5

Nothing says summer fun quite like an indoor campout, especially when you are trying to beat the Texas heat.  That is just what the kids did during the first week of July.

For whatever reason, they ENJOY sleeping on the hard playroom floor as long as a tent is overhead.  I’m sure getting to stay up late and watch movies into the wee hours of the morning helps too!

Since staying up late also meant sleeping in late, the 10am start time to the summer movies was right up our alley.  In past years, Addison has not made it through an entire movie at the theaters sitting quietly in her seat.  This year, she really seems to enjoy going and staying for the whole thing so we’ve made going to the movies a weekly outing.

This week of summer fun also happened to encompass the Fourth of July holiday.  It’s a rare treat that Blake is home on a weekday, so we took advantage of spending the day as a family and celebrating the holiday with friends.

Enjoying the Schertz Parade that morning….

Making and enjoying some yummy Fourth of July treats…

Making homemade rockets with Daddy…..

We passed some time in the late afternoon by getting some of our workbook pages complete and working on our patterning skills.

 

(Notice Belle is ready to help if any of the fruit loop colors are not needed in the pattern.)

 

 

 

 

The first pattern was a little too “easy”, so Addison decided to challenge herself with a three color combo.

 

 

Her finished work of art with a proud big brother looking on….

That evening we headed over to what used to be an unknown secret parking spot to watch the fireworks from afar.  Apparently word is getting out about our unknown secret because we enjoyed the fireworks with several hundred of our closest friends.

We continued to beat the heat that week by relaxing with some friends in their neighborhood pool.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the kids splashing with their friends which I need to do because these near and dear friends are moving at the end of the month.  The pro’s and con’s of living in a military town….meeting lots of fun people but having those same fun friends move away just a few short years later.  However, they did invite our family to come visit them in their new stomping grounds of D.C. sometime in the next two years which we are planning to take full advantage of sooner rather than later.

We finished our week with a picnic at Hemisphere Park and School House Rock Live! at the Magik Theater.  Neither Blake nor I are quite old enough to say we grew up watching School House Rock during Saturday morning cartoons, but the “I’m just a bill” song did bring back some rather fond memories of Jess making me listen to that song OVER and OVER again in high school and perhaps even college.  Did anyone ever doubt that she would grow up to be a lawyer?

Blogging about our summer adventures isn’t quite the same as scrapbooking them in photo albums, but I sure have enjoyed “journaling” our summer activities over the past few weeks.  It has made me be more intentional to do something fun and memorable with the kids almost every day of the summer vacation and it will serve as a reminder of the blessings we are given each day.  I hope that you all enjoy reading about our adventures as much as I enjoy blogging about them.

Summer Fun: Week 4

Week four of summer vacation has come and gone!  No one had summer camp this week, which means we all (the kids and I) were able to take advantage of finally sleeping in and sleep in we did….

We spent most of our days relaxing at home, going to the summer $1 movies or swimming with friends.  One afternoon, the kids were getting a little restless, so we decided to pull out some craft supplies and prepare our cow outfits for the upcoming Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a. 

Since we were able to spend the week sleeping in, we also took advantage of some late evening kite flying.

We also worked on teaching Rudder how to sit.  He is catching on pretty quickly!

We finished our week by celebrating Uncle Tony and Aunt Margaret’s 60th Wedding Anniversary with family and friends.

Sixty years of marriage is quite an accomplishment and their four children and two grandchildren threw quite a party!  I can’t wait until I have the privilege of celebrating 60 years of wedded bliss with my one and only.

This kids enjoyed dancing the night away…..

Macca and Poc joined in on the fun…

Poc and Dalton

Macca and Addison

We finished off the weekend with a Sunday morning visit from Poc on his way to Austin.  Dalton thought he needed a lesson in Mario Kart.

All in all, it was a great week followed by an even better weekend spent with family.  Can’t wait to see what week #5 brings.