Mail Mad

They act like they might miss JR a little bit....until I make them leave the house to mail him a letter.

 

It should also be noted they begged to stay in the car. 

 It was 3:00 in the afternoon. In Houston. In July.

Schlitterbahn #5

We did our 5th annual Schlitterbahn trip last week and it was great.

Our friends from Durango that were native Texans (and are all Texans again) met us there which made it fun for everybody.

 

 

The "big" kids were able to do their own thing and were allowed to go wherever they wanted.

(And they were very sweet to the little ones, which made it very enjoyable.)

The "little" kids, which we decided we really should call "medium" kids, had to hang with us a bit more than they would have preferred, but they had a blast...even with us old people.

The kids were first in line each morning for the 3 rides that have a long wait (they jumped the fence by our room to be first in the park).  So we had the whole day to have lots of fun without having to stand in line for hours for those rides (Master Blaster, Dark Knight, and Wolfpack).

 

 

Here's the one picture of all the kids together (waiting to boogie board).

Kyle and Knox are peeking around the others, but they're there.

And here are all the adults except for Steven.

(Liz, me, Cassidy, Brad, and Jason)

  We stayed in the same place as last year, so our cabins were just outside the pool where the kids could swim after the park closed.  (After 5 years we've got Schlitterbahn down to a science.)

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

 

So yes, a good time was definitely had by all!

Buh-Bye

We said goodbye to JR today for 3 weeks.

3 weeks!

 

Three weeks didn't seem to faze him since he started asking if we could leave for camp the second he woke up.

 

 

This isn't my best car decoration since we've been at Schlitterbahn this past week. 

I threw this together as we drove in to camp.

Speaking of driving into camp, JR didn't want to miss a thing.

 

 

Here these two are saying goodbye...they'll see him in 2 weeks when they start spark week at Camp Olympia!

Fashion Fabulous Friday

So I was trying to hold out to show you our "fancy" cruise pictures.

 

Unfortunately, we tried to buy of a CD of the ones we wanted, but they couldn't do that for some reason, and were supposed to send me a link to our pictures.

I still don't have the link, and I'm dealing with the cruise picture people, so instead you can see the ones from my camera.

And yes, I agree, we were quite fashion fabulous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A big, huge thank you to Grandpa Gary and Granny Buffie for a fantastic week.

We all agree it was the best Christmas present ever!

A New Fav

Kyle and Reed are playing a super, super short season of summer baseball.

I was going to just talk about it in one post after it was all over, but I love this picture so you have to look at it now.

Also, I have to tell you that Kyle jumps up and down (arms up) with a huge smile on his face every time he's safe on a base.  That child will find any reason to throw his own little party.

Packed

Even though JR doesn't leave for camp until Sunday, he's already all packed up.

He's been asking to pack and we got it all done yesterday.

 

And when I say "we", obviously I mean me.

 

Jason texted me after I sent him this picture and asked if JR was helping.

 

 I said, if helping means not listening when I ask him to do something and playing on his phone.

 

But 3 weeks worth of stuff fits nicely in his trunk...And no, I have no idea why he's bringing Payton Manning.

His trunk also has new sports stickers that make it "super cool".

For the Fun of It

I haven't participated in a 4th of July parade that wasn't also a contest in....well...ever.

We stayed home this year and did our local parade. 

The floats were impressive and so were the float riders (including the lieutenant governor of Texas). 

 

But if there had been a contest for bikes I would have totally won. 

(Oops, of course, I mean JR would have won.)

Kyle and Reed wanted to rollerblade, and since you can't really decorate rollerblades, I just decorated them. 

(I love that my kids think over-costuming is normal and totally participate.)

 

The parade route is long (about 2 miles) and we saw lots of friends from school.

 

 

The kids were much faster than us on their wheels, so Jason and I measured our walking pace by making sure the high school band didn't overtake us.

 

This was the only picture I was able to run ahead and snap.

 

We celebrated the end of the parade the best way we Texans know how...bull riding.