Girls (with Kids) Road Trip!

In mid-August, Aaron and Jason headed north for a week to go see four major league games in four ball parks and to go to the Global Leadership Summit, so naturally, Natalie and I decided that was a good excuse for us to go on a little road trip of our own. A few minutes after the guys pulled out of the driveway, we loaded up the kiddos and headed for Houston! The drive there was interesting to say the very least. Five kids ages 3-10, there is no shortage of noise. (I've got a video I'll try to upload. So far, no luck with it.) But with a stop at Buckee's, a movie or two, and the ability only a mom can have to tune out the noise and have a decent conversation, we made it with everyone in one piece.

[Applause.]

We stayed at Anthony's house (Natalie's brother), and when we arrived, Savannah (Natalie's sister) and Carlos (her husband) had pizza waiting for us and we had a great evening just hanging out. Later, we were happy to have Lindsey drive to Houston to spend a couple of days with us too due (sadly) to being let go a week early from her job. But we were happy to have her!

The next day, we took the kids to the  Houston Museum of Natural Science, and fun was had by all. We followed it up by taking them to a downtown splash pad and letting them run around and eat snow cones and be crazy.

The grown ups may or may not have gotten Pink Panther ice creams from the ice cream cart.

Tuesday, we decided it would be fun for us all to go to Galveston for lunch at Shrimp 'n Stuff and then to play at the beach. The first half of the day, we had our doubts that we would make it and that it would turn out to be a good day.

But we did make it, and then when the clouds came and covered up the sun, it made for an absolutely glorious afternoon for all. We finished off the day with burgers that Carlos grilled for us by the pool at their apartment. It was such a nice day!

Carson, Jackson, Madi, Abby, and Reagan in Galveston

Natalie and Madison

Lindsey

The next day we had lunch with Natalie's grandma and aunt at Denny's before we headed back home.

We got back and I decided the kids and I would just stay at Natalie's that night since I'd have all the kids the next day (Nat was going to a conference). Since our family had just been given season passes, we decided to go to Schlitterbahn for a few hours, which was (of course) a blast.

So thankful for such a great family that we can have fun with!

Reagan, Carson, Jackson, Madi, and Abby at Schlitterbahn

College Station

At the start of the summer, I had grand plans for visiting with family and having all of the nieces and nephews stay with us for several days and such. And then I looked up--and summer was over. Where did the time go? So a few days before school started, the kids and I hopped in the car to go spend the day in College Station with Valerie and her kids. We left early, early so that we could maximize our time there, and we made it there by about 9:00.

The kids had been wanting to visit the campus of Texas A&M, so Aunt Val gave us all the tour (including the Kyle Stadium, the baseball field, and the student center). Abby and Carson really enjoyed it, and, after years of being a huge UT fan, Abby finally said that she'd like to be an Aggie.

The rest of the day, we had a great time hanging out. We went to Double Dave's for lunch and then enjoyed spending the rest of the day at their house where Valerie and I sat on the couch talking while the kids played for hours upstairs.

Loved getting to spend the day with my amazing sister and can't wait to go back!

First Day of School (and Big Changes)

Summer has flown by, and now it's back to school time. I can't help but get excited this time of year with all the fresh, new school supplies filling every store. It's the same feeling I get when Spring arrives--there's a sense of newness, of a fresh start, of beginning again. And, while this is something I always feel at the start of a new school year, it's even more so this year because we're doing things a little differently this year...

We are home schooling.

This is something we've very much been going back and forth on and seriously considering for the past year and a half or so. And just to clarify, it's not because we hate public school or because we want to shelter our kids. We actually have really loved our years at Ward Elementary, and we are so supportive of families who choose public school! This just seemed like the right move for us at this stage of our family's life.

I've come to realize that the "busy seasons" in life are not really "seasons" so much. They never seem to end, and then when they do, they're back before long. Being in ministry this seems to amplify this quite a bit because there are so many obligations outside of the regular 9-5 (meetings, studies, coaching, building relationships, etc.). The past couple of years, I've really come to dread our "normal" schedule, especially since mine and Aaron's hours tend to be somewhat flexible to accommodate for the aforementioned extra responsibilities, but the kids' school schedule is not. We're up early to take the kids to school (even on Aaron's day off), we pick up the kid(s) at 2:45, usually Abby had tutoring until 4:00, then we come home and stay on them to finish their homework until they're done (may be 5:30 or 6:00), fuss at them to go get their rooms clean/chores done, call them down for dinner, spend an hour together (if we're lucky enough not to have anything like meetings, Girl Scouts, or baseball going on), then off to bed and start the whole thing over again tomorrow. It's exhausting for everyone, and I kept feeling like my kids didn't have any time to be kids. Not to mention the fact that I felt like all I was ever doing was fussing at my kids and telling them what to do. And none of us were ever at our best at 4:00, even after going to Sonic for happy hour.

There will be things about it that'll be hard. For one, Aaron and I had really come to enjoy our date day together on Mondays while the kids were at school. Now we'll just have to schedule dates like normal people. It'll be different having the kids home all the time, but I just love them at this age, and I think it'll be [mostly] a great time.

I'm sure there'll be time for me to unpack the rest later, but for now...

Here are pics from our first day of school! Abby slept until I woke her up at 8:30 (which is very strange for her, but I guess she was just taking advantage of the opportunity). We started the day off with a celebratory breakfast at Starbucks with Dad. It was long past the time they would've been at school in years prior, and they thought that was cool.

After that, we made a quick stop at the grocery store before heading home to start our school work.

Abby is in 5th grade (age 10) and Carson is in 3rd grade (age 8). We're using Sonlight for our core curriculum, and then are supplementing with Teaching Textbooks Math, Spelling Power, and more. So far, we're enjoying it!

By the end of day one (and even now after making it through day two), everyone was still happy, all the work got done, and they were able to go play/nap/relax by mid-day. So far I'm feeling such a peace about this and can't wait to see what's in store.

Summer 2014 [July]

July was a very full month. We did a lot and had a great time. I've tried to highlight most of it here with the photos I quickly downloaded from my iPhone. The only thing not mentioned that I thought was incredibly noteworthy was that Aaron was the main speaker for a week at Master's Camp, and as I hear, it was awesome! (He also had another speaking gig in June for City Church as the camp speaker that I forgot to mention.) Here are a few more of our favorite moments...

Rope swing in Old Town Helotes

We had to have our roof repaired. Bye-bye money.

Try to stay cool at the neighborhood pool!

Picked up the Anne of Green Gables series again. Love!

A trip to our favorite water hole in Bandera

"Days go by, I can feel 'em flying like a hand out the window in the wind..."

Rain and getting stuck in the mud at Mattie & Grandaddy's

A little front porch sittin' at Mattie & Grandaddy's.

Perot Museum in downtown Dallas

My little scientist at the Perot

A trip to the Perot Museum with Mattie

Bella, our watch dog

The kids have loved Meals on Wheels

Time with cousins

Logging minutes to earn rewards for reading!

Legos and creativity

Summer 2014 [June]

I've done a terrible job at documenting life for quite some time now. In an effort to not lose entire chunks of time, I am at the very least importing a slew of photos from my iPhone and doing my best to document some of the highlights of our summer!

 - Habitat for Humanity Project with Compass Church. Very hot, but very rewarding!

- We got to enjoy dinner with our good friends Ashley & Harlan when they came to town! Always love hanging out with these two!

-Abby got to start doing a little babysitting! She loves little kids, plus she's trying to save money for a tablet, so she got to go help a few of our church friends with their little ones while they got stuff done around the house. She loved it and has saved up quite a bit of money!

-I cooked. Well, at least once. And I have a picture to prove it. It just looks summery to me. I couldn't resist. And now I'm hungry.

-The kids and I visited the San Antonio Shoe Factory, which I never even new was here, but we absolutely loved it. Great place to go if you're here. It also happens to have a lot of cool photo taking spots like this one.

-The kids and I went up to Howe for a few days and stayed with my parents. Relaxing and nice, as always.

-That trip to Howe was also to hang out and also to see my childhood BFF, Mandi, while she was in town from the Dominican Republic. It was so great to see her again, as well as her family. Her oldest daughter, Halle, even came and spent the night with us and I had about 100 deja vu moments. She looks and acts so much like her momma did when we were kids.

I know there's much that's been forgotten, but that's June at a glance!

Downtown Mini Session

Today after the kids and I did our Meals on Wheels route (which they've been loving lately), I needed to go see a client of mine at her shop downtown. We had a nice little lunch at Schilo's and then headed over to Villita Stained Glass. The kids did awesome while I met with her and took new photos for her website. Afterwards as we walked back to the car, I noticed that they kids happened to match somewhat and there were a couple of neat looking spots that seemed to fit their 'looks'. With two bags thrown over my shoulder and an iced tea in one hand, I somehow managed to pull off a 5 minute photo session with these two. Thankfully they cooperated beautifully. Maybe the key is the under 10 minute thing? Maybe I should start selling those--the fastest portrait session ever. How much could I charge for that? LOL

Anyway, I'm so thankful for my two beautiful, awesome, wonderful kiddos! They're truly great.

 

Summertime Begins

Sometimes you need a little Hill Country--and your favorite people, Dairy Queen, and Garth Brooks' Ropin' the Wind CD playing from beginning to end.

I'm so happy that summertime is here. (Is summertime one word or two? If it's two, I apologize. Spell check is not correcting me though, so I can only assume it's right.) School is great and all, but man... spring is a busy time. And so is fall for that matter. I'm happy to significantly shorten the list of places I have to be at a certain time and things I have to do. Okay, I still have a lot to do, but my schedule is more flexible at least!

We're only a week and a half in, but it's been good for the most part. All good except for the fact that some days my kids just like to relentlessly annoy each other just for the sake of being annoying--all the while insisting that they are not doing said thing to annoy the other person. Yeah... except for that, it's been great. So far, we've seen the Lego Movie, been to a couple library events, swam at the neighborhood pool a lot, and done a little geocaching. (Does anyone else geocache?) We've tried not to watch much TV or play a lot of video games, though I confess that tonight I just let the TV stay on after time was up because they're happily watching The Munsters and I need to get a bunch of work done. 

The kids and I drew up a summer calendar and have been adding things here and there for the rest of the summer. I think it's going to be fun!