August 2017--week 2

As the summer winds down we only have a little bit of summer left.  We're going to try something new this year and we've gotten season tickets to the Allen Eagles Football games--I know, season tickets to high school football in our massive stadium--should be fun!

We enjoyed a day at Hawaiian Falls Water park.  First ride of the day Matthew walloped his head and had to have ice.  Kaitlyn and Sam were quite daring on some fun water rides.  I remember when we first got there the boys split up together and the girls split up together and I was left to sit alone and I was happy that they chose each other as friends.

This boy is trying to be my favorite child.  His assignment each week is to mow the front yard, but this is the 2nd week in a row that he's mowed his portion and his dad's because dad has been too busy.  What a kid!  So proud of him!

August 2017

One of our favorite outings in the summer is going to Little Elm Beach, a fabulous mothers beach not too far from us.  We were able to be joined by a TON of our close friends....

my car load stopped for ice cream on the way home...

Another outing was going to the video game museum in Frisco.  My kids enjoyed learning about Pong, and Oregon Trail, and playing on old school arcades

This is one thing that I am super proud of.  Lindsey's sweet friend Bella got baptized.  This is a story that is a couple of years in the making.  A couple of years ago, Bella's family showed up at a ward trunk or treat.  They'd been friends since kindergarten.  Bella's family came to Lindsey's baptism.  And from that time on, Lindsey began to pray for Bella's family that they'd get baptized and join the church.  She included them in every fast.  Well Bella's mom isn't ready to be baptized yet, but Bella was.  Lindsey was so excited!

End of July 2017

We insist on living it up this summer.  Dad was on a business trip, and K was still at Grandmas so we took in the Summer Sounds concert series which had FREE dinner catered by In & Out (Thank you!)

And I will never forget my Lindsey girl dancing it up right in front with the dancers of this great cover band who played so many awesome songs!

We had a fun excursion one day to the Dallas Aquarium.  It's small and old, but we did enjoy feeding the sting rays.  And then after we hit a fun place called Steel City Pops which makes unusual but fresh and yummy Popsicle flavors.  I had lavender lemon--Yum!!

Finally we enjoyed a boating day with our friends the Hess' and Teson's--we've wanted to get them out on the lake every summer for years, so glad we finally got it on the calendar--so fun!

July week 3

On our way back home after vacation, Kaitlyn took the opportunity to stay a few days with Grandma and Grandpa and be spoiled.  Kaitlyn and her Grandma McKneely are very very similar so they enjoy the same things.  They made eclairs and other "Great Brittish Bakeoff" treats, and sewed fun things.

In her absence these guys went out to Tyler to help clean up after some tornadoes

and got home in time for us to enjoy a Roughriders game with friends. 

Our Summer Vacation trip was to NASA and then to spend a few days on the beach.

We had spent the weekend with our cousins in Houston, celebrating Grandma McKneely's birthday and then Monday morning we were off to NASA.

Our first tram opportunity was rained out, but we got on the second one.  We really enjoyed seeing the Houston Command Center

We left to go to Whataburger offsite for lunch

Touching a moon rock

When we were done we went to a crazy busy Walmart to get groceries and stuff because our beach house was on an island and there is limited shopping there.  It was a Walmart in Galveston right on the shore and it was crazy busy!

To get to our beach house we had to cross by ferry.  This was fun.  We drove our van onto the boat and then the boat carried us across the bay.  What was a highlight, especially for Lindsey was seeing real dolphins in the bay jumping out of the water as we went across.

Tuesday morning dawned and it was raining.  So the kids played a game of Sorry! and we hit the beach in the afternoon.  We have a private beach area just a short walk from the house we're renting.

One cool feature of the house we're staying at is that it has this cool outdoor shower that allows us to shower everyone off completely before going back inside.

We tried to go out to dinner this night, we found a not so nice, smoky restaurant called the Tiki Room and we survived but it wasn't awesome.  

Then we went home and watched "America's Got Talent".

Wednesday morning dawned and we had donuts and kolaches from the local shop--yum! and then we went to the beach for a few more hours.  We even saw a shell that still had the crab inside it!

July 2017--week 2

Cow appreciation day 2017!

Free Slurpee day 2017!

We started our family vacation with our cousins in Cypress and it happened to be Susan's Birthday AND National Ice Cream Day so we celebrated!

Storm clean-up July 2017

One Saturday in early July we knew there was a chance of rain and we took a gamble and went to the lake anyway.  From our vantage point up north we could see a storm brewing south of us but were blessed that it didn't hit us on the lake.  

But when we arrived at home we saw that the storm had made an impact in Allen.  As we drove into the neighborhood we saw many fences down.  Then we pulled onto our street and saw three of our close neighbors had been hit, significantly.  We offered to help Janine Glaser (single mom going through a divorce across the street) but she wanted to wait until insurance had a chance to assess the damage.

The next morning was Sunday.  We were just puttering around the house when we saw our neighbor from the corner, Jim Joyce go over to Janine's with some tools and begin to work on the tree that was laying on her roof.  Stephen immediately got dressed and joined him and the rest of my kids weren't far behind.  I was so proud of them!

By the time I got over there, I arrived to see that Jim had given Matthew a sawsall to use (good grief) and he was having the time of his life breaking down the branches for pick up.  I told Jim that it was his responsibility to manage Matthew.

The whole street came out to help, Jim, Stephen, Peter Blayd, and Robert Dove.  The time inched closer to when church was supposed to begin.  Sam was very concerned that they'd miss church, and that what we were doing wasn't keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  I asked him that if the Savior were there with us on that street, where would he be, and what would he be doing?  He got the message.  

Kaitlyn had an assignment to play the organ so the girls went in and got ready for church and left while the boys finished up.  They arrived at church after the sacrament was over.

Funny story, as we left for church, I was wearing a new dress.  As we got in the car, from across the street, Matthew yelled "Mom, you look beautiful!" and Robert Dove about lost it--he was so blown away by that unsolicited compliment and declared what a good son he was.

July 2017--week 1

I will raise readers!  It's a mantra I've really set out as a mom.  Each summer we are frequent visitors to the public library and relish in the incentives that go along with their summer reading program.  This summer was no different.  And we were THRILLED when one afternoon we redeemed our rewards and headed over the Nothing Bundt Cakes for a small cake EACH, and then for fast food for lunch.  

Also, I'm always looking for a good book for a read-aloud for our family.  We noticed that the amazing book "Wonder" was set to come out as a movie this fall so it became something we read aloud as a family.  The older two had already read it, but the younger two had not.  We most often read while on the road to or from the lake, the hour long trip crammed into the truck can cause issues, but when everyone is distracted by listening to a book, things go better.  I'll never forger reading the part in the book about when the family dog dies and we were all (ok Sam and Dad weren't) bawling.

We enjoyed some boating with our good friends Kevin and Ammon Billings....

And as it is summer, it means a reuniting of these 5 preschool buddies, we can't believe how big they're getting!

Another thing we're trying to do this summer is to do service.  So one afternoon we arranged to go play our piano songs for the people at the local retirement community.  We'd tried to adopt a grandparent but we had a hard time getting connected with one, so this was an alternative.  I was so proud of these kids, and everyone thought I had my own piano studio, not that I was the mom of all 4 of these kids! HA!

For the 4th of July we enjoyed a family outing to go try out Top Golf and then went to see Dispicable Me 3.  It was a wonderful day of using up gift cards and that was fun.  Then later on we stopped by to get our Sonic milkshakes and watched fireworks with our friends the Furness'

And of course there were more boating trips....