Back Home!

The kids seemed to have a wonderful time these last two weeks.  We are so glad they are home, but know that the visit with grandparents and break for the parents was good for everyone.  They were with my mom for a week, and then with my dad for another week.  They spent the week at my mom's swimming in the pool, playing at the park, and visiting with cousins.  At my dad's they went to VBS in the evenings and did some swimming there, too.  My dad brought them back this weekend with a stopover in Birmingham to check out a children's museum that they all loved.  We all went to the zoo yesterday (minus Lance who was playing in a golf tournament) and Lance and I had to go to a shindig last night, so all of the kids got to play together for one more night with Paw Paw and Tia watching them.  Today we are having a lazy day and the kid's seem to be having fun getting reacquainted with their toys and such.  Tomorrow art camp starts and at some point today I have to find the motivation to go get stuff to make lunches, shirts for their tie dye activity, and to wash clothes for the week, but for now I'm using the rain and catch-up time with the kiddos as an excuse to procrastinate  :). 

The zoo yesterday included a visit with "dinosaurs."  The kids were not scared at all this time and loved it!  It is so hard to imagine what it would really be like if dinosaurs were still alive - but these are realistic enough for me to know that it wouldn't be good! 

The birds were pretty friendly this time, too, and Katie really enjoyed feeding them!  They landed on my arm and head immediately when I walked in so the nectar I was going to let the kids feed them was gobbled up pretty fast.  That ended up being a good thing, since when I handed it to Tyler and a bird immediately came to eat it from his hand he screeched and dropped it all!  It actually was very strange to have birds landing on you and pecking at your hair and ears!

Tyler's favorite part may have been stomping in puddles.  It was rainy most of the time, but once the sun finally did come out we were grateful that the rain had kept it pretty cool and comfortable for June, and the animals seemed more active.  That elephant in the background eventually got into the water and was playing chase with a bird! 

It's hard to believe that we only have five weeks until school starts back.  It was my plan during the school year to try and get a jump on buying uniforms and whatnot, but I noticed that stores are already fully stocked with back to school gear so I think I am going to be with the masses, again, searching for the very few plain, collared dresses in "girl" colors that they seem to sell out of immediately.  I was holding off in case we decided to move since the other county doesn't wear uniforms, but we are pretty much decided that we are staying put for now - still have a ton of stuff to do on our house to get it ready and can't seem to pull the trigger on anything where we want to be, which tells me that we haven't found exactly what we are looking for just yet!  The kids really, really want to stay at their current school, and I am becoming more and more disillusioned with common core (which both counties have), so we may stay here indefinitely and put the kids in private school, anyway.  Too much up in the air - so we are going to just put all house and school stuff on the back burner and just concentrate on enjoying the rest of the summer and getting ready for first grade! 

The Beach!

Well, it has been a while since I have updated here, but there is a good reason!  We were on vacation - woohoo!!!  We just got back from a wonderful beach trip with Lance's family, and in fact the kids are still on vacation spending some time with my mom and then my dad.  I sure do miss those kiddos, but they are having a lot of fun with the grandparents, and have even gotten to see their cousins while there.  We enjoyed some beautiful weather at the beach and did lots of playing in the sand, ocean and pool - and ate some great food, too!  It was certainly a fantastic way to kick off the summer, which seems to be flying by.  The kids start 1st grade (!!!) at the beginning of August so by the time they get back there will only be 5 day camp weeks and then school will start.  We don't have much else planned for the summer - Lance has a golf tournament, and we hope to do some sort of anniversary trip, but mostly we are just going to hang at the pool, and the kids will get to go back to camp - which they loved before we left.

This was field trip day for Katie - she did a dance camp and got to visit the Ballet.  He was in a sports camp.  For the rest of the summer, they will be in the same camps - art, science, sports, and wet and wild!

The kids stayed pretty true to their favorite things to do at the beach - sand for Tyler and waves for Katie - but Tyler was much more adventurous this year and played in the water quite a bit, and Katie was helping with sandcastles more than usual!  Beach trips are so much easier now that they can play independently more, and it doesn't hurt that they made some friends to play with, too!  

Their Uncle Matthew spoiled them rotten the whole time (and the kids were in heaven getting to spend time with him all the way from "Yew Nork") - they at ice cream, played in the sand, he got them some beach toys (for some reason Katie thought beach stores were the greatest thing ever - the fun ball he got for them that bounces on the waves, though, was definitely used more by the adults), and he even coerced them into doing the bungee at Baytowne.  Tyler said he "kinda liked it and was kinda scared,"  Katie loved it and said next time she "is going to do lots of flips."  

The week ended with a fabulous meal and lots of great memories!  It also made me really wish we lived at the beach, but once the kids come back home I'm sure I'll remember why this place is pretty cool, too  :)!