Soccer Saturdays

Oh my goodness…I’ve posted nothing since August. Well…nothing much is new. School started and so the kids’ sports have started as well. So, that’s pretty much what we do now. I’m super excited that we appear to have gotten into a nice groove with all three kids where we see familiar faces on each of their soccer teams each season. Anna’s is a little different this season. She’s on her first all-girl team, but 5 of them are in 3rd grade together at her school! Unfortunately, there weren’t enough 8-year-old girls to make a team at their level, so they’ve all been moved up and play against older girls every week. :( So, they are getting their butts kicked. But fortunately Anna’s taking it in stride and appears to be having a good time.

Look at that girl behind her….she’s probably 12! grrrrr.

I don’t think I’m going to get too many more pics of Anna playing soccer this season….she’s on a full-sized field now, and I don’t have a long enough lens for it. She just happened to be playing close to where I was sitting for this first game.

Meredith so far this season appears to feel about the same towards soccer as she has for a while now. I don’t know why we keep signing her up… Before she started playing soccer I just knew this girl was going to be a natural athlete. Lol. She had more fun playing around on the sidelines with her buddy than playing soccer today.

He actually ended up getting in trouble for this… “/

Meredith comforted him. Poor guy.

And Wallace seems to be holding his focus longer this season than he ever has been able too! It’s been downright exciting!

Look at him go!!! He actually ended up scoring on this drive! :)

All these action shots of Wallace!!!

But….he still has his moments. :)

So…we’re in it right now. The long monotony of school, sports, and all that other awesome stuff! It’s busy, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. :)

Bolivar

We managed to make it out to Bolivar again this summer.  :)  My favorite beach.  And, I guess I'll say it again like I do every year...I know it's not the prettiest beach, but it's the beach I grew up going to, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.  I just love this place, and I love the time spent with family.  This year's fun activities included the usual ferry rides, big slide, Rain Forest Cafe, and beach time, but we added to it mudding (we might not keep this one on the list of annual activities), crabbing, kayaks, perler beads, and a new baby!  I also let Anna shop for souvenirs at the Big Store for the first time.  On the whole, I think this was one of our best trips yet.  I love this standing vacation, and I can't thank my Mom enough for making it happen.

Our first walk out to the beach. It doesn't matter how early my Mom and I leave home, we can never manage to make it to the beach before about 6:00pm. This time I blame the hour and half ferry line. It also took a couple of hours in the grocery store... Oh well. Good thing we stay for a week.

I explicitly said "don't get in the water." Next time we'll just wear our swimsuits for the car ride.

He was so glad to finally be at the beach.

We spent the next day playing in the sand and the water.

He talked about wanting to the buried in the sand for weeks before the trip. So, this was literally the first thing we did.

Carson worked hard on giving everyone fish tail designs in the sand.

Wallace was a trend setter. Everyone ended up getting buried in the sand this year. Lol.

Jenny brought her kayaks, which this was the perfect year for. We had like 5 days of very calm water.

I'm so glad Carson and Hannah got to come along this year. We kept finding them in my mom's giant bathroom at the beach house doing their nails with Anna. Haha. It was adorable.

The new baby in the family is Bristol! She's got some sass! And she kept us all cracking up with her insatiable appetite and random words. It was nice having a little baby around again...even if my kids did try to give her a black eye and fat lip... My kids don't really know what to do with a baby anymore, so they assume she's as durable as a big kid. "/

So, like I said...we went crabbing this year.  I remember doing this at least a couple of times with my parents and sisters when I was little.  I recall getting sooooo excited when I'd pull up a crab, and it seemed so easy.  Much easier than fishing, which I've just never really gotten the hang of.  Plus, my Mom always followed it up by making stuffed crab, which was just super awesome!  Anyway, I've been talking about doing this again for the past couple of years, but I finally just started buying stuff to make it happen this year.  I'd considered getting the nets on Amazon, but I'm glad I didn't.  Shockingly, they appear to be the only item you can purchase on Bolivar Peninsula for a fraction of what it costs online.  Well...nets and chicken necks.  They are well stocked on chicken necks at the Big Store.  Haha.  

We tried crabbing at Rollover Pass to start, but it was just such a bust. We were staring right into the sun, and all we were catching were hermit crabs.

Wait!  Hold the phone!  I totally forgot to talk about the actual first place we tried to go to.  It'd been so long since we crabbed that we literally had no idea where to go.  So, we started off by just looking for any old street to take us to the bay side of the island.  What a mistake.  The first one we went down was apparently what people at work like to call a "paper street".  As in it only exists on paper!  It was just a big wetland.  And, like an idiot I just kept driving and driving down it thinking a street or some gravel would just materialize at some point.  I've never used my 4-wheel-drive as much as I did that day!  I can't believe none of us got stuck, I was leading a 3-car caravan!  Jenny was the only smart one who didn't just take off driving into the wetland.  We finally found an old foundation for I guess an old house that had blown away in a hurricane (probably with the road) and used it to turn around.  The only thing remaining on that foundation was an old toilet, which Meredith saw and immediately decided she needed to go pee in it.  She was so mad at me for not letting her.  I didn't get any photos of this particular excursion.  I was just freaking out thinking we'd be trying to call a tow truck or maybe a boat to get us out of there at any minute.  Lol.  Like I said...we won't be repeating that one next year.  But, my kids were literally talking about the "potty street" today, almost 3 weeks later!

Anyway, back to the crabbing...

As I was saying...Rollover Pass was HOT!

Meredith had had it within about 5 minutes and went and sat in the car. Still mad at me about the toilet I'm sure...

So, after about half an hour, we gave up and looked for a new spot. 

We found this great little pier at the end of a real street, and it was perfect.

There were frequent barges, and it was cool to watch the water rise and fall around us when they'd go by.

Dallas caught the first blue crab, but it was way too tiny. We were super pumped he caught something other than a hermit crab though!

Wallace actually caught the first keeper! And we were all shocked and excited! Just like I remember from when I was a kid! I was literally jumping up and down screaming for a bucket. I know he looks all calm, but Wallace was just bursting with excitement over the whole thing. He still talks about catching the first crab, and then the biggest one too.

So, Josh had to work this year and wasn't able to make it on the trip, and I think honestly the crabbing was probably the hardest thing for him to miss.  I sent him a photo of Wallace as soon as he caught that first crab, and he quickly called back to facetime with Wallace and have him tell him all about it.  And he kept telling me to take them back to keep crabbing for the rest of the week.  Lol.  If he's able to make it next year, I think this is one event he will definitely want to be a part of.

Crabbing is so easy! And this location was soooo much nicer.

Anna and Hannah had some bum luck. Everyone else managed to catch a few crabs, but these two only caught a fish. What a stupid fish too...How the heck did it get hauled up in a little crab net?

Anna was so pissed about not catching any crabs that we ended up going back the next morning to try again.

Barge traffic... So cool to see it all up close.

Even Meredith got into the crabbing! Little miss sit-in-the-car.

Hannah managed to catch one crab the next morning, and that was it. Anna had a tough run-in with some oyster shells. "/ Maybe crabbing isn't for her after all. Oh well...better luck next year.

Oh, and I when I say we were catching hermit crabs...they were no joke! Hermit crabs on the bay side are HUGE!

So, we all enjoyed some stuffed Sebastian that night, and we all got to help out with it in some way.  It was great!  People...take your kids crabbing!  

Anyway, that was our last day with Hannah and Carson, and we'd tried cramming in all of the non-beachy stuff while they were with us, so we just spent the next few days bumming around in the sun. 

Meredith is ALWAYS posing these days.

Anna made the prettiest sand castle. It was tiny, but her use of shells put it on top.

The wind picked up and the water got a little more rough. Lol

Like I said. She's posing a lot. I have sooooo many photos of Meredith from this trip.

Meredith actually took this one! I didn't trust her with the camera for long. She kept acting like she was about to put her super sandy sunblock soaked fingers on the lens!

Wallace took a few trucks with the expressed purpose of playing with them in the water...which he did for hours.

We built him a little ramp. It was great.

There was a golf-cart parade. Bolivar is a bit different than when I was a kid. In the 80's and 90's there were just TONS of cars driving up and down the beach (in my head it seemed like it was just bumper to bumper all day long) in the "zoo". But Ike wiped all that away. Haha. Now it's perfect.

We weren't expecting the parade...In fact, I'm not sure how much of it may have passed us before we realized it was happening. You know...no marching band or fire trucks...and golf carts aren't that loud...

Anna figured out she'd get more beads if she hid her stash behind her.

Not bad, huh!

And, Hunter and Wind made it down for the last night. Which was good too because they pretty much Jenga'd everything back into my car for me.

So, the beach trip is a keeper.  :)  I can't wait to go back next year.  And I know at least three little kids who can't wait either.  

Frio Trip

We took the kids to the Frio with Josh's family for the fourth of July.  :)  The river has been a bit low this summer, but that just makes for more relaxing river sitting time!  As long as there is water flowing through it, and quite possibly even if there isn't, I think we could have a great time there.

Josh's family said they've seen it even lower than this before, but I hadn't.  I'm not really sure why people were attempting to tube...there was just a lot of walking involved.  

There was still a small pool near our cabins with a rope swing above it, so kids were still lining up for it.

I hadn't seen so many canopy tents in the river before.  At the road crossings you would see 10-20!  

I was really looking forward to an opportunity to just relax and take photos of my kids doing a bunch of nothing, and that's just what I got!

I think I need to build this kid a rope swing...  It's all she wanted to do.

To be fair though, all the kids loved the rope swing.  They would line up for it!

The annual face painting!

Even Josh was a sport this year.

My personal fav.

And Wallace and Meredith each caught their first fish!

He was excited, trust me!  Just very tired.  This was our last evening there.

Meredith deiced to just pose up a storm for me one day.

It's usually quite difficult to get that level of coorperation out of her.  

Thanks for having us out again Big Momma and Joe-Joe!  We loved it!

Summer Fun

Well, summer so far has been awesome!  We haven't been going to anything in the evenings after work.  No practices, no nothing!  I didn't realize how much I would appreciate that after how busy things were this past school year.  

We've spent a lot of time in the pool.  :)  So glad we finally got it fixed!

I tried to start this new thing where I would give the kids ice cream when it was time to get out of the pool in an effort to avoid temper tantrums, but we have an ice cream will power issue in this house...so this little tradition didn't last very long.  lol

This unicorn has been an awesome replacement float from my sister.  :)

And not long after this the kids basically stopped swimming and started posing for the camera, begging me to take a picture of every little thing they did....

Then we had Anna's birthday, which happened to fall on the same weekend as The Incredibles 2 release, so we all got to go see a movie.  And she asked for a cheese cake this year.  It was so much work, and then in the last 5 minutes of making it I managed to smoke up our whole house horribly.  It was probably one of the best cheesecakes I've ever had though!  I just might take the time to clean out the butter on the bottom of the oven the next time I make one.

These particular candles were a bit challenging to light.

You might have noticed the table covered in stuff behind them.  That's because Anna left for a 2-week sleep-away camp the day after her birthday.

I was a bit of a mess in the days leading up to her leaving.  Josh's family is very gung-ho for camp, but I never went to one that was quite so long.  In fact, I think the longest one I went to was just a few nights.  Anna was so excited about it she could hardly sleep.  Her cousins were going too, so it was comforting to know she'd have them there with her if she got homesick at all.  I really didn't think she'd have a problem with that though.  She was so ready to test out this whole being on her own thing. 

So, while she was there the camp posted a daily blog and hundreds of photos.  I would comb through it all every day and send copies of the blog and photos to Josh, my Mom, and my sisters.  We were pretty sure from the photos that she wasn't going to want to come home.  I was so worried I might somehow screw up her camp experience by not sending enough letters, so I sent one daily, or had the kids write one to her, or Josh.  And she sent a few home too!  It was really hard to be apart that long!  And as a family we were literally falling apart back home.  The dogs got into a fight with a porcupine one evening!  And then Meredith swallowed a coin, which I can only laugh about now because it finally passed through her system.  Took it 8 long days though!  We already had an appointment scheduled with a GI doctor to talk about going in to fish it out. Thank goodness that wasn't necessary.  And Josh, my Mom, and I are all glad for the whole ordeal to be over.  No more combing through poop looking for a coin!  Turns out it was a penny.  And it was in her stomach for so long that it had some acid damage on it.  "/  So...it appears Anna is the keystone to our family.  Lol

Anyway, I completely forgot my camera when I went to drop Anna off at camp.  I was like a numb zombie that day though, so I'm not too surprised I did that.  I was much better at pickup.  I actually spoke to other parents and stuff.  Haha.  And, as it turns out, Anna did want to come home after all.  

She was looking at all of the photos that I'd screen grabbed of her at camp, and the craziness that had ensued at home without her.  

We watched the war canoe race.

Then they had awards and stuff.

These were the girls in Anna's cabin with her.  

She got reaquainted with my camera.  :)

She made some good friends that she's already facetimed with since returning home (yesterday).

And she still wears her glasses on the tip of her nose.  Haha.  So, she's basically the same girl.  

Anna's First Communion

What a day.  Anna's first communion was a couple of years in the making.  All the religious education, parent prep, weekend retreats, videos, time spent learning prayers...all worth it!  Anna looked beautiful this morning, and she seemed genuinely moved by the whole experience.  I know I was.  

A lot went into getting her prepared for the big day, but the process of outfitting her was a bit comical.  

A few months ago my sister was sending me links to dresses for her on Zulily.  I'd never shopped on Zulily before, and I found a dress I really liked at about 11:00 at night.  I was all nervous they'd be sold out in her size by morning that I ordered it right then without even talking to her about it!  So that totally screwed me on the Zulily flat rate shipping thing since I ordered it like one hour before my grouped shipments would be finalized for the day, but oh well.  If you haven't shopped Zulily before, I recommend at least trying it.  But try it early in the day.  :)

The next morning when Anna and I were eating breakfast I told her I'd bought her a dress, showed her a photo of it, and she had a look of mild disappointment on her face.  "/  I was a little devastated and asked what was wrong with it.  She just says, "Well....why isn't it red?"  Haha!!  "Anna!  You can't wear red to first communion!!!"  Once I explained to her that red would be a bit unacceptable, she seemed much happier with the dress, and I was relieved.

Then when it came in I was the one freaking out.  I'd just assumed from the photo online it would be a brilliant white color...turns out that was just bad lighting.  The dress was ivory!  I had a quick powwow with my Mom and sisters trying to figure out the acceptability of an ivory dress, and we all decided it would probably be fine.  But I was still silently sweating it.  Anna decided she loved it and wore it around the house for about an hour.

I told her we'd probably just do a headband for her headpiece, and she seemed fine with that.  I told her a few girls would likely be all decked out in ball gowns with veils and gloves, but I was sure most of them would be in simple dresses like hers.

Boy was I wrong....A couple of weeks ago we had our First Communion Dress Rehearsal.  I would say easily 85% of the girls were decked out with veils!!!  Even the most tomboy girl that Anna played basketball with had a veil!  We go to a big church, so they were doing the first communions over about 8 masses, with about 10 kids at each mass, and the 3 other girls going on Anna's day all were in veils.  So, my big concern about the ivory color ended up being no big deal.  Even though she was the only one in ivory, it was barely noticeable.  

Here she is on the night of the rehearsal.  Cute headband, right?

Yep....the headband was no longer acceptable.  Anna now needed a veil and a tiara!

Guess what, it's first communion and wedding season all around the world right now!  Good luck finding a veil on Amazon.

So, last weekend, in a last ditch effort to find one, I packed up the kids and took them around town.  First we went to Sam Moon to find a tiara.  All three of my kids were super mesmerized by the store.  I didn't think I'd make it out of there as cheaply as I managed to, but they all seemed pretty content getting to pick out scarves (even Wallace, he wears his wrapped around him like a ninja!).  I ended up getting one big tiara, and 2 smaller comb tiaras.  I didn't really have a clue how to get one to actually stay on her head, and I wanted to have options.  Oh, and Meredith got a big pack of bows.  

Then we went to a couple of bridal shops to look for a veil.  The first one was a total dud with jerks for clerks.  So, I googled a discount shop nearby and they treated Anna like a princess.  She put on her dress just like the two brides that were in there, stood on the podium in front of the mirror, and tried out several veils.  She picked a beautiful veil with little drop pearls on the end.  When we got home I watched a few you-tube videos and we did some practice hair, and even Josh was impressed!  

Today, I got her all dressed and ready to go, picked up my camera to take her outside to get photos, and the bottom dropped out!  Stupid rain storms!  Ugh.  And I broke my flash a few weeks ago, so I couldn't get crap for photos in the church (we weren't allowed to take them during the service anyway though).  So, when we got back home, there was a break in the storms for a minute, and I had her run outside to take a couple of quick photos.  It was still very overcast, but apparently it was just too dang bright for her.  Lol.

At least you get a good view of the headgear.  You can even see some of the pearls on the end.

We compromised and agreed upon a holy pose with her eyes closed.  "/  

I'm a little bummed the weather was uncooperative today, but the whole experience was still very special.  Almost magical.  Meredith came in the bathroom just as we were finishing up getting Anna all dressed, and she was like "Oh Anna!  You look beautiful.  Like a princess!"  That's quite a mouthful for Meredith.  

Then at mass, they got to actually go up and stand around the altar for the consecration!  When it was time to take communion they lined up each kid with one parent behind them in the line for the priest.  The rest of the pew took communion en mass with everyone else.  So, what this resulted in (because there are so many communion servers and because it took the priest a little longer to get into position to start our line) was Anna getting back to the pew after everyone else in the pew was already back in their seats.  I was already getting a little teary, but watching her walk down the pew and get hugs and excited looks and congratulations from everyone was just so incredibly sweet.  And then when she got to Josh he picked her up in a big proud bear hug.  Heart melting...  Then because she was on the end of the pew, complete strangers stopped on their way up to take communion to congratulate her and tell her how beautiful she looked.  It was just a wonderful experience.  I was all crying.  She was a total champ.  I'm so proud of her.  She didn't trip anywhere, bowed at the right times, said what she was supposed to when she was supposed to, paid very close attention through the whole entire very long mass, didn't drop the Eucharist, didn't make a funny face at the wine, and just all around killed it.  

So...sorry for the long post, but I wanted to capture everything that happened.  I'm going to read back through this over the years, and didn't want to forget anything.  :) 

Thank you everyone that was able to make it today to be a part of her big day.  And thank you to everyone that helped us out along the way.  It feels like we finished a marathon this morning.  That may be an understatement.  It was probably even a little more exhilarating than that!