Bolivar 2019

We got home from Costa Rica around 1:00am on the 28th, and then turned around and left for Bolivar around 9:00am on the 29th. Lol. I was worried I’d be all vacationed out before we got to Bolivar, but that wasn’t the case at all. We got a lot of rest on the 28th and were all ready to go the next morning.

When we got there, Jen had prepped a little birthday party for me and Jenny. :) I managed to not get a single photo of the adorable beach-themed b-day cake she made with my fancy camera…. but she made it a tropical birthday, and we got quite a few different uses out of the leis.

We spent a lot of time around the table making jewelry and paracord bracelets. :)

We also went crabbing again! Meredith caught the first keeper this year!

And everyone had fun! This year it was Ruthie’s turn to come and hang out with us. :) She was so super helpful, it was awesome. I hope she enjoyed her time with us as much as we enjoyed having her!

Since Jen and her family have returned to Texas, they were back with us as well!

Crabbing day is hot, but it’s also fun and productive. We caught around 11 again, and that seems to be a good amount for Granny’s stuffed crab. I think she sorely missed having Maddison there this year to help with picking them, but Jenny stepped in and assisted. Jen and I had to boil them since Dallas wasn’t there. I’d rather not have to do that ever again. There was a lot of screaming and jumping around the kitchen.

Look at those double piercings! Such a grown up 9 year old! Oh, and poor Anna…every air mattress we put her on deflated overnight until I finally went and just bought her a new one. lol.

It seems similar to fishing where we’ll catch like 3 crabs all at once, and then proceed to sit there and catch nothing for 30 minutes. Glad I brought along my crossword puzzle book! (Ruthie played photographer for a while. Man I’m getting lazy!) Oh, and this photo had me convinced my sensor was dusty, but I think those are just birds flying around!

A bestie pic! :)

He loves to pose with little crabs!

Back to the Big Slide!

I’m happy to report that Jen’s boys LOVED it this time around. They actually outlasted my kids.

We tried like 4 times to get this picture!

Bird feeding on the ferry ride to Galveston. We saw porpoises on every single ferry ride this year!

Beach days. And another crab photo op.

I spent waaaaay too much on a few nice boogie boards. I probably could have gotten away with just buying 1 or 2. Oh well. They were big enough that even I could ride waves in!

I told Jen that she has great photographer form. :) Looks so professional!

Didn’t want his chest buried this year.

And then there was the golf cart parade again! We figured out that it’s just this one weekend! Thank goodness we didn’t miss it! We all would have been so bummed!

Oh my gosh! I LOVE Thomas’ face in this picture!

They ended up with a TON of beads, but at first there were some color preference wars. lol

So many beads!

The rest of the big girls showed up! Jen made them some amazing virgin pina coladas. I think I’m going to have to alter my recipe and just use frozen pineapples rather than ice from now on. They were soooo yummy!

And water balloons!

Haha! They look like a bunch of old ladies with all those beads on!

She worked for a while to get this balloon to pop! lol.

What an awesome, relaxing week. Thank you for putting it together again, Mom. I love you, and I love our Bolivar trip!

Costa Rica

Josh’s family did a big family vacation to Costa Rica this summer! I’ve heard a lot about the last trip they’d made there almost 20 years ago, so it obviously left a lasting impression on everyone. Josh talked about the fishing especially. So when we were getting down to the wire on his passport arrival, and it didn’t make it in time, he was incredibly bummed. I was super worried that he might miss out of the fishing this year. But, alas…Josh’s luck came through for him. He was only 2 days late for the vacation, and arrived the night before the deep sea fishing trip.

The trip overall was nothing short of amazing. We stayed in a beautiful villa unlike any place I’ve ever been, and there were people to take care of all the little things so we could all just 100% relax and enjoy our time. I’ve never been on a trip like that before; it was fantastic. The food was awesome, the company was awesome. I can’t thank Joe-Joe and Big Momma enough for putting it all together and creating a trip that we’ll all remember and be talking about for the rest of our lives.

It is pretty warm there, so we all spent a lot of time in the beautiful water.

So many little hermit crabs and fish to find in these pools!

The deep sea fishing was really cool! I’ve never been before, but I’ve heard in most places you have to ride out on the boat for hours before you get to the deep water, but here, it was just a 30 minute ride! And you could see the coast the entire time.

The first thing we hooked happened to be a shark. We got it close to the boat, but didn’t haul it up out of the water. Josh and Hayden fought with it for a while to get it that close, and then we cut it loose.

She held a fish! Anna loved the fishing so much! I honestly didn’t think she would, but she’s ready to go back for more.

The kids caught some amazing fish that we got to eat on for 2 days!

Meredith slept for a lot of it, but she got to reel in a skipjack.

And eat a brownie. So, pretty much a success in her book. Lol.

Look how close the shore is!

It rained a little, so we watched some movies. Like I said, the house was amazing. You were pretty much outdoors, but not really outdoors most of the time.

So many cousins. :)

We got an updated family photo with a few new kids in it!

The bigger kids all got to take a couple of surfing lessons. Anna did so awesome!!

Anna won the talent show with her performance of an original song. :)

The kids got to take a lot of pictures on this trip, so I made it into a few. :)

We did a fire on the beach the last night and decided we should have been doing that all along. Lol.

Thanks so much for the trip Big Momma and Joe-Joe. The kids are still talking about it daily, and quite frankly, so am I! :) What a great trip to have been a part of.

4th of July

Well…at least I’m getting this posted before August. :)

This year for the 4th my good buddies, all of our kiddos, my sister, my niece, my Mom, and I all got together at my house! I didn’t take a ton of photos, but in going through them just now, it brought back all the feels of what an awesome day it was. There was a lot of food, a lot of time in the pool, and a spectacular fireworks display. Oh…and an overstuffed pinata that was a bit hard to crack but provided a ton of entertainment!

I’m so glad we got to get together this year. I’d like to make this a new annual thing now that everyone is back in Texas. It’s really nice seeing all the kids play and go crazy and getting to hang out and catch up. This was one of the most fun days I’ve had in a while. :)

Stuff I Missed!

I was dumping some photos off my camera the other day and noticed a few folders sitting in my “to be processed” area in Lightroom. “/ I never do that. Somehow I just got behind, and I guess was never intending to get caught up. It was such a busy spring semester that I swear I’m just now getting myself together.

Way back in March we went to the County fair back in my hometown again to watch my niece’s show their chickens and to have fun at the carnival. The weather was so funky this year. A cold front blew through not long after we got to the carnival, and after that it just stayed windy and gross. So, I was bummed I wasn’t able to get great photos. Which is maybe why I left them unprocessed for so long. But today when I was sorting through them I noticed I did catch some pretty fun moments.

Like this one! Guess which two little’s were finally big enough to ride just about every ride at the carnival??? I think Wallace was most excited about the ferris wheel. But believe it or not he hopped up on one of those drop rides too before we were done!

We got the unlimited wrist bands again, so they pretty much rode everything they were big enough for.

Anna’s always a thrill seeker. :)

I was probably most hesitant to put them on this ride…. But they all got off safely.

She never holds on!

We finished it all off with some impossible ring tossing. Seriously…3 full buckets of rings and none of them got one on a bottle! I hate carnies.

I also noticed the folder of Meredith’s preschool graduation pictures had gone ignored.

I didn’t really get any great photos of the group because the other parents are just annoying. Everyone holds their phones up in the way. It makes me crazy. But look how adorable she is when there aren’t arms and cell phones blocking the view!

And then there was Anna’s birthday, which wasn’t really that long ago. :)

This girl’s been waiting soooo long for her birthday. The birthday season seems to kick off in our house with Meredith’s in March, and then it’s just agonizing for Wallace and Anna to wait on theirs to finally roll around.

Wallace made her a gift and wrote her the sweetest birthday note. She was all…”ummmm…hurry up Wallace. I know I’ve got an Alexa in this stack of gifts…”

Finally! They were all so jelly when Meredith got hers, and I’ve made them each wait for their birthday’s to open theirs. Lol.

Wallace helped Anna put together her Lego watch.

And they swam.

My girls were so excited to swim in their clothes for some reason…

Anna wanted a unicorn cake too.

And Wallace caught a massive frog! And this is what happens when it’s chilly in your house and very hot and humid outside. No time to wait for all the glass in the camera to unfog. “/

And now we’re all caught up again. :)

Wallace's Birthday

My posts are all out of order. Wallace’s birthday was back in April, but I got a little behind on my photo editing with Jesse’s wedding. Oh well.

This year Wallace basically wanted a repeat of last year’s birthday, so back to the train museum we went. :)

Anna had a soccer game that got in the way, so she missed the museum…But Meredith did her best to make up for her absence!

James, Lauren, and Rachael went with us again! Thanks for coming guys! It really wouldn’t be as much fun without you!

Hommie seriously seems to know all of the parts of the trains, and he was so excited to name them all off to me.

I’m fairly certain this little girl thought Wallace was about to get this train moving!

They loved all of the model trains again.

And this guy was the best about identifying and answering all of their questions about every little doo-dad they pointed at and said “what’s that?”

He rang the bell a hundred times.

So tired.

Cheers!

Yep. We’re classy train people now.

And then back to the house for cake and swimming. Wallace wanted the same train cake he had a few years ago. I made it a little longer this time!

Anna made it for this part of the party. :)

He got the engine. :)

Sometimes I look at him, and he suddenly appears to be 5 inches taller. But he still kisses and hugs me, and for now he’s bearing with me as I insist on reading Harry Potter to him at night, even though he’d prefer to read solely about trains. The Hogwarts Express was like Chapter 6…all of the magic in Chapter 11 is not nearly as captivating for this guy. lol.

You’re growing up so fast, bud! Happy birthday!!!