Bolivar

So, we do the same trips every year! And, man…I was pretty worried they weren’t going to happen this time around! But, I guess there is one good thing you can say about this virus…it’s really cleared everyone’s schedules… Even Sarah’s group got to make it this year! It was so great getting to have everyone at the beach house together, even if it was just for one weekend. We crammed in as much fun stuff as we could before she had to leave with Cora, Carson, and Hayley.

This may look strange….but there was a hurricane in the gulf when we got there. So, there wasn’t much we could do outside that first day. And you also can’t really go anywhere right now either….. So, we just decided to dye all the girls’ hair blue. I mean….why not?

Jenny called it the beach house beauty shop. lol. So that’s what we did, and we played lots of Phase 10 and Uno.

The next morning we were up bright and early (well….as early as we can manage to get this group out the door anyway) for crabbing! This is the hottest day every year, but it’s definitely my favorite.

Wallace caught the first keeper again! :)

Because of the hurricane, the water was a little up… I actually got pinched by a crab walking through that to get to the dock! rude!

Hannah always gets a net or two stuck, and this year was no exception. haha! This kid.

The crabs were very feisty this year. We’ve never had so many people get pinched! In fact…we’ve never had anyone get pinched…this year, I think 4 of us got nailed! Oh…and I’ve been working on my dutch braids. Just check out my handiwork on Carson’s hair! Not bad if I do say so myself.

There were neon nets at the Big Store!

Did you know crabbing is a spectator sport? :)

Anna finally caught a crab y’all!

I’m not sure who took this photo, but I love it. Lots of teen girls grabbing the camera to take pics this year. :)

Crab….it’s what’s for dinner! I failed to get photos of the rest of the process…because we apparently went to the beach. My role in the crab dinner is really just making sure we have nets and buckets and that the chicken necks are all strung on. :) Every now and then I also line the shells with foil. This year, my second job was keeping the kids out of the kitchen and down at the beach. :) So, no pics of crab picking and crab stuffing. But trust me, it was delicious!

Meanwhile…the boogie boards I unintentionally paid WAY too much for last year got a TON of use this year. I seriously didn’t realize they were going to cost as much as the store wanted for them…they weren’t marked very well. But they are very nice boogie boards that even adults can use, and they haven’t broken yet. The most challenging thing about them is just finding space to pack them in the car…

Because of the hurricane the surf was super rough for the first half of the trip. Also, there really wasn’t much of a beach either. The waves were all the way up to the dunes when we got there.

So…as you can see…we were literally still parked up against the dune two days later. It took a really long time for it all to go back down. Usually this part of the beach is made up of flaming hot sugar sand that people just get their cars stuck in.

All the cool kids get buried in the sand…

We had a birthday pinata…

That Jenny randomly filled with healthy food…. haha! We’re not those people. My kids were super pissed.

The next day was the Big Slide, and the big story there was how much Bristol was love/hating it until we promised her some ice cream if she’d give it just one more try….

Boy howdy did that make a difference! :)

I cracked myself up with my hermit crab board room meeting.

There were like a million hermit crabs this one particular evening.

Too much beach… lol

The next day we decided to be brave/stupid and try to go to the Rain Forest Cafe for lunch. One of our standing traditions. This was the one thing that was making us the most nervous though with the virus. We’ve been pretty darn careful with Granny through this whole thing, but she really wanted to go, and what Granny wants, Granny gets. So, we went. Turns out…they really aren’t getting much of a crowd these days. I assume they are only allowed a specific capacity…we didn’t even have to wait for a table. There was really no one there. I’m glad we did it.

Also these poor seagulls. Apparently no one’s been feeding them. Seriously y’all. I’m not sure if it was the hurricane or the virus, but the ferry was at a super low capacity this summer. I’ve never seen them travelling less than full with people still waiting to get on. It was very weird.

And on one of the last days, Wallace picked a kite as his souvenir, and it took me and Jenny sooooo long to get the darn thing up into the air that he totally lost interest in it.

Well…that’s it for Bolivar 2020. Glad we were able to do it. Even more happy that no one got sick! And now the long slow wait for Bolivar 2021. :)

Frio Trip

A trip to the Frio! I wasn’t so sure this trip was going to get to happen, but man, I’m really glad it did. I got a lot of fun pictures, and the kids are actually still there having a blast. Josh and I had to come home to work. Boo… But it did give me a chance to work through these photos without having the kids jumping all over me the whole time. :) It goes much faster that way!

Wallace and josh worked for about 30 minutes to catch this little guy. He was SO excited!

I don’t typically pose photos…but maybe I’ll start trying to do more of it. This was pretty darn cute!

I gave Tanner a 5-minute lesson on manual mode with back button auto-focus, and he captured several very good photos, including this one of Anna. :)

Josh has a couple of new furry sisters….one of them is a bit crazy….. lol

Yesterday the boys told me they got Wallace to jump off a 10-foot cliff. In all honesty, I think it was closer to 15 or 20 feet. So, I really wanted to take some photos of it today before we left.

The older boys do some pretty fantastic tricks!

Meredith got into it as well!!

She was so proud of herself when she surfaced! She did it a few times, and then decided it made her hands hurt… I guess she was hitting the water with her palms open and just kept slapping it hard or something.

BUT…the cutest thing was when the group of them decided to jump together.

Wallace came up from this and said it was the “Grand finale!” He had so much fun!

Lol…and then along came Anna and Ava 5 minutes later. Haha! Not to be outdone.

I know they’ll enjoy the rest of their week at the Frio, and then it’s off to the beach!

So, the end of the summer is shaping up okay for the kids. :)

Anna's Birthday!

We went all out for Anna’s 10th birthday! I’m just kidding…we made a cheesecake. lol

She and Wallace were in a 2-week pre-camp quarantine, so we were doing a whole bunch of nothing….pretty much like we’ve been doing all spring and summer so far…

The little’s were super excited to get to put the candles on it.

I think her favorite gift this year was getting her cast off! Yay for swimming again! She literally jumped in as soon as she got home from the appointment.

Winter Happened! And Spring... lol

I’ve had a long hiatus from posting an update. I’ve actually had a long hiatus from editing my photos. Lightroom somehow got deleted off my machine last November, and it took me about 6 months to talk myself into paying Adobe monthly for something I used to own outright…I’m still a little salty about it. “/ At least I have access to Photoshop as well now, but I have no clue how to use it. Maybe I’ll take a class someday.

Well, anyway, rather than split this up into a bunch of small posts, I’ll just get caught with one super long one here. :)

A lot’s happened since November.

Meredith was in her school kindergarten holiday musical. She was a bear.

She was a bit jelly that she didn’t get to be the gingerbread man or Mrs. Claus, but she got over it pretty quickly. She’s my third child to do this same musical, and she’s the only one who actually rehearsed the music in front of me at home. :)

Josh and I literally left the Gingerbread Man Play and went home to load up the Suburban to leave for the ski trip. This year we drove to Utah and planned a few stops along the way for the kids.

I think this first stop might have actually been for Josh. It was a jail/courthouse that Billy the Kid had escaped from. Here’s a bullet hole that they think Billy the Kid actually shot in the wall while escaping.

And we stopped at the Smokey the Bear memorial as well. Wallace had really gotten into Smokey right before the trip, so this stop was exciting for him. :)

And we finally made it to Utah. I think we took the drive getting there a little too slow… Josh started getting super frustrated by the 3rd day and pretty much just sped through all of the beautiful countryside of Utah without talking or stopping. lol. Lesson learned. We need to make the cross country trips in just two days from now on..which I think is possible since we basically live in the middle of the country.

We celebrated Christmas in Utah as well. This was a Christmas of slime…So much slime.

And legos. It’s pretty much always a lego Christmas with this kid though.

We decorated Christmas cookies!

And Josh helped to judge the cookie contest again. He randomly chose the OU cookie…

We had the whole group over for the Aggie game, and they got to witness Josh watching an Aggie game firsthand. lol. They might never come back.

It snowed a LOT while we were in Utah. So the landscape was a lot whiter on the way home. Moab was even covered in snow, and all of the beautiful desert monuments were as well. It was really neat to see.

The only place Anna wanted to stop was Four Corners, so we ran by there on the way home. It’s not just a little place to stop on the side of the road anymore…you have to pay to get in now, and there are hours of operation, so it was challenging to time it. She really wanted this particular photo, even though it was a little muddy that day. haha.

Then once we were back in school we got Anna’s FFA chickens! Those chickens pretty much ran our lives from January 10th until we showed them 7 weeks later in late February. In hindsight, we were so lucky to get to show them at all. My niece’s county fair was cancelled, and she didn’t get to show hers this year. :(

They were pretty much the cutest thing we’d ever seen for about 3 days.

OMG! How adorable!!!

Cuteness overload!!!!

Then they just turned into these ugly teenagers within about 2 weeks. “/

Anna ended up doing great at the fair! She got 3rd place with her cockerels and was 5th place in the sale. She worked so hard with those birds, and I was so proud of her. It was a nice family project too. Although I had my camera with me at the fair, I was such a bundle of nerves the whole time I literally never pulled it out to take a photo. The fair we show at holds their chicken show in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, so since there aren’t a lot of extra school aged kids wandering the fair grounds because they’re all in school, they allow parents to help their kids show, so I wasn’t a spectator… It was nice because Josh and I could help coach Anna on when to hold the birds up, and how high to hold them, but the one draw back was I didn’t get any fancy pants photos of the show. Also, when I was in high school and showing my chicks, it was customary for just two people to show the three birds…one person would just hold up 2 birds (one in each hand). I guess with the way we feed them now a days Anna’s birds must just have gotten much bigger than they used to when I was a kid…it seems like it would have been impossible to hold up one of these chickens with just one hand. You literally now need one person per bird. Times have changed!

Anyway, the weekend after the fair Jen and Matt brought their family to come help us slaughter the birds (Jen did a great FB post about that weekend since I didn’t get any photos that day either), and then the weekend after that was Spring Break. Josh took the kids up to Washington DC that week for a trip with his family, and apparently it was great and not packed at all…and then the shut down happened the week after that…. “/ So, there really hasn’t been much to photograph other than birthdays and stuff. So, that’s what I’ve got.

Meredith turned 6!

We hung onto a few chickens…because Josh has a big heart and just couldn’t bear to break the kids’ spirit I guess. They’ve actually started laying eggs! I honestly wasn’t even sure these meat birds were capable of doing that. I’m not sure how much longer they’re going to make it, they weren’t really cut out to live this long, and it’s getting very hot, but we are pampering the crap out of them and enjoying the time we have with them. They’ve been a nice distraction during this crazy time.

The kids took over my camera occasionally for “art” class, and sometimes they got some really great photos! I think Anna took this one.

Wallace got this one!

Somehow she managed to take a selfie…. That’s nearly impossible to do with the fancy camera…especially with her short little arms.

We decided to stay home for Easter.

The kids chose the most random things for Easter baskets. lol

He was a little bummed he was the only one who didn’t find a money egg…but one of the money eggs was missing, and he found it like 2 weeks later on his birthday! So, delayed gratification!

We had a little camp out in the yard before the weather got hot. It was Josh’s idea. He even made a fire and roasted hot dogs and smores. The kids loved it!

Wallace turned 8! All I had were pink candles, so we tried to make these skewers work for candles, but they wouldn’t really light with the breeze outside. So, he just pretended to blow them out. lol. The birthday cake train is still getting used! He was bummed we couldn’t go to the train museum this year. :(

Meredith has taken a special liking to the birds.

Perhaps the biggest news is all the stuff that’s happened with Anna… She was supposed to get braces the week the shutdown started, and then they had to cancel the appointment. She was so upset she just bawled that day. But, we were so excited when the orthodontist was able to reopen and called us to set up her appointment. She’s only got braces on to top front 6 teeth to straighten out her lateral incisor on one side and pull her front two middle teeth together to close that gap. It’s supposed to just take 6 months…

Well, the very next day homegirl tripped while racing Wallace and Meredith and fell in a ditch and broke her arm… sigh

She broke both of her forearm bones, and because one of them is healing at an imperfect angle, the doctor was hesitant to remove the hospital cast to replace it with a wet cast, so she’s been unable to swim. Which is why we just sit her in the pool while everyone else gets to swim. I’m really proud of her that she’s not gotten too bummed out about all of this. She gets it off on Wednesday, and she’s literally counting down the days! We all are.

I also was finally able to get her into the ophthalmologist (another appointment we’d long awaited that was cancelled due to the shutdown…) to see what we can do about all of her squinting. He was very careful to keep her from squinting the entire time he was working with her, so fingers crossed we’ve managed to get a good Rx. It was kind of a funny appointment. She had to wear a mask, and the mask kept fogging up the phoropter like it does our glasses and sunglasses, so he kept pulling it away from her face and patiently fanning it to get the condensation to go away. I guess he’s been dealing with it now for a month or so. It just took forever.

Well…that’s pretty much it. We’re all caught up now. And now that I can edit photos again, hopefully I won’t get so far behind.

Fall Update!

I went to take some photos of a friend recently, and when I was clearing off my SD card I noticed I hadn’t even gone through the first day of school photos I took of the kids… “/ So, it’s time for a catch up!

It’s just super dark when it’s time to leave for school for our elementary, so the pics are all in the house. I decided to take before and after pics of them from when they woke up compared to when they were ready to walk out the door.

They were sleepy, but excited! Meredith is never this excited to wake up these days. She’s a bear in the mornings just like Josh. I pretty much just creep into her room and quietly give her her breakfast, and then try to slip off to work silently for Josh to handle her when she’s ready to get rolling. She loves kinder, but misses being able to sleep in.

Anna finally lost this one particular tooth that had been hanging on for dear life. I literally yanked on it with all my might and couldn’t get it one night, and it was super loose. She finally managed to pluck it out one evening while she was watching the Simpsons. And Wallace looked so dapper in his collared shirt and glasses. :) I will have 2 magical years with all three of them in the same school…and then it will be a crazy rat race after that.

We had another fun season of soccer. lol

On this particular day she was annoyed because her legs were itchy under her socks…

“It’s SOOO itchy!!!”

On the whole though, Meredith did much better this season. She still likes to unexpectedly run off the field when she decides she’s done though. :)

Wallace had a pretty darn good season too! He didn’t insist on playing goalie the whole entire time, so it was nice getting to see him actually take part in the game more.

And Anna’s games were just about all at noon on the hottest days, but she hung in there and did great.

Then it was Halloween! We did the inflatable thing this year, and the kids had so much fun with it!

The girls were so cute. They did this little pose all on their own. lol

Fall was pretty nice around here. Hot, but nice. And busy. So glad it’s finally cooled off!