Merry Christmas!

Well here we are at the end of another year and another decade - wow! I have off until after the new year (yay!) so this will probably be my last post until next year. Over the weekend, the kids and I went shopping in Fredericksburg, so I snapped some pics of them with the Christmas decor around town. Everything is so festive! Here are some of the pics:

Saturday evening we celebrated John's birthday with friends and family at the brewery. It was a great time for all of us - even the kids had a good time... I snapped this pic of Colten and his friends - it kind of looked like a premonition of things to come in a few years, hehe:


Sunday we had a nice lunch with Oma Reeh for her birthday and then went to see the "Christmas at the Theatre" show with Roseline - very neat show, the aerial dancer was awesome!

Ashlyn had an out of town game this week in Menard. They lost the game and she didn't get to play and was upset again, but I think she expected it since they were losing. Hopefully things go better after the new year. Ashlyn also had the 7th and 8th grade Christmas dance last night and had lots of fun. It was the first time she went to a dance at school - she never wanted to before. She mostly danced with her friends, but 4 boys asked her to dance, too! My baby's growing up!!!!

We're all looking forward to visiting with family and friends over the holidays, but still have lots to do to get ready. Thank goodness for the time off!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!!!

Basketball and Band Concert

Ashlyn had a basketball game Monday night, and while she didn't get to play during the regular game (pretty much only the starters played), she did get to play in two extra quarters against a team from the Christian School in Mason. They ended up losing 8-7, but Ashlyn made 3 of the points - 1 from a free throw that Mom managed to snap a good pic of :) YAY Ashlyn - she made points and got fouled - so we were very proud of her!


Tuesday morning, Ashlyn informed us there would be a Christmas band concert that evening - nice warning! Anyway, we were able to get her there of course, and I remembered my camera this year! This year was a little different as there were 3 bands (beginner, white and purple) instead of two (beginner, 7th-8th grade). The white and purple were both combos of 7th and 8th graders and have different teachers. Ashlyn is in the purple band and WOW, they sounded great. We were impressed with how much better they'd gotten since last year - hardly any squeaks :) and much more complex.

Here's a video of her band playing Feliz Navidad - it doesn't have a great picture, but you can hear the music. You can see Ashlyn's head in the middle behind the dark-haired girl in front.



Now compare that to her first year Ashlyn's Beginner Band Concert - 2007

Whoa!

Colten's First Buck and Snow!

John took Colten hunting after school last Thursday (3rd time out this season) and he shot his first buck with one shot in the "lung" like Colten likes to say. It's a nice 8-pointer. He's ready to go again!



We got some early snow Friday, but sadly, it didn't stick. The pic is from when it was whitest. It snowed good all morning, but then the sun came out and it was all gone by mid afternoon. Colten was VERY upset when he got home from school because his class was the only one that didn't get to play in the snow at school. By the time it was their turn for recess, the snow was gone!

Turkey Week

There have been a couple of basketball games since my last post. Last week, the team they played had Ashlyn's twin on it, and they were guarding each other - can you tell them apart?

She did get to play twice in that game and was happy about that. This week Monday she didn't get to play during the regular game, but they played an extra quarter for those that didn't play during the game and she played the whole time during that. She did pretty good, but as point guard, we need to work on her passing ;)

We had Thanksgiving out at the ranch this year and had about 36 people over to eat lunch! It was fun and crazy and we had sooooo much food and even more desserts. Dad and John fried two turkeys and I baked my first Turkey ever, all of which were very tasty. Everybody brought side dishes and/or desserts and I almost couldn't find room for it all! We are truly a blessed family to have such a wonderful smorgasbord for our holiday meal. Thankfully, the weather was great and most people were able to eat outside.

Friday & Saturday were spent winding down after all the Thanksgiving hullabaloo, but we did manage to get our tree up Saturday - still need to work on the outside, but now it's tooooo cold :)

Sunday was an exciting day for me & Ashlyn. We met up with Mom, Rena, Oma Reeh, Carol, Lyla, Amanda, Savannah & Sydney to see the Nutcracker Ballet in San Antonio. It was the first time to see a ballet for a lot of us - Ashlyn had already seen the Nutcracker in Austin when she was at school in Georgetown. It was so beautiful - the music from the live symphony and the dancers were wonderful to experience. I felt like a little kid again watching it! Ashlyn got to see the trumpet players warming up before and kept wanting to go check it out.

Here's a pic of Ashlyn and I before the show started -

Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures during the show, so that's all I have :(

I'm hoping to go get some Christmas shopping done on Friday, but the forecast calls for snow.... I'm torn - would LOVE for it to snow, but I really need to do some shopping before this weekend - THREE Christmas parties!!! Yikes!!! Either way, I'll be happy, though :)

Food Show

Just wanted to add a quick update about the food show. Everything went well - no disasters this year, thank goodness! Ashlyn got 4th place in her division out of 15 and Colten didn't place - there were 17 in his division. He was very upset, but we got him to feel better with a trip to Target so he could finally spend some of his money on more Bakugan toys - boys!


Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Basketball

Ashlyn's team had their first real game Monday (the previous was just a scrimage) and they won by a point at the very end of the game - it was very exciting. However, Ashlyn only got to play the last 30 seconds and was VERY upset about it. We had to calm her down a bit and explain that life's not always fair and to keep working hard. She's very frustrated, though, because the coaches mostly let the starters do the scrimmaging in practice so she doesn't get much real practice, but she wants to really bad. Hopefully it gets better....

So John & I can officially take cubscouts camping now. We went to a day long BALOO (basic adult leader outdoor orientation) training this weekend to learn a lot of things we already knew, but now we are official. Not sure yet when we'll get to go camping, but we plan to in the near future. First we'll have a practice family camp in the pasture to make sure we have everything we need and make a good list of what to bring. We don't do the tent camping thing too often so we will need a dry run...

That's about it for now. The kids have the district food show this weekend so wish them luck! I have off next week and so do the kids (OFYP optional flexible year plan - they are passing everything and so don't have to go to school) and we'll be running errands and getting ready for Thanksgiving out at the ranch. Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Quick Update

Things have been kinda crazy around here lately, but here's a quick update.

Judy came for a visit this past weekend and we enjoyed seeing her. We attempted to climb Enchanted Rock with her Sunday, but the rain forced us to turn around before making it all the way to the top. We still got some good exercise in though!

Ashlyn had her first game Monday - a scrimmage against Llano. They were divided into A & B teams for this game only since most schools Mason plays against don't have enough for two teams. She played on the B team and I was impressed with how much she had improved since last year. She plays point guard and made some pretty good plays and even was involved in some fouls which means she's finally getting aggressive! They were winning the entire game until the last 19 seconds when the other team scored and beat them by 1 point :( Oh well it was fun to watch!

Monday was a crazy day though. I worked in Austin so I left the house at 6am and John was going to be cooking hotdogs for the cubscouts at 6pm after taking Judy to the airport in SA that day and then had to be at a DVFD meeting at 7:30p. I had to come from Austin and pick Colten up from cubscouts after helping clean up from hot dogs and grabbing a few for Ashlyn and then went to the gym to watch Ashlyn's game which didn't start until 8:30pm. We were all exhausted by the time we got home a little before 10... whew...

Today I'm taking the afternoon off to help with distributing popcorn for the cub scouts. John picked it up Saturday morning and barely had enough room in his truck to bring it all home. Our pack did some serious selling - we had the biggest stack of boxes out of the packs in the Hill Country District! I just hope I got all the orders right.

Halloween & Food Show

Whew, what a busy weekend! Friday night we worked in the concession stand at the football game (Mason vs Junction - we won!) where it was so busy, we were out of hamburgers by the 2nd quarter! I was in charge of nachos again and still have no desire to eat them - that is some nasty cheese! Anyway, we only worked the first half and then went home because I wasn't feeling well.

Saturday, we made Ashlyn's dish for the food show on Sunday and then got ready for trick or treating. We went to the fall festival again and then did some trick or treating. It was perfect weather for once! Not hot and just cold enough, couldn't have asked for better!

Colten was a storm trooper and Ashlyn was supposed to be one of the vampires from the Twilight series, but the fangs wouldn't fit in her mouth so she was just wearing a wig and makeup. She didn't really like it and has sworn off makeup for the near future (yay!)

Here are Ashlyn & Colten fighting it out at the festival:

The food show on Sunday was small and all kids that participated (all 4 of them) got 1st place since they were the only ones in their category. But I think it's good practice for them and now we get to go to district in Abilene again. Colten made BBQ steak wraps (and being the only entry with beef also won the best beef dish award of $25) and Ashlyn made cheesy manicotti.

Elizabeth & Xavier's Wedding

Saturday we made our way to Austin to see Elizabeth and Xavier get married. It was a beautiful wedding and Elizabeth was a gorgeous bride. She made most of (or maybe all?) the flowers (fabric) and decorations herself - she is so talented! I was very impressed! :) I realized that this was my first cousin on my Dad's side to get married - we haven't had a wedding on that side since John & I got married forever ago ;) but we've had several on my Mom's side. Anyway, it was very nice and a lot of fun.

Here are pics of the big day from both my mom and me:

Elizabeth & Xavier's Wedding

Camp Sol Mayer

Although we were the only family from our pack that signed up to go, we still decided it would be fun to see what Camp Sol Mayer family camp was all about. We were not disappointed. We arrived somewhat early since we weren't sure what to expect. You really only needed to get there before lunch if you were camping, but we brought along a picnic lunch that we enjoyed on the back of the truck after taking a walk around the camp. The activities started at 12:45 with the flag raising and then all the scouts were let loose to choose from many activities. One advantage of being the only people there from our pack was the freedom to go where we wanted, unlike the large groups of kids that took over various activities as a group. We avoided whereever they were.

We were lucky enough to be the first at archery where Colten earned his first beltloop of the day. Both kids got to try it out:


After archery, we headed over to sling shot where the kids shot dog food at paper plate targets... ingenious idea! We decided that's how we should feed the cats sometimes :) Next we tried for bb gun shooting, but the line was WAY too long so we made our way to the paddle boats on the river. After a few rounds up and down the river, we went back up to shooting... still a long line. So we went to wildlife conservation - Colten's second belt loop of the day where the main attraction was a boa that both kids got to hold for awhile:




When we were done there, we went to the art (third belt loop), bowling and marble activities and then headed back down to see how bb gun shooting was going. The line was more manageable so we waited so Colten could get his belt loop there. Next was the highlight (and lowlight) of the day, the mud pit! This consisted of a sprinkler on a pole with a mound of dirt around it and a moat around that. This moat was connected to another body of water with a swingset type contraption that had water coming out of the top and a rope that could be used to swing across the water. KID HEAVEN! They had so much fun getting dirty and throwing mud and sliding down the mud pile. However, getting clean wasn't much fun... we had brought extra clothes, but no towels, so we squirted them off with cold water and had them lay out on the side walk to dry some. Then we took them over to the truck and had them dry off with paper towels and change clothes. They didn't like that part much, but didn't have much of a choice. Ashlyn said she wouldn't have done it knowing that we didn't have towels... oh well, too late!

Here they are playing in the mud and how they looked when they got out:



What a day! We concluded the day with a nice supper at Dad's favorite Menard restaurant, Ojeda's and had to rub it in a little :) And of course some major showers when we got home!

Busy Busy!

First off, I want to say that Jason in 99% better after the bike crash. When they arrived for our walk yesterday, I didn't even notice the tiny scratches on his face.... talk about a speedy recovery! I was sooo happy about that. He still has a pretty bad scrape on his arm, but it looks much better, too. Thank goodness!

So much has been going on lately, I'm sure I'll forget something. Last Saturday was the 4-H food fun day where the kids go to different stations to make food that becomes part of our noon meal. I was in charge of a station this year and I helped the kids make fruit smoothies and fruit pizza. The kids had a lot of fun and we all enjoyed our "brunch" of ziploc bag omelets, pumpkin muffins, sausage balls, granola and of course the fruit items. It was more than any of us could eat! My station went well until the end. I had mixed up a big batch of smoothies with some of the left over ingredients for the adults to share and had it sitting on the table while I washed dishes. Ashlyn came running in saying the smoothies exploded - well that didn't sound good. Still not sure how it happened, but one of the older boys attempted to pour himself a cup and almost the whole batch leaked out of the blender and onto the table! That was fun to clean up....

Saturday evening we went to the Stonewall VFD fish fry and were happy to be able to enjoy this one after working so hard at Doss. However, we should have brought jackets b/c we were all freezing cold when the sun went down. I guess we're all weenies now after that long hot summer, but 55 was a little too chilly to hang out and drink beer in :) so we didn't stay too long.

Colten started getting sick Sunday - he got a really bad headache in church and started crying, but after John took him out and gave him a drink he seemed better so we sent him to Sunday School. The same thing happened there, poor guy! He had a little bit of fever that afternoon so we kept him home Monday & got him an appt Tues where he tested negative for the flu - they said he probably has strep and is on antibiotics now. Hopefully that's all it is!

Also on Sunday, we tried cooking cow tongue for the first time. We had one from one of the steers we butchered and we all actually liked how it turned out! John can do amazing things with food sometimes :) He started with a recipe for lengua and did his magic with it and we were all surprised - even him!

Both kids got on the A Honor Roll for the first 6 weeks and we are super proud of them! They're off to a rough start for the 2nd one though - Ashlyn was out last week for a couple of days with Bronchitis and missed a few things that brought her grade down - hopefully she can get it back up!

We've had another bad luck streak with cats (although some may call it good luck considering we've become a bit overrun with cats lately). A few weeks ago Colten found one of the younger kittens dead in the yard in the morning with only the dogs to blame. Now yesterday, the kids found another of the kittens laying under a bench unable to move. We're not sure what happened to it, but it seemed to be paralyzed. They tried to nurse it back to health, but this morning it was no longer breathing. Colten was very upset as that was his favorite. I wish the kids wouldn't have had to see what happened to them, but I guess that's life. We still have like 10 more cats left :)

This weekend, we are going to a Cub Scout camp near Menard for the day on Saturday. Should be fun, but I hope we have good weather.

So, I also wanted to share this story about Colten before I forget it :) He can be a little weasel sometimes! We know he's not supposed to take toys to school, but we'd been letting him as long as he promised to only play with them on the bus and left them in his backpack during school - it's a long boring bus ride after all. Lately he'd been bringing his Bakugan (little plastic balls that transform into creatures when you roll them over a magnet - from a cartoon), but I guess he had put them in his pocket to play with during recess and still had them there during PE. One of them fell out and another little boy claimed finders keepers on it. Colten knew it was his and they got in trouble for arguing about it. The toys got taken to the principal's office and could only be picked up by the parents. This happened on a Mon or Tue. Thursday during a walk, Leann mentioned that Jason told her that Colten had his Bakugan taken away - which we hadn't heard anything about. Hmmmm. Later, I asked Colten about them and he didn't have whole lot to say. I even said I might know where they are and he still didn't fess up. I practically had to drag it out of him, but finally he confessed. He said it wasn't his fault and that he accepted his punishment of getting them taken away. I asked why he didn't tell us and of course he thought he'd get in trouble - now he knows it's worse not to tell!

Accidents...

I've been walking on Tue & Thur with two of my neighbors lately. The kids bring their bikes and ride down the road and get back to the house way before we do and play with the kitties while they wait for us. This has typically been fun for all and a great way for us to get some exercise. This past Tue our walk was a disastrous one, though. One of the neighbors couldn't come because her child was sick with strep throat, so just two of us starting walking and the 5 kids went off on their bikes. A little way down the road we heard the kids, but they're always making noise so we didn't think much of it at first. Then the noise sounded more like screaming... we high tailed it down the road and I don't even remember flying over the cattle guard. I found Ashlyn screaming hysterically, a little scraped up and missing a shoe, and then I noticed Colten's best friend, Jason, walking toward me, bleeding profusely out of his mouth, scraped up all over, and also missing a shoe. I was very confused and freaking out! I checked him for broken bones (none thankfully!) and tried to see where the blood was coming from. By then his mom was there and Ashlyn was bawling. Thankfully Leann had brought her phone, so we called John to bring the truck down. They went up to the house and I stayed with the other kids to look for his shoe -in all the craziness Jason was very concerned about his bike and his shoe. His sister finally found it a few yards down the road in the grass. The kids and I walked back up to the house with the bikes and found Jason and his mom cleaning him up in the bathroom to see what the damage was. After things had settled down some, we got the story. The boys had ridden ahead some and stopped at the creek below the church. Jason must have been turning around or going across the little bridge when Ashlyn came barreling down the hill, unable to stop on the gravel road or go off the road b/c of the creek. She screamed to move, but too late. She ran straight into him and they both must have slid down the road aways, entangled in their bikes. Ashlyn managed to get herself and the bikes off of Jason and started screaming for us. And that's when we found them. Jason doesn't remember any of it. Ashlyn is very upset about the whole thing, rightfully so, so she made him a card and she had us get him a new Bakugan and some M&M's and ice cream (boy flowers) and we brought them over to him last night. His face is very scraped up and his lips are swollen (most of the blood was from him biting the inside of his cheek). He has a really bad scrape on one arm and other scrapes all over. Leann decided it wasn't bad enough for the ER, but has kept him home from school to heal as he is still very sore. Ashlyn is banged up a bit, too, with a big scrape on her elbow, and others on her knee, wrist and side. We did scold her for going so fast, but she has really been beating herself up about it so don't want to make it much worse for her. We are trying to use this as a good lesson - See what happens when you're not paying attention on a bike? Imagine what could happen in a car... Ashlyn, being less than 3 years from getting her driver's license, will hopefully be painfully reminded of this incident while driving. Once Jason is ready to ride again, I think they will all be more careful, but we will still be reminding them of the rules of the road.

Unexpectedly Busy Weekend

Originally, we had thought we'd go visit Rena this weekend and hang out in College Station during a home game which is always fun. As it got closer we realized we should probably stay home to get ready for our first pack meeting that Monday and then it looked like Rena wouldn't be there so we decided to nix the trip for a low-key weekend. Then John's friend Noel's mom passed away Thursday and the funeral was Saturday, so we were glad we decided not to go. She had fought cancer for the last few years and was to the point where they could do no more to help her. It was a long ordeal for her and the family. She will be missed, but she's no longer hurting so we are thankful for that. We went to the visitation and hung out with the family Friday night and then to the burial Saturday afternoon and hung out with the family again that evening. Keep them in your prayers.

Sunday was another busy day - we went to Blake's birthday for lunch after church & Sunday school and then to the appreciation dinner for those who helped at the Doss fish fry - long day! I was glad to not have to drive to Austin on Monday. I have to go Wed for training instead (on my birthday - boo!).

Our first pack meeting went OK. Some of the boys said it was a lot of fun, so I guess that's a good sign. The worst part was at the end when everyone was trying to get info and books and new people were signing up and we were trying to get shirt sizes - mass chaos! We survived mostly in one piece, but I was beat afterwards!

Saturday morning, we were surprised to see Colten choosing not to play the Wii and instead chose to hang out with the piggies and catch minnows in the tank outside - all on his own. I was impressed. That doesn't happen too often! We did get our third pig - it came all the way from Illinois or Iowa (can't remember which) so we decided to call it Yankee. It was having a hard time in the heat yesterday, but hopefully it'll get cooler again so it won't overheat or something.

Here's Colten catching minnows:


Friday night, Ashlyn spent the night with a friend and they went and "got their toes did" :) She now has sail boats on her big toes. We felt sorry for the guy who had to do it b/c she has some really smelly feet sometimes!! And now she has done something I never have - my toes have only ever been painted by me!

Piggies!

I finally got around to taking pictures of the kids' stock show piggies that we got Monday. So far we have two barrows that we will be showing in Mason and Kerrville this year. We are supposed to be getting another one for Ashlyn to show, but I'm not sure when. We also have two extras that are waiting for their owners to have somewhere to put them. One of ours is really small, but apparently we're not supposed to underestimate him. Their names are Spaz and Spunky this year - we ran out of pork related names finally!




This past weekend was a busy one. John & I attended Cub Scout Leader training in Llano Saturday morning and the kids hung out with Omie & Opie A. We learned a lot - maybe too much - this job is a little overwhelming. But things are little more laid back in Mason than other places, so hopefully we can handle it. We managed to get enough den leaders together and are having our first meeting Monday finally. Wish us luck with this - we are totally winging it!!! They taught us to use "the thin edge of the wedge" to get people to help with small tasks... we decided that somehow we got the whole wedge at once! Yes.. SUCKERS!!!

Saturday evening, there was yet another birthday gathering for Jayde (the last one) that we all went to. We played horseshoes and washers and I now have a win in horseshoes to hold over Tim for awhile :) We also played a game of Apples to Apples where we finally got Colten to join in and he loved it! He was even the closest to winning for awhile, but I snuck up from behind and won in the end. Lots of fun!

John is having his headaches again. He got one on the way to Jayde's birthday party, but thankfully it went away. I think he's gotten one every day since... poor guy! Hope they don't go on much longer - these things totally drain him.

Colten Quote of the Day: (holding one of the kittens the other day when it was a little chilly) "Here Mommy, you wanna hold the kitten - it warms your body and it warms your heart." AWWWWWW!

Rain Rain and More Rain!

Wow, what a change in the weather. We get over 8 inches of rain in a week and now we have highs in the 80s! Maybe the end of 100 degree days is here... for this summer anyway! It's nice to see green grass again :)

This past weekend, Ashlyn was invited to her friend Jayde's birthday party and Connie asked me to come along too. The plan was to go to Fiesta Texas, but with the threat of rain and flooding, the plan changed and we ended up at Main Event in Austin. We had a lot of fun playing laser tag (where the team Connie & I were on beat the team the girls were on, yea!) and arcade games and the girls did some rock climbing, too. We never got around to bowling or glow in the dark golf - there's a lot to do there... might have to go check it out again sometime!

Here's a pic of Ashlyn and Jayde on the intermediate rock climbing wall. They didn't make it to the top much on this wall - after about 15 minutes of climbing, their arms were useless. Glad we only got 30 minutes of climbing for them!


While we were gone, Colten and John were going to go dove hunting with friends, but the rain kept them from doing that, too. So they just hung around the house and watched it rain. Sunday we had a nice visit from Mom & Dad - they stopped by on their way home from Colorado (see Mom's blog here for more on their trip). We decided they needed to go on vacation more often if it would rain like this every time they did!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a busy week before and Labor Day weekend. Since John is in the Doss VFD now, he was helping with the fish fry prep most days and we had to go to the Cub Scout Rally and the Cub Scout Roundtable meeting since we are now Cubmasters (there we found that we have a lot to do with selling popcorn, but really not sure what else we're in charge of - should be interesting). It was a pretty crazy week. Then, Saturday, Ashlyn went with her friend Jayde to sell drinks at the Apple Fest in Mason for Kids Against Cancer, John left early for the fish fry and I took Colten to his friend's house after lunch so I could go to the fish fry to help sell t-shirts and caps. Another crazy day! I was glad the kids had other people to hang out with b/c John & I were both so busy we didn't even get a chance to go through the line to eat! Luckily, we were able to snack on fish. It was amazing how many people come to the fish fry - I had never been there for the whole thing before, but people started showing about a little after 3 and they didn't start serving until 4:30! The line was pretty much always long and meandering through the parking area until 7:30 or 8. Thankfully it wasn't very hot that day :) We were all exhausted by the time we got home - then I had to go back and get John b/c old yeller wouldn't start for him. He ended up having to pick it up on a trailer to get it home. He's pretty bummed about that. Hopefully he can get it running again soon...

Sunday, we did pretty much nothing all day since we were all so tired from the day before and John wasn't feeling well - we were starting to worry he was getting pneumonia again, but he seems to be getting better now.

Monday, besides John getting the truck, we didn't do much either. We did have a couple of friends over that afternoon and were going to maybe do some target shooting, but I think John wasn't exactly up for it. We did have some yummy grilled fish (leftovers from the fish fry) and had a nice relaxing day.

No pictures to share this time... shocking, I know!

Weekly update

We made it through the first week of school pretty easily but of course they got bombarded with homework the second week. After the cub scout rally last night, Colten was up until 9 finishing up his homework - yikes! Ashlyn had a little last week, but already has a test this week... summer vacation is definitely over!

Here are my studious children reading :)


Last weekend we had a great time going to Cole's 3rd birthday. Colten was a very good, patient boy with Cole, while he was tackled and chased and whatever else. I thought that was good for Colten. And I got my baby fix - there were two 3 month olds and a 3 week old baby there, awwww!

Here are the kids with Cole in the bouncy castle:


Here's me with Cole's baby brother, Drew:

Fair Time & First Day of School

The kids had a fun last week of summer with lots of visits/sleep overs with friends and of course the fair! They got to see the parade Friday morning and then we went to the carnival early Friday evening. It was HOT! But I don't think they cared too much. The girls rode every scary ride they had multiple times while Colten stayed with the tamer rides.

Here's Colten on his favorite - the dragon roller coaster (not sure who the other little boy is)

Here are the three of them on the tea cups - it was very boring b/c the cup wouldn't spin and every time they came around to where we could see them, they had a different expression of boredom on their faces - no more riding that one!

Here's Ashlyn & Jayde on the orbiter (I think that's what it's called). It goes back and forth around a circle and eventually does a whole loop a few times.

Sunday, we went to the Beaver Creek with the Witt's for one last to-do before school. It was sooo hot, though and the water was almost as warm as the air, but the kids had fun of course. Colten caught lots of minnows and when one of them died, they started a game of "cooking" where they found a hole in the rocks and added dead fish, water and greenery to make some fancy looking "food." Ewwww....

Then Monday was the first day of school - Ashlyn is now an 8th grader and Colten's a 3rd grader! They both had a good first day. Colten loves his teacher and was soooo happy that his two good friends were in his class and one boy that he doesn't like wasn't. Ashlyn was sad that her friend Emmie wasn't hardly in any of her classes, but she had friends in every class so it wasn't too big of a deal. She gets to take Algebra 1 this year in a small class of 12 since she has had such good grades in math -yay Ashlyn!

One more week

Summer is almost over - school starts next Monday for my 8th grader and 3rd grader. Once again I must ask where does the time go. I'm sure it's going faster than it's supposed to!

At least we managed one last shabang with our trip to the Davis Mountains and will have more fun this weekend at the fair. The last couple of days of our trip were good. The McDonalds Observatory was very interesting and the kids got to move the huge telescope around and spin the roof of the building and open the huge doors that the telescope looks through at night. That was right up their alley. Unfortunately, the star party didn't turn out too great - when we got there it was lightning all around and it didn't die off or move away like I hoped. It poured. And lightning-ed more. So we watched a couple of presentations inside and went back to the motel... bummer! We did finally make it to Balmorhea the last day on our way back home - it was worth the wait. The water was so clear and you could see scuba divers in the deep section and fish all over. Colten loved finding snails and looking for turtles. It was a bit chilly, but you got used to that after awhile. We will have to go again sometime and all bring goggles along!

Lots of pics from our trip:

Davis Mountains Trip

Carlsbad

We have yet to make it to Balmorhea. After my last post, we just drove around since the rain didn't really stop until dark. Here are the kids in the mountains between Ft. Davis and the McDonald Observatory. We decided the ranch in the background would be nice to have :)

Yesterday, we made the long treck to Carlsbad Caverns. It was a beautiful drive so that made up for the length. We drove right by the Sierra Diablo Mountains and the Guadalupe Mountains and stopped to snap this pic of the kiddos in front of El Capitan:

Carlsbad was awesome. I'd forgotten how HUGE the cavern was... wow! We also learned that the 16 yr old boy that discovered it was from Mason County - small world! Here's the view from the visitors center - you could see for - ev - er.


Today, we'll make our way to McDondald Observatory, take the tour there and sign up for the Star Party tonight. We'll also stop by the Davis Mountains St Park and check out the view from on top of the mountains. If we have time, we'll try to make it to Balmorhea, but that might have to wait for another trip - we decided we must come here again sometime. It's like a West Texas oasis - the weather is cool and dry and it's green and the views are great.

We leave tomorrow, so we'll be back in the humid heat soon :( Oh well... vacations can't last forever!

Rain Rain Go Away

Right now we're sitting on the porch at our motel watching it rain, which actually isn't too bad of thing to be doing on vacation. It started while we were touring Fort Davis so we'll have to go back later and finish checking it out. We planned on swimming at Balmorhea SP this afternoon, but we'll have to see if the rain stops soon enough for that.

We got here yesterday and just chilled at the motel and let the kids swim for a few hours. It's sooooo nice here. When we got here it was 90 degrees and not humid. Now it's like 65. Much nicer than 100+.

Here's some pics so far...

The kids in the pool:

Rain storm at Fort Davis National Historical Site:

Kids on the hammock:

Mountain behind our hotel:

Busy August

We blinked and now it's August! Saturday we went to the Brandenberger Reunion which was nice, but not nearly as fun as the Reeh reunion ;) We didn't stay long b/c we had bought some corn that morning before the reunion and it started raining so we needed to get it home. The kids went home with Omie B afterwards and John & I went to see Kevin Fowler in Harper with Noel & his sister. The next day we took Ashlyn to Hermann Sons Camp for her last year :( She wants to try to be a counselor though, so I told her to ask about the counselor-in-training program while she was there. I think she'd make a great counselor! Colten will get to go next year.

Here are the kiddos in Ashlyn's dorm at camp:

Thought I'd throw this one on here, too. We took a jeep ride and went potching in the Beaver Creek for awhile Friday night. Colten "fell" in, of course :)

Next week, we head out on a short vacation to the Davis Mountains with some friends and will be checking out Balmorhea S.P. and the McDonald Observatory. We're looking forward to the break. When we get back, there will be one more week until school starts... already! Where did the summer go?

Reunions galore

Last weekend we attended the first reunion out of three in a row that we have for the next couple of weekends. This might have been our 3rd out of 6 reunions for the year, but we skipped the first two. Just 3 more to go... and the last one, John & I are on the committee for. We also had a meeting for that last one this weekend, so we were kept busy most of the weekend just with family reunion stuff!

Anyway, it was the Reeh reunion this weekend and we had a lot of fun. The kids always enjoy the cake walk and each ended up winning cookies. Ashlyn was a glutton for punishment, challenging my cousin Jimmy to several games of chess. I wasn't a good enough challenge, but he certainly was! Maybe she learned something :) Colten played with his star wars legos pretty much the entire time.

Here's the "activity" table at the reunion :)


Sunday, we went to church with Omie B and took her to lunch at Mamacita's for her 75th birthday... HAPPY BIRTHDAY Omie B!!!


Today, Ashlyn is having some teeth pulled so we can move on to the next stage of her braces. Darn, guess she'll be eating lots of ice cream! Next weekend we have the Brandenberger Reunion in Mason and Ashlyn will be headed out to Hermann Son's camp on Sunday, another busy weekend ahead!

Jonathan & Shawn's Wedding & Ashlyn's Trip

Saturday was my cousin Jonathan's wedding and all of us were involved so we were busy all weekend. John was an usher, the kids were alter servers and I did a reading. We had lots of fun hanging out with the family and helping the newlyweds celebrate. The kids were excited that we'd be staying in a hotel since the wedding and reception were on the other side of San Antonio from us. The wedding was at a very pretty church in St. Hedwig's and the reception was not far from there.

Here are pictures from both me & Mom:

Jonathan & Shawn's Wedding

In other news, Ashlyn & Omie B have returned from WA and Jill and her friend sent lots of pictures back with them. They went to Forks and La Push where the Twilight books/movies are based so there are lots of shots of places of significance in the books.

Ashlyn & Omie B's Trip to Washington

It's HOT!

Wow, it's been hot! We are super jealous of Ashlyn & Omie B getting to spend some time in nice cool Washington while we are melting our skin off around here :) I am soooo hoping for a change in the weather! We are also ready to have Ashlyn back home, but I know she won't be ready for this heat. She'll be back tomorrow, yay! I sent a camera with her, so hopefully I'll have some fun pictures to share of her trip.

We've had a busy few weeks and this past weekend, in lieu of going to round up in Mason, we stayed home and did mostly nothing. It was great! We had a surprise also, when one of our cats started having kittens in the yard in front of us. Colten got an education :) We first thought the dogs were torturing her, but no, she was just really angry at her backside. She howled and yelped and went on and on for a few hours and finally finished up with 4 kittens. I think we need to get some cats fixed now... that's 5 adults, 3 half grown kittens and 4 newborns - too many! Surely we can keep some of these around for awhile.

Yesterday, we took Colten to Schlitterbahn since his sister got to go to WA. It was soooo hot inbetween rides, but thankfully the water was VERY refreshing! Rena and Blake went along with us and we had lots of fun. I am beat today, though. None of us got sunburned too bad.... success!

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We also just lost my dear Aunt Marilyn in spite of her long, hard-fought battle with leukemia. We all will miss her and her smile very much. I have many fond memories of summer visits at her house and owe it her for piquing my interest in embroidery (even though I don't do it much these days) and for teaching me some songs on the piano - which I've always wanted to learn more of. She went through so much, but can finally be at peace. I know her and Oma are enjoying eachother's company in heaven, pain free.

Here is a picture I had of her riding in my convertable a few years ago. This is how I want to remember her.

Ashlyn's 13th Birthday

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Ashlyn's 13th Birthday