The kids survived the first day of school alright. Ashlyn had two schedule changes and was upset that she didn't get to have Art after all and that she didn't have many friends in her classes. I'm hoping her day goes better today. They have A & B days in high school, but some classes are everyday. It is rather confusing. I know she'll figure it out though. She did get to take a culinary arts class and computer animation. I'm anxious to see what she learns in those. Other classes she has are Geometry, Pre-AP Biology, Pre-AP English, Geography, Ag, and Athletics - should be a busy year for her! Colten loved his teachers and that he gets a locker, but also didn't have his best friends in his class. Guess they'll both be getting to know other kids in their classes better this year.
Here they are, my 4th grader and Freshman, on the first day:
I took Friday off last week to do something fun for the last day of summer break. We went to San Antonio and saw Toy Story 3D (very cute) did some tax-free clothes shopping and also stopped by Bass Pro to get Colten a few new fishing gadgets. Then Saturday, we went to the Llano river with our neighbors to play in the water a while. Sunday after church, Colten went fishing with John and his Opie and then we went to pick up our first pig for the stock show. It was a great weekend, but now the fun starts again!
Here are the kids on the back of the truck heading home from the river (bye bye summer break!):
Here they all are after swimming:
And here they are playing in tubes:
Well, it's almost been to hot to do anything but hang out in the A/C or water somewhere. We just had a good weekend doing the latter. The kids went camping in Ingram with Omie & Opie A and swam and fished in a creek there while John & I went and floated the Llano River in Junction with the Harwell's and some friends of theirs who knew where to go (we weren't sure if it would be a good thing for the kids so we wanted to try it without them first). It was awesome with just enough rapids and slow places and not many other tubers and we even played on a rope swing a little bit. Man do I feel old after that though - my whole body is aching today! We are ready to go back though and take the kids. I think they'd have a blast, too.
Colten got the fishing bug after the camping trip and getting new maroon fishing pole from Omie & Opie and has been in little boy heaven digging through John's tackle box this afternoon and finding treasures that John is willing to give up and organizing his own little tackle box. He's already asking for a tackle box like John has from Santa this year.
Last week, we got Ashlyn signed up for high school and got the kids' school supplies together. It's going to be a busy year! It's hard to believe Ashlyn will be in high school already :( She's excited and scared about it, but I think she'll do well. We have her signed up for pre-AP classes so I think she's a little worried about that. I have confidence in her though. School starts on the 23rd and we have a open house this week Wednesday to meet Colten's teacher (he has the same teacher that Ashlyn had in the 4th grade) and we also get to have a table to sign up cub scouts. Should be an interesting evening.
I know you're all dieing to hear about Colten's week at camp ;) so before I forget the details, here they are:
I worried for naught which I don't mind. He had a blast and only got a little homesick one time. He even got camper of the day one day. His activities were rocketry, recreational games, basketball, archery, riflery and ceramics. His favorite was rocketry where they assembled and painted a rocket during the week and then launched on Friday. He said his went in circles and then dive bombed, but thought that was cool :) He loved the food and snacks. He made several friends, but couldn't remember their names, lol. He said there were a few mean boys, but he avoided them. He learned lots of funny songs and some had different lyrics than what Ashlyn always sang - to make them better for boys, I guess. He said he danced with lots of girls at the dance - complete opposite of Ashlyn who ran to hide in the bathroom whenever a boy glanced her direction, ha! I gave him a disposable camera to take pictures with, but he didn't use the flash inside, so not many turned out, darnit. But he's ready to go back next year and is already talking about what his next rocket will look like.
John made it back Friday night and passed his EMT course despite having had a bout of food poisoning and missing half a day. Now he can save our lives if it's ever necessary, which we hope it isn't.
Well, we dropped him off, and although he seemed really sad to see us go, I could tell he tried to hide it. I know he's having fun, but it was hard to leave him :(If you want to write him letter, his address is:Hermann Sons Youth CampHilltop Colten Brandenberger, Armadillo DormPO Box 629Comfort, TX 78013-0629
Finally got a chance to post these pictures - my laptop's power cord freaked out and I had to get a new one. Anyway, here is a link to the some of mine & mom's pictures from Dayle & Dee's shower and wedding. The wedding was beautiful, of course, and lots of fun. I am so happy for them!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228942&id=755340907&l=e9dd1c03de
We've been busy with Jill during her visit (well the rest of the family mostly - I've been working). She's going back today already - went by too fast! They did lots of swimming, we all went to NIOF, ate lots of Mexican food, had a BBQ and they went to Sea World yesterday. Busy busy! It was a nice visit, but I didn't get many pictures :(
This weekend, we'll be taking Colten to Hermann Son's camp for the first time. John & I are a little nervous about it b/c he's more of a homebody than Ashlyn was. I know he'll have fun - but hopefully he doesn't miss us too much at night!
We had a great trip - very relaxing. We stayed two nights at Balmorhea State Park where we had a room with a kitchen that connected to the Harwell's room and the kids had a blast with that. We swam in the pool several times and ate lots of yummy food. The kids had fun playing in the stream behind our rooms. They fed the turtles (they named them Cheeto, Chester and Cheeto Jr.) and the fish and made boats out of sticks and leaves to race from one bridge to the next. We saw snakes and crawfish, too. The only bad part about staying here was that our neighbors were smokers and smoked inside their room (they weren't supposed to) and the smoke got into our rooms, too and kept us up at night. Stinky!
The next two nights we stayed at Indian Lodge in Davis Mtns State Park. It wasn't nearly as fun staying there esp since the pool was closed :(, but we did do some fun things - went for a 2 mile long hike up and back down the mountains and had a cookout at one of the picnic areas. The first night there, we drove to the McDonald Observatory to see if the star party was going to happen. They didn't decide until 9:30 (when it was supposed to start) that they would have it so we finally got to go yay! We got to see Saturn, a nebula, two galaxies interacting and a star exploding through their telescopes. Then we started the constellation tour, but by that time it had clouded up and we didn't get to finish it. The next night, we drove to Marfa to eat supper and then check out the Marfa Lights. They weren't tooo exciting, but the fact that no one can explain them made it interesting. We stayed and watched for about 30/45 minutes and saw them several times. Now we can say we saw them :)
Here is a link to an album with lots of pictures:
