Even though we didn't make to any fireworks displays, we had a great 4th of July weekend. Friday morning we left the house early to meet Omie B and watch the parade in Fredericksburg. Then after grabbing some lunch we went to watch the movie "Wall-E" which was pretty cute. After the movie we headed out to Rheingold for the 42-club 4th of July picnic where we ate lots of BBQ and played dominoes until about 10 pm. Even Ashlyn played and did better than me... I got the boobie prize for not winning any games... it was one of those off nights! John got 2nd place, so we both managed to leave with prizes!
Here's a photo from after the parade:
Here's Ashlyn being a monkey at Rheingold:
Saturday morning we packed up again and went to the creek to hang out with the Heiner's and spend the afternoon swimming, eating and drinking. The water was freezing and the weather was nice and breezy so it was one of those rare summer days when it actually felt better outside of the water than in, but we still enjoyed floating around for quite a while and had a wonderful feast of grilled steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, sweet tomatoes and peach cobbler with homemade ice cream afterward. Colten, Dayle, & John did some fishing, too, and caught some pretty good sized catfish. Colten was in heaven!
Sunday we were excited to finally get a little rain shower since all the rain in the area the past week or so had managed to skip passed us. Combined with the rain we got yesterday, we had an inch in the rain gauge, yay!
Sunday also gave John & I our first experience of stressing out over a late child. I know it won't be the last time that happens, but the first came too quickly! Ashlyn's friend invited her to go see Kung Fu Panda with her in Mason Sunday night which was not a problem. We didn't know that her friends older brothers were the ones taking them, but that was OK, too. They wouldn't be back too late. I guess the brothers were working at the movies, because a little later we got a call from one of them that there would be a second showing and they were asked to stay and help for that showing and then clean up after. They would drop Ashlyn off a little after 10. OK, that seemed reasonable. However the closer it got to 10, the more we wished we would have said no. I waited until 10:30 to call him back on his cell, they were almost at the house... whew! We very were glad to see the lights pulling up to the house. I know... this is just the beginning.
Ashlyn's 12th birthday was last Sunday and we celebrated 3 times! The first was her birthday breakfast in Galveston, then Friday I took her and some friends to the swimming pool at Lady Bird Park and we had pizza, watermelon and birthday brownies afterward. Then Saturday, we put some pork & ribs on the BBQ and had a few people over to celebrate yet again. We also broke open the first watermelon from our garden which was super yummy!
Here's a picture of the kids at the park:
Here's Opie giving some birthday spankings:
We had a nice trip to Galveston last week and a great visit with John's family. Jill was there for a class reunion so we had planned to go down with Roseline and see her while she was there. Then Judy decided to come down as well, so we had a mini family reunion, too. We all shared a 2 1/2 bedroom condo on the seawall where Jill's friends were also staying and that worked out really well. Unfortunately Rena was out working while we were there, so we didn't get to see her.
The trip didn't start out too great when we got stuck in Houston traffic since they closed down I-10 (starting the day we were driving of course) and we all had to merge into one lane... I swear it took two hours to go two miles! Fortunately we had the portable dvd player and a few rounds of the ABC game to tide us over. We were very glad to be out of the car when that was over.
That evening had some excitement as well when Galveston was under a tornado warning... yes I was freaking out a little! At one point the sky was very much green and we were on the third floor. Fortunately, the worst part missed us. I took some pictures of the clouds after it had gone past. Later on we heard a loud crash and thought somewhere near had been struck by lightning. We looked outside and a car had driven through the metal fence of our hotel and down the embankment... crazy!
The rest of the time wasn't nearly as crazy, thankfully. We spent a lot of time hanging at the pools at our hotel and made a couple of visits to the beach. On Tuesday, we had thought about going to Schlitterbahn, but the weather made our decision for us when it decided to storm most of the morning. We did some shopping on the strand and went to the Moody Garden Aquarium instead.
Here's a slideshow of our trip, just click on it to check out the album:
I've been kinda lazy with the picture taking lately, but we've been keeping ourselves very busy. The last couple of weekends were filled with a reunion, a shower, a workday at Hilda Community Club for the historic school open house, swimming/hot dogs at two different creeks, and a Father's Day BBQ, to name a few. We're very much looking forward to our trip to Galveston this coming Sat-Wed where I will be sure to not be a lazy picture taker. The summer is practically all booked up already - it goes by WAY to fast!
We made an attempt at a garden this year and so far have been very successful with yellow squash (if you want some, we're always trying to get rid of the extra!). We also have green beans, jalapeños, corn, pickling cucumbers, watermelon, and cherry tomatoes. Thought I'd share a few pics of our progress so far. Unfortunately, there is lots of nut grass in the garden - it beat us. We tried getting rid of it to no avail and so it is allowed to run free, but it doesn't seem to be bother the plants too much.
Watermelon in front, green beans on the left, squash in the middle, corn & cucumbers on the right. You can't see the jalapeños (behind the squash) or the tomatoes (in tubs by the smokehouse).
The first watermelon to show up. It's about the size of a soccer ball now and there are at least 10 more started.
Siamiese squash :)
My sunflower garden.
Since the kids have been gone with my parents since Friday, I don't have too much to write about, but I did have to share this picture I took while John & I were driving around in the jeep Friday night. I usually don't like skunks (who does?), but I think it's safe to say that baby animals are almost always cute and I don't remember ever seeing baby skunks before and I'm sure I've never seen an almost all white skunk, baby or not. We sat and watched them for awhile (from a safe distance, of course). The mom ran off and left the babies playing in plain site. Guess they weren't too afraid of us!
We had an event filled Memorial Day weekend and were all pooped out afterward even though it was fun and somewhat relaxing. Colten finally got to have a friend over to spend the night Friday night and he was soooo excited. I made him call his friend to invite him over and had to follow him around the house while he was on the phone to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything. He walked back and forth from the living room to the kitchen just yakking away. Just like his daddy... can't sit still on the phone! I let them stay up until 10 playing the Wii hoping they would sleep late in the morning (ha!). It took awhile for them to get situated, but the two boys ended up sleeping in the same twin bed, Colten with his head at the top of the bed and Jason in the middle, sharing a blanket.... too cute! Of course my ploy to get them to sleep late didn't work and they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 am ready for some more video games. Thankfully I could sleep through that :)
Saturday morning was the usual laundry/clean-up time and I kicked the kids outside to play for awhile. Colten's friend left after lunch and then we went to a bbq/skeet shoot that one of the other coaches on Colten's baseball team invited us to. It was us and three other couples and tons of kids and was lots of fun. I shot a few times and was surprised with my aim (I hit 4/5). I got a lovely bruise on my shoulder for my effort :)
Sunday we had lunch and spent the afternoon at Oma Reeh's for Mother's/Father's Day and had a great time catching up with the family.
Monday was a pretty lazy day. Colten wanted to try some target shooting with the BB gun and later in the afternoon we went to a neighbor's to do some fishing and grilling. All in all, a good long weekend!
Tomorrow is the last day of the school year (then we'll have a 2nd grader and a 7th grader... YIKES!!!!). They had a great year and both got recognized for all A's all year long (I'm just a little bit proud of them!). Mom will be picking the kids up after school to take them camping for a week. They're really looking forward to it and so are we.... finally John & I get to play the Wii!!!!!
Here's Ashlyn being a monkey at Rheingold:
Saturday morning we packed up again and went to the creek to hang out with the Heiner's and spend the afternoon swimming, eating and drinking. The water was freezing and the weather was nice and breezy so it was one of those rare summer days when it actually felt better outside of the water than in, but we still enjoyed floating around for quite a while and had a wonderful feast of grilled steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, sweet tomatoes and peach cobbler with homemade ice cream afterward. Colten, Dayle, & John did some fishing, too, and caught some pretty good sized catfish. Colten was in heaven!
Sunday we were excited to finally get a little rain shower since all the rain in the area the past week or so had managed to skip passed us. Combined with the rain we got yesterday, we had an inch in the rain gauge, yay!
Sunday also gave John & I our first experience of stressing out over a late child. I know it won't be the last time that happens, but the first came too quickly! Ashlyn's friend invited her to go see Kung Fu Panda with her in Mason Sunday night which was not a problem. We didn't know that her friends older brothers were the ones taking them, but that was OK, too. They wouldn't be back too late. I guess the brothers were working at the movies, because a little later we got a call from one of them that there would be a second showing and they were asked to stay and help for that showing and then clean up after. They would drop Ashlyn off a little after 10. OK, that seemed reasonable. However the closer it got to 10, the more we wished we would have said no. I waited until 10:30 to call him back on his cell, they were almost at the house... whew! We very were glad to see the lights pulling up to the house. I know... this is just the beginning.
