Summer Fun

In between working on the bathrooms, we've managed to do a few fun things so far this summer:

Playing in the Llano River with the Harwell's. They had a blast sliding through the rapids and throwing moss at each other :)

All of the Reeh great-granddaughters at Shawn's bridal shower on Father's Day. The boys opted to go fishing.

The kids stayed with the Wolf's one day and played with Cole and got to see new baby Drew. Colten was pretty interested in the baby, surprisingly!

Ashlyn is now obsessed with the Rock Band/Guitar Hero video games. Colten didn't think they were that much fun, but played anyway. Here are the kids and Cole during one of their performances.

We stayed a night with the Silva's so we could go to Aiden's birthday party. Here are the boys playing video games, surprise, surprise!

Here's Kayla & Ashlyn taking a swim while the boys are inside. The boys did some swimming, too, but mostly during the party. They also had a water balloon fight and a pinata... FUN!

Yesterday, we saw "Seussical the Musical" with Omie B. It was very cute!

In other news, today happens to be Ashlyn's 13th birthday, yikes! We are planning a wing fry to celebrate her big day this Friday. Should be fun, but, seriously, where did the time go?!?!!?

Bathrooms (mostly done)

We still have lots of details to finish up, but the bathrooms are looking good so far. The upstairs shower was finished yesterday, but won't be able to be used for a few days. Here are some before and after pics of each bathroom (it's hard to get a good angle!):

Downstairs

Upstairs

Here are some albums showing the progress of each:

Bathroom Remodel - Downstairs

Bathroom Remodel - Upstairs

Not Done Yet

Well, the bathroom remodel is ongoing, but we're close. The shower is 6 tiles short and the bathtub will be hooked up today, hopefully, along with at least one sink - we've always had at least one functional toilet throughout. Only remaining painting to be done is trim, one closet, and touch-ups. Things of course take longer than expected, but it's coming together nicely. The floors are wonderful!

The kids have returned from their camping adventure with Opie & Omie. You can see details on mom's blog here. This week will be interesting since the Wii is off getting fixed due to overheating and John is busy with the bathrooms, but so far they've managed to entertain themselves well and stay out of trouble :) Ashlyn even helped me paint a few times!

We had another wake up call this morning - Cleo was barking incessantly - at a rattlesnake curled up on the sidewalk next to the house. We proceeded to dispose of it quickly :) It's good to have these reminders that they're out there every so often... as long as the animals find them before we do!

We've also had some hairy weather lately, but fortunately the worst missed us. Friday night we were under 3 separate tornado warnings and Hilda was mentioned too many times by the weatherman - as in "This tornadic supercell will be in the Hilda area in 15 minutes" YIKES! We had the closet cleaned out and ready to go. We heard there was some damage about 4 miles from us, but we just had rain, thankfully! Here are some stills off of video that I took during the lightning as the storm was approaching - before we were mentioned as in the direct path (I wasn't worrying about pictures anymore at that point)!!!


And in the meantime, since I can't post pics of the finished bathrooms yet, I thought you might get a kick out of our redneck bathtub-on-a-porch that we used a few times this past week ;)

Summertime!!

Last week, I took one of my mandatory unpaid weeks off (YAY recession) for this year and was able to go with Colten on his rescheduled field trip to Longhorn caverns. It was also the last day of school Wed - both kids ended the school year on the A-B honor roll with only one B each the entire year! I was happy for them, but of course they were bummed that just the one B kept them off the A honor roll. The kids are now out camping with Omie & Opie at Lake Brownwood and we're working on the bathrooms. We decided we might as well bite the bullet and get it done while we had the money saved up for it and since the kids would be gone and we were able to get some help for that week. I'll post pics when they're done. I'm looking forward to the new floors the most!

Here's a link to pics from Colten's field trip:

Colten's 2nd Grade Field Trip

The kids were asked to help out for youth Sunday at the Hilda Methodist Church since one family with 5 kids wasn't going to be there. They were excited to help and I was so proud of both of them for helping out in a church that they weren't very familiar with. Colten helped hand out bulletins and light candles and Ashlyn played her trumpet with Jayde and read some passages out of the bible. They also both helped sing songs and do the bell choir. They thought it was fun and that church should always be youth Sunday. :) One of the members sent me some pics she took during the service, so I thought I'd share them:

Ashlyn & Jayde playing "This is the Day":


Colten helping to light candles in the background:


Ashlyn reading:

Singing and motions to a song (don't remember the name):

Good progress

We were so close to getting all the dirt removed for our xeriscaping that I was really motivated to get it all out Saturday. Our hard work has really started paying off... it looks great so far! We still have a lot of filling in to do and some other details to finish up, but I thought I'd share some pics of how it looks all dug out and at least a small layer of gravel installed over the area. I think I want to do a little of the other side of the sidewalk, too, now that I see how it looks. We'll see if the motivation continues :)




Besides working on this, our Memorial Day weekend was pretty relaxing. We canceled most of our plans due to the threat of rain, but didn't end up getting much. Oh well! Colten was supposed to have one last baseball game and closing ceremonies Sat, but the game got canceled and when we got there for the closing, it was pouring rain and hailing, so we turned around and came back home. That night we planned to go to the crawfish festival in Fredericksburg, but with the rain in the area, we decided not to go. Sunday afternoon we were going to do some skeet shooting, but it was thundering so we canceled that, too and just had some neighbors over for fajitas. We did manage to take the kids for pizza and a movie Monday so they were happy.

Colten's 1st Communion

Colten had his 1st Communion Sunday and all went well. After a few weeks of lessons that we ended up doing in the truck on the way to church, it was finally time. We got Colten dressed up in a tie and nice white shirt and tried to tame his hair. He was very excited about it and not nearly as nervous as he was for the first confession. It all went by so fast, but he did it... he of course didn't like the taste, but understands that he'll have to get used to it :) We had a nice bbq lunch at Mom & Dad's after and celebrated. We're so happy so many of you were able to come share his special day. We are truly blessed!

Here is a link to an album with pics from the big day:

Colten's 1st Communion

Quick Update

It's been a pretty crazy week for me, so here's a quick update. We're all excited about and getting ready for Colten's 1st Communion and BBQ celebration this Sunday. We still have lots to do to get ready for it, but it's all coming together. Colten is coming down with what we think is strep throat (his friend just got over it), but we're hoping he'll be good by Sunday. Ashlyn had a band concert Monday night, which I thought sounded great, but she informed me they were awful... what do I know? Colten's baseball team beat Menard Tuesday and he got two hits and a run this time, yay! Mother's Day was good - the kids gave me homemade goodies from school and made me pizza for dinner. We also went to El Gallo's for lunch with Omie B - lots of yummy food! We've gotten pretty far on our xeroscaping plans for the yard, but still have some to go before I'll post pics of it. Looks good so far! And that's all I can think of for now.