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