Lake Jacksonville

I'm way behind on updating the blog, I know, I've been so busy this summer, and now I'm going to try to catch up and there will be an onslaught of pictures to follow! Sorry! But school starts back in one week, so I should be better about keeping up then. The only problem then is, we aren't doing anything to keep up with!

Well, we decided to go see Nanny, Tang Tang, and Aunt Kathy and everyone in Jacksonville before Kenzie had the baby. She only had a small window where she could get away so we got up and out real early on Friday morning and were able to be in Jacksonville for lunch. It was so good to see everyone, it had been several years since I had seen my Nanny! I don't care how old you get, it's always good to see your Nanny!

We spent some time together and then went back to Trista and Chris's new house on the lake and got out on the boat and Riley got to brush up on his wakeboarding. He had a blast. Regan got to tube, we swam, it was really nice! We went back Saturday for an early lunch and Nanny and Tang Tang had to head back, so we went back to the lake for a while before we had to hit the road for home. It was a nice short weekend away, and nice to be around some water!

Lake Jacksonville

Tammy's Farm!

I usually stop in at Tammy's, or in this case, spend the night at Tammy's, when I have to go get Regan from Camp Texlake. She lives about 5 minutes from Camp, and it's over an hour from my house, and since I had to get Regan at 9am, I spent the night! Kenzie rode with me to drop Regan off at camp, and then we went to check out Tammy's farm, and then I went back Friday night since the guys were out of town on a deep sea fishing trip, so Regan and I spent the day helping her milk the goats and feed the menagerie!

Camp Texlake!

One of the best parts about selling 1117 boxes of cookies is the free camp! Regan earns the money for Camp Texlake every year with her cookie dough, and this year camp was 6 nights away from home! She didn't bat an eye. The Juniors sleep in NON air conditioned cabins, which really should not even be an option in central Texas! We packed a sheet set for her bunk, and when she brought it home I noticed it never even made it out of the bag, she said she slept on the mattress, too hot for even sheets!

But she had a good time, several of her Girl Scout Troop buddies were with her and this time she did a horse camp, so she got to buy cowboy boots and ride horses! She had a good time, and can't wait to go back. I think this was her last year in the NON a/c cabins!

Lake Georgetown

Finally, it's the first day of summer break! Riley got out of school on the 30th, and Regan had to go until the 7th of June! It seemed to drag on forever...and ever...

So to celebrate the first official day of our summer break, I took the kids to Lake Georgetown. Twenty minutes away and they've never been, how bad is that?! But, it was overcast in the morning so the place was practically empty! There were only like, 5 other families there. So, they played in the rocks, buried Riley, had some snacks, got sunburned, overall, a great start to the summer!

Last Blast

The last week of school for Regan was mostly parties! She had a big Ecosystem project due and after that it was party, party, party! But on the last day of school, they had "Last Blast" and it was pretty fun. They had a zip line, hamster wheels, gyro machine, hot dogs, hamburgers, and a dunk tank! Regan even got to be dunked in the tank. Riley and I went up for the last hour or so, so I got a few pictures of her on the gyro, but she had already done most everything else. I was just glad it wasn't too hot that day, and glad that it was the last day of school!

Mrs. Ray! The best teacher ever!

All About Hair!

Regan has been wanting a perm forever, but I got her some of those pink sponge rollers that I used to sleep in when I was a kid to have "Shirley Temple" hair! They now come in different sizes and colors, so we've been playing around with her hair. The first night, we used the smallest size rollers and she ended up with a short, tight, white afro! She hated it. So, as we were rushing out the door for school, I pulled it back into two ponies and said she looked like a curly Princess Leah! As the day wore on, the curls dropped, and it was much cuter. But then we tried the bigger rollers and she liked that much better.

 

And, miracle of all miracles, Riley decided to go for broke and cut all his luscious locks off! I think he thinks he is Sampson and his power is his hair! He hates getting it cut and even though he asked for it, it was pretty traumatic for him to get it cut. There was almost enough hair to donate to Locks Of Love! But, I think he looks much older, and much more military-ready with the short hair!

Sea Cadets

Riley is now an official member of the U.S. Navy Sea Cadets! As soon as I heard about this program, I knew it was for Riley. He got to go spend the weekend at Ft. Hood, and drill, he will do that one weekend a month now. David took him to Ft. Hood and learned all about it, and got him signed up and he is so excited about it. His first step was to take an XDivision test, which he took immediately. While other kids were watching a movie, he was hunkered down studying for his test. They asked David if Riley had 10 more brothers just like him at home, they would take them all! The next step is to take a BMR test, which is like 1,000 questions about Basic Military Regulations (I think) and then in December he will do a 2 week boot camp. There are many summer training programs, where he can go to a Coast Guard ship for 3 weeks, get his pilot's license, STEM programs at Annapolis, and even train with Navy Seals. He's raring to go and wants to do all of it! The good news is he has to keep his grades up to be involved, so now we have some good motivation! And another good thing, he has to have short hair! He came home and wanted his hair cut right away! Here is a picture of him in his BDU's that they gave him, we still have to get him some more uniform stuff. I am totally clueless when it comes to all this military jargon, so I need to study some of that BMR stuff with him!

Regan's 10th Birthday Party

We decided to have a sleepover party for Regan's 10th birthday. You only turn double digits once, right?! So, she invited her Girl Scout friends, a couple of friends from church, school, and the neighborhood, and we had us a shindig! We had about 12 girls for the evening, 7 that slept over. Riley and David took off and spent the night with Mimi and Papa, so we had the house to ourselves. I got white pillowcases for everyone and pink, purple, turquoise, yellow and lime green tie dye, and we dyed the pillowcases. They turned out really cute! Regan wanted ice cream cake, and we got Little Caesar's pizza and they watched Alvin and the Chipmunk's Chipwrecked! They were all very well behaved and we had no melt downs, so all in all, it was a success. She won't be 10 till the 14th, but we wanted to have her party before everyone was gone for the summer.

 

Her gift from us!

Gummy Bear Beach Party cupcakes for school party

Chick Night!

We've been doing some fun things with the kids at church on Wednesday nights, one night we had "Chick Night" and "Dude Night" to celebrate the end of school. We painted nails, had an all pink party, with pink whoppers, pink cookies, pink icing, pink cupcakes, nail painting, dress up and photos. It was a lot of fun and the girls had a blast! Here's some pics from Chick Night!

Build A Bear Girl Scout Style

One of our cookie rewards for Girl Scouts this year was a Build A Bear party. Build A Bear has new Girl Scout uniforms, and a special 100 years bear, so all the girls got the same bear and a cute Junior uniform that matches their own. It was fun! (Especially for the moms who went over the California Pizza Kitchen for drinks while the girls built their bears!)

Driving Lessons

I took Riley up to the church parking lot one night while Regan was at a friend's house, and David was busy, and I gave him driving lessons! It's only one short year till he gets his permit so I thought he needed to get some drive time under his belt. He drove my truck and he did a great job. I taught him how to parallel park (which is much easier in an empty parking lot when cars aren't flying by you) and how to reverse park, and of course, how to floor it :) He loved it. He's a good driver, all those years of Motocross have taught him well.

Cookie Awards!

Awards season for the Girl Scouts, and our troop won the highest seller award. Our troop sold almost 9,000 boxes of cookies, the troop that came in 2nd place sold a little over 4,000 cookies, so we blew them out of the water! Regan won 3rd place top cookie seller and Marillah, a friend in our troop, won 2nd place top cookie seller! They each got a crown, a sash, a wand, and several other prizes, 2 Six Flags tickets, a charm bracelet and charm, beach towel, water bottle, duffel bag, and lots more! It was a fun night to reward the girls for all their hard work!

Palmetto State Park Camping Trip

Palmetto SP

This weekend was our very first Girl Scout tent camping trip! We had so much fun. We packed up my truck and two other vehicles on Friday afternoon, my truck held all the gear, so it was kind of a nice, quiet trip for me! We went to Palmetto State Park which was about an hour away, and very un-Texas looking! There were trees and swamps, and parts of it looked very prehistoric. A nice park actually.

First thing, we had the girls unload the trucks and start working on their tent. We helped very little since this is the Girl Scouts event, so they set it up on their own as much as possible. Then we had them eat their sack-dinner while we set up our tent. We got our bedrolls out and then made a campfire and I proceeded to burn 5 packages of Jiffy Pop! The girls didn't mind, they thought it was cool to pop popcorn on the campfire, so that was good! Then around 10:30 the girls were eager to hit the tent and they were all sound asleep in a matter of minutes.

Then Saturday morning, we got up, made baggie eggs for breakfast, you put eggs, bacon, cheese, etc. in a Ziploc baggie and then boil them all, it makes a small omelet.  We also had fruit and donuts. Then we got that cleaned up, and headed off to earn our Geocaching patch. The girls did a great job learning how to Geocache, they looked up coordinates, and then followed the compass around a hiking trail and we found our Geocache, and left behind some UV beads for the next group. Then we found the river and jumped in for a while to cool off! (that was the best part)

Then we had sandwiches for lunch, and the best Frito-Pie for dinner (probably so good because we were so hungry, or because food outside always tastes better!) The girls did all the cooking and cleaning, and they did a great job of it! We met another 4th grade Girl Scout troop, right across the road from us, so they invited us over for campfires and s'mores and a sing-along Saturday night! It was fun to meet new friends and of course, s'mores are always fun.

Sunday morning, we got up (no showers all weekend too! There were only 2 showers for the whole park and they were not close, so we were all dirty and stinky by this time!) but we let the girls take the tents down, and we loaded up the cars, after a fruit and cereal breakfast, and then we were about to pull out when we realized my battery had died! I think from all the in and out all weekend, my light stayed on too much. But, we managed to get a jump and be on our way, only slightly behind schedule. It was a great trip, and the girls really enjoyed it, and we all can't wait to go again.

TAMU Vet School Open House

TAMU Vet School

I just love the opportunities we have with Girl Scouts! Regan has wanted to be a vet for as long as she has been old enough to want to be something! Every year the Texas A&M vet school hosts an open house, and we finally got in this year! It gets booked up and super crowded, so it's a big deal to get in. We had planned on going up the day of, but since we had to check in by 7:30, we decided to go the night before and spend the night in a hotel, and that was it's own little adventure, let me tell you!

We got to our hotel around 6, and got our room keys, the plan was to check in and take the girls to the hotels indoor pool. Well, I walk into our room, and see a pair of cowboy boots, an open duffel bag, and men's clothes all over the room. We jumped back out as soon as possible, hoping there wasn't a man in there wondering who just walked into his room! Well, we finally got the room situated, but the hotel pool was broken, so we had nothing to do until bedtime, but we watched Princess Diaries, and I think the girls were just having fun being at a hotel!

We got up bright and early on Saturday and headed to the Vet School. We got to sit in on a lecture from a vet who told us what it takes to become a vet, what type of classes you need, how much schooling is required (8 years of college and vet school, yikes!) and what you can start doing now to get prepared. Regan even took notes!

Then we had Teddy Bear Surgery which was the cutest thing EVER! They suit the girls up in doctor scrub gear, gloves, face mask, hair net, shoe booties, paper gown, everything, and then you take your teddy bear to surgery. You tell the vet student ("doctor") what's wrong with your bear, and they will tell you how to fix it. Regan decided at the last minute that she didn't want her bear to have open heart surgery so she gave it a broken arm. They splinted the bear's arm, wrapped some padding and then put a cast on it. She loved it!

Then we got to see some live animals, an owl, a 1 month old, tiny baby warthog, a porcupine, we went to the breed tent and saw all kinds of dog breeds, and then we went to an interesting room. It was the room where they dissect horses. They had tracks on the ceiling with big hooks, and against the wall are giant freezer doors, so they were explaining to Regan how they open the doors, use the hooks to slide the dead horses around over the grates and then dissect them, and then slide them back into the freezer. Surprisingly, Regan was not disgusted like I was! The room had all kinds of animal parts out on display, cow heart, cow stomach, horse teeth, dog lungs, all kinds of parts, and Regan would grab and feel and touch each one. She was very fascinated and asked a lot of great questions.

Then we had a tour of the small vet clinic. It was really neat, they had a different "specialty" in each room, so we learned about all the different ways they treat small animals, and Regan even got to perform an endoscopy to remove a penny from inside a dead dog! She got to hold the camera and thread it down, and pinch the thing to grab it, like a claw game. They showed them how they draw blood from a dog, how to use a defibrillator, and then we got to watch a real, live surgery! They were spaying a dog, and they had it's girl parts out for us to see, and a camera right above the action so we got to watch through the window, and get a bird's eye view. Again, Regan was more fascinated than disgusted. It was fun for me to see how she reacted to everything.

Then we headed over to the large animal clinic and got to see all the heavy machinery they use to lift the horses and cows and all the cool things they have there. We got to see some animals too, but Regan and I were really wanting to see the fistulated cows and we didn't make it to them. So, Regan wants to go back next year and do what we didn't get a chance to do this year. It was definitely an interesting trip, and I'm glad Regan got to experience it, and now she has a very clear picture of what it's going to take if she is serious about being a vet. But, I know she can do it, and I can't wait to see her achieve her dreams!

Easter On the Hill with Tim Tebow

Easter On the Hill

Well, it was no secret about Tim Tebow coming to our church for Easter! It was everywhere, in the news, on Jay Leno, online, everyone seemed to be talking about it. And it did not disappoint! It was an incredible event that I'm so glad we got to be a part of.

David served in the volunteer parking lot, that opened at 4:30am, so he got to church around 4am, got the volunteers parked and then was getting buses in and out of the lot all day. He didn't leave the lot until around 3pm, so he was there, on his feet for almost 12 hours straight, and didn't get to see one minute of the event. It's because of him and other people like him, that this event went off so smoothly! I was so proud of him for serving and not complaining, and just doing whatever it took so other people could come and hear the gospel.

Riley and I served in the Kids tent, so we got there around 6:30 and helped set up the tent, and get the face painting going. We did face painting and the eye black tattoos that said "John 3:16" under the eyes. Those were a big hit and we ran out of those before the service even started.

We ended up with nearly 20,000 people there, and over 1,000 salvations! In the end, that's what it was all about, not Tim Tebow, or Joe Champion, but about people coming to know Christ, so I would say it was a success, and all those early morning trainings, orientations, prayer meetings, it was all worth it. I'm so proud of my church, and I can't wait to see what God will do next!