Random Happenings

Here's a few random photos over the summer:

Sea World!

I have a love/hate relationship with that place. Aquatica was awesome though. My girlies love riding the rides and I'm usually the only parent that will ride with them.

"look Mom, we're holding hands!"

After a fast/testimony meeting Rylee was playing with her dolls and I overheard their own little testimony meeting "I'm Snow White. I know I'm a princess.  I know the Prince loves me." haha. So funny.

swim suit. sunscreen. water. goggles. princess kick-board. perfect.

This one was from the spring. Rylee's little pre-school group made fires and roasted "marshmellows" over them (tp roll with crepe paper, skewers and cotton balls:) )

princesses in "time-out" courtesy of our resident "nose in the corner" gal: Miss Kelsey (Rylee did this a lot too)

Clearly I let my children dress themselves. Even when we go out in public. Rylee is getting much better. As if we didn't look enough alike already, we cut bangs on Kelsey furthering our twindom look. It really is like watching myself grow up. Since then I decided if they are going to get less than perfect hair cuts it may as well be by me. 

A family trip to Home Depot. Kelsey insisted on bringing Anna and heaven forbid she not be buckled. The child of a car seat activist right there :) safety first.

Picking Peaches

We had so much fun picking strawberries in Fredricksburg earlier this year that we headed back during peach/blackberry season.

 Rrrreach!

 Miss Kelsey preferred to play in the dirt.

 They were probably fighting over who got to hold the berries.

We made blackberry syrup (a first, which is quite tasty) canned some, then froze the rest. Tasty! Its funny that we pay to go pick and 1400 miles away Grandpa is begging the Grandkids to come get peaches off their trees.

Go Spurs Go!

In case you didn't know- the Spurs did awesome this year: winning their 5th NBA title. And, yes, we caught the fever.

Its hard to live in a city that gets so excited to back up their team to NOT. After they won the conference final making it into the play-off Academy (a popular/local sporting goods store) re-opens to sell shirts. Its like Black Friday! Huge lines wrapping around the store in the dark to get the latest and greatest to support their team. 

Then, fandum was bumped up a notch after they won the final. We were watched at home and kept the tv on long enough to hear the actual journalist report that the traffic was so busy with cars driving down town to celebrate that they had to close 4 freeway exits for safely. "There were so many people walking around, parking their cars all over the street to get out and high-five each other. No fights, just a lot of people out side celebrating and having a good time." A little further away from the 'action' people just get in their cars to drive around and honk their horns. I can't make this stuff up.

We bought ourselves some shirts (we gave up on waiting for them to come back in stock and visited a roadside stand) and watched the celebration a few days later: which included a televised river parade. While attending a river parade is on my SA bucket list, and this was actually a free event I couldn't bring myself to brave the crowds.

 Who likes the Spurs?

Rylee even made up her own special song.

Michael's Weekend Part III

Father's Day

Father's day was a pretty chill day. More present opening and family time.

The girlies have a great Daddy we love him so much!

 We made one of these car shirts- the shirt has a city on it and they drive their cars on it like a mini back-massage. Sort of. I traced the pattern (and added a church, you know, a building we (thankfully) attend more regularly than the hospital/fire station). Rylee wanted to draw. I'm not exactly sure why I hesitated to let her. It was after all her gift.  She drew the family playing at the playground and then used each of the markers to draw flowers. Kelsey is kind of blocking it in the picture but it was very sweet.

We're so happy we get to parent these crazy cute kids.

Michael's Weekend Part II

The girls were beyond excited to celebrate their Daddy's birthday on Saturday. Rylee's main priority was taking Dad to Aquatica - Sea World's waterpark.  They added a lot to the park two years ago and started charging an additional fee. I debated getting passes for a while but I'm really glad we did. It was a lot of fun! There was a lot that both girls could do including several water slides (the new sting-ray included). We went a lot this summer and managed to go twice without the kids and ride what they couldn't :). I am still annoyed its already closed for the season. Its not even open on the weekends anymore :(. Don't they know its still HOT? And the entire city isn't in school? tough life.

Anyway, We got caught up there longer than we expected so we grabbed a quick bite to eat for dinner so we could quickly come home and make cupcakes, sing, and give their gifts. Kelsey didn't even make it out of the park before falling asleep.

 

Happy Birthday! We're so happy you were born :)

Michael's Weekend Part I

Michael's Birthday and Father's Day are very close to each other. Often the same weekend. We celebrated like crazy this year.

1st on the agenda was our date night.

There are always a ton of groupons for art studios to take a painting class. This was seriously so much fun! We even got to choose the painting on this one. I was excited to paint a little bit of San Antonio. Gotta love the riverwalk.

 They provided the canvas with a few rough lines, or you could opt for a blank canvas.  We stuck with the pre-sketched :)

 We really had a great time. It was one of the more unique dates we been on and had a blast.  We thought it would be a good activity to go with friends but we couldn't convince any to join us that night. Maybe another time :)

 We both threw in a little spurs love :) When in San Antonio, right?

Story Time

We love story time at the library! During the summer they have big themes and a whole 'pretend' room with all sorts of things to do. Lots of sensory tables that I don't have to clean up. Art projects I don't have to put together. An amazing puppet collection. In the blessed Air Conditioning!! And close to Daddy's office so we often meet him for lunch. Now that school is back in session its scaled down a little but we're definitely regulars.

Unacceptable and Austin

My sister informed me that my lack of blogging these days is unacceptable. ;)

Ok, not really, but she was shocked that she updated hers twice since I have. That's got to be some sort of record. 

I will say this: While I don't typically go into quite the same depth - Instagram is so easy and fast. especially when 90% of the pictures I take anymore are on my phone.

I have decided to play catch up (just in case I ever actually print out these blog posts into books as I intend) instead of skipping ahead and trudging forward. Hopefully its quick as I feel I spent most of the summer in camp meetings. At any rate, this is for you Lisa ;) on with the show:

We spent a day up in Austin.  There were some shops I wanted to go to, food to eat and sights to see. We got a bit of a late start and weren't able to fit everything in, but we tried.

After the mandatory IKEA visit (which isn't exactly speedy) we headed to Zilker Park. We rode the zilker zephyr (the miniature train) and played at the playground. The train is lame. Don't do it. seriously. It took us a little while to find the depot and drove around the park. Well, the train pretty much goes exactly where the road is, and under a bridge (where we slowed down to maybe two miles an hour) on the same track. I know its a miniature train, not an amusements park but SA's is much better as far as destinations of miniature trains. But the kids had fun even if Kelsey doesn't look like it.

 A friend of mine would ask Rylee to give her a kiss on the check and when she went for it would quick move her head to get a kiss on the lips. Rylee would pull this face EVERY. TIME. I was so happy to catch it on camera after the stone seal gave her a kiss ;)

 Rylee was VERY particular in how she wanted to be posed on the dolphin and for me to take a photo. So funny.

 We then were the epitome of tourists and set out on a sunset/bat-watching tour. Under the congress street bridge lives the worlds largest urban bat population (about a million of them).  They are Mexican Free-tailed bats and thy migrate to/from Mexico.  They come out to feed every night *usually* around sunset. They have a 'season' when they are in Austin.  I thought it would be easier to keep the kids occupied on a boat vs the riverbank/the bridge itself. The kids had fun.

Little did I know the colony is entirely female and we went up at the end of their gestational period (They migrate back from Mexico pregnant). Another interesting fact is a bat gives birth to a baby 1/3 of its own weight. yikes. So, apparently in late May the bats are super pregnant and tired and a storm was coming in so they were being lazy and didn't come out before we had to take the boat back in.  We saw a few 'scout' bats here and there and a few eyes/wings peaking through the slats in the bridge but no grand emergence like we were expecting. And it was really late. lame.

But it was really pretty. Its crazy how the bridge and riverbank were JAM PACKED with people. The guide said they come out every night but occasionally not until midnight. So, we weren't waiting around for that.  We had a doughnut shop to try.

 We learned some fun facts about the city (the little tower used to be the tallest in the skyline and was built buy the fire department for practice drills extinguishing fires from sky scrapers. Funny how times change.)

 Although we were sad we didn't get to see the bats, the storm clouds made for a pretty night on the lake and a fun Saturday family day. I've already been back to the bridge and we have more in Austin we'd like to do.