Houston

After our camping trip Michael had meetings most of the week in Houston.  He is now in a different region now and this was his last meeting with most of the people he'd been working alongside.  Sadly no more work trips to Houston for us. :(

 

This was the last time we could tag along for Kelsey's Dr appointment. (I'm REALLY going to miss how convenient that was) I'll start with Kelsey's update. You know what they say about Dr - if you don't have to wait to see them, they aren't good.  And we waited a long time.  That being said, everyone in the waiting room is always to nice to us and the girls.  We were smarter this time and fed them dinner first. haha. Even when the Dr is several hours behind, he never seems rushed.  He's so calm and takes his time with us watching Kelsey play, interact and use her hand/fingers.  He was pleased with how its growing and being used.  He didn't even take an x-ray. He said he'd like to see her in a year and then plan to do the surgery the following year.  That gives her fingers time to get a little bit bigger so they're easier to operate on and then she'd be out of a cast and healing before she'd start school. Works for me!!

 

Since Dad was working on our "vacation" we looked up a few fun things we could do without him. I even took a few crafts to work on in the hotel room while the kids napped.  There were a couple really cool parks right next to each other.  We went a couple times.

 

When was the last time you saw a teeter-totter??

 

 Or how 'bout an old fashioned merry-go-round?  I loved those things as a kid!!

 I'd push the girls and they'd laugh, and I'd run and jump on and they'd laugh even harder. haha. We had a blast!

 Rylee was so proud of herself when she pushed Kelsey and then climbed up while it was still moving.

 She's getting to be such a big girl.

 We were staying close to the temple so we swung by for a look. Most of Michael's co-workers did a session but since we didn't have anyone to watch the kids we didn't go in, and met up with one of Michael's college room mate and his family that evening.  We enjoyed catching up a little bit.  It never seems we get enough time for that.

 The other park we went to had all these fun things built out of wood and tires. They had lots of different swings and things to climb on. fun fun.  San Antonio doesn't have many public parks and they are nowhere near this cool. (most of the parks are within the housing communities and "for residents only")

 Another afternoon we went to the museum of natural science (one day a week is free so we took advantage of that).  I wish I had taken a video or even a still shot of Rylee's face when we first walked into the rooms with all the dinosaur bones.  She was amazed!!  I didn't expect her to enjoy the exhibits as much as she did.  It was more fun watching her learn and ask "what is that?" a thousand times than I anticipated.  Good thing everything was labeled :)

 Apparently this museum has the largest collection of dinosaurs in the nation.  They had several artist depictions of what the animals would look like "in real life" next to the skeletal displays.  It was really cool and brought these fascinating animals 'to life'.  I thought I took a picture of the one where a dinosaur was being eaten by a shark, but apparently I didn't.  You can kindof see what I'm talking about in the corner of the picture below.

The plan was to head home and quickly un and re-pack the car to go to the ward camp-out.  The forecast was cold and rainy to we bailed.  It didn't end up raining but was pretty cold.  It was nice to finally be sleeping in our own bed!

Inks - Pedernales Falls

Day 3 of our camp-out was spent hiking around the park.  Which wasn't Kelsey's favorite part of the weekend.  We even saw a few leaves changing color which is rare around here.  I'd love to go back when its warm enough to swim.

 The girls learned how to properly play with their food.

 We packed the car and started home, but swung by Pedernales Falls (another state park) on our way home.  It was a nice park, but no playground, which is no bueno for this Momma of littles.

 And, they don't even let you swim here and slide down the falls. boring. (or safe, whatever.)

Longhorn Caverns

Once the family had a weekend together, we decided to make good use of it and go camping!

 

We stayed at Inks Lake SP.  We'd never stayed there before. The weather that weekend was absolutely perfect camping weather!  I was nervous it would be cold and packed nearly every blanket that would fit in the car. We used only most of them since Rylee threw up on half of them the first night. {not my favorite part of the weekend}  It was only a little chilly - we didn't even have to have a fire every night/morning but just too cold to want to swim.  I really liked the park a lot.  Its really close to Longhorn caverns aswell so the next morning we headed off to explore the caves. 

 We saw a few bats, and a fair amount of bat residue.

 This formation was pretty cool.  They call him "Rocky the Watchdog" haha.

 These crystals were really cool too, especially when you'd put your flashlight up against it.

 There is this big open area and it used to be a restaurant in the 1800's.  Seriously.  The kitchen is above ground and they would sent the food down and dirty dishes back up via a bucket. They would have dances there and then afterward everyone would head to the state park to "bathe" They've since put in a little elevator and they still cater special events.  The girls are on a stage that bands play on.  Only acustic instruments allowed but its supposedly amazing.  They between 5-10 weddings a year.  And they have Christmas Caroling and Santa events during the winter.  Interesting, right?

 We passed this giant castle on the way in as well.  The people at the headquarters told us the guy who invented scoopable kitty liter owns it, and it is 1/4 of the size of the castles it was modeled after in England.

I joked how strange, yet completely awesome it was to be packing to go camping while listening to Christmas music.

Wiconsin

I know what you're thinking: "they went to Wisconsin AGAIN in 2013??" Well, not ALL of us went again. Although, once I remembered Kelsey would still be free to fly and attend the planned events, I tried really hard to turn it from a "Daddy's weekend" to a "Daddy-daughter weekend".  He wasn't amused. ;)

  Michael's brother got tickets to the BYU-UW game and so {most} of the brothers, Michael's parents and a couple nephews got together to go to the game.

 

(on a side note- I'm annoyed the pictures didn't upload in the correct order, but I don't feel like fixing them right now)

 

 

Michael and his brother that now lives in Texas flew into Milwaukee and spent some time there with another brother who lives there.  They went to the Art Museum while they waited for the rest of the family to arrive. Once everyone got together they spent more time walking around the city.

 Apparently the bronze fonz in a big deal, and a BYU fan. Who knew?

 The next morning they headed up to Madison.  They toured the capital, did their own version of tail gating and headed to the game.

 

Although BYU lost, they had a great time.  Michael enjoyed some of the UW Madison's football traditions. Apparently the brothers are going to try to make game attending a tradition.  Next year is in Austin so that bodes well for us :)

 

making a come back: TOFW

It would possibly be more fun to skip ahead on the blog updates to Christmas, but if I actually go in order it may get done faster.

We have had the most busy fall!! There were literally 2 days we didn't have somewhere to be in November.  Sure most of it was our choice - that's just how it worked out and then of course December adds even more excitement with the Holiday's, having dental surgery, and then breaking the computer- so it seems the blog got put on hold for a couple months.

Anyway, back to November:

Time-Out for Women was is San Marcus (40ish minutes away) in November and there was a group of ladies in our ward that was planning on going. I've heard lots of great things about the event and was really excited to go for a fun girls weekend!

It was kindof tricky and a little dramatic working out the details but I'm glad it worked out.  It was really nice to be away from the kids for an evening - it was for sure a recharge weekend.

I will say I was a little surprised by some of it as well.  I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was very apparent that this is a "for-profit" event, put on by the company Deseret Book, NOT "the church"; half of the conference center was a bookstore.  Which, living in Texas and not having many LDS bookstore options was nice, just a little surprise.

I also thought it was a little funny how one of the speakers gave a talk on media and how it effects our lives, and how much time we spend on devices and how terrible they are and take away from our family. BUT WAIT before you turn them all off or be sure to like, tag, tweet, post, upload about tofw!! I just thought that was ironic, and a little annoying.

But really though, it was a great conference.  I'm not as set on traveling to Dallas next year like some other women in the area, but I'm glad I went.