Football Weekend

Remember last year when {most} of Michael's family got together in WI for a BYU game? And how they decided to make it a tradition?

Lucky for us BYU was playing UT (University of Texas) in Austin.  It was a quick filled weekend. 

They got in late Thursday night so the plans started Friday morning. We headed downtown to that iconic landmark- the Alamo. There were a surprising amount of other BYU fans for the game weekend.

We also went on a boat tour. Selfies are more entertaining to toddlers than the history of our city. Sometimes I agree :)

We then headed up to the temple as a family.  We were able to do the temple work for Michael's Grandmother that passed away last year.  It was really great experience.  We were feeling great, on this spiritual high and then we walked outside to a block party. It was so strange.  A business across the street was blasting music. It was so weird. We managed to snap a few pictures before busting a groove.

Saturday morning we slowly made our way up to Austin for the game. A quick stop by the Weinerschnitzel.  All those Allsops surrounded by a couple chili cheese dogs.  I was happy to stay in the car with the sleeping toddler.

She woke up down the road at the world's largest gas station "Buc-cee's" They make their own root beer and its delish.  It really is huge and they have lots of unique things.  I've read many a blog post dedicated to Buc-Cee's alone. Not sure I could do it justice. Rylee's posing here kills me.

We made it to Austin and again met up with the rest of the BYU fans at the State Capital.

 

It had been a few minutes since we'd eaten so it was time for Torchy's Tacos. We tried this place a few months back and really liked it. We also hit up Gourdough's Doughnuts. The wait is (thankfully) much shorter during the day. Gotta love a specialty doughnut :)

This is where we parted ways and the boys made their way to the stadium for the game. I'll have to see if I can grab pictures from Michael's phone of the game.  He had a great time - even better they won :)

Ballet

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Nana coming to stay with the girls while I was a girls camp.  I (obviously) don't have photo evidence of the trip but the girls loved having time with Nana.  They went to the pool a lot (I was later told I didn't bring the correct toys to the pool) and every plane in the sky (remember we live near an air force base) has Nana in it.

At the beginning of the summer a teenage girl in our ward wanted to make some extra money and offered to teach a little ballet class.  The price couldn't be beat. Rylee was very excited each week to attend class.

 that is until rehearsal time:

It started off bad, since I had to wake her up from a nap to go and she did NOT want her hair in the required bun. On top of that, I'm not sure I prepared her enough for what the rehearsal would mean- you think a few girls parents and couple friends but it adds up:  the room wasn't huge, but filled quickly.  She was very nervous.


 Their first  song was choreographed "Rock-a-Bye Baby" They had a doll in a 'crib'. She did ok.

 The next song was freestyle dancing to Frozen's "Let it Go" Rylee was indeed frozen. Almost to tears. It was a little hard to watch.

 Her teacher(s) tried to dance with her and she still wouldn't. I finally got up to see if she would loosen up dancing with me, and the song ended. She's so sweet and so very scared to be in front of people.  It was a good experience, and I hope she does it again next summer.  If we're lucky maybe she'll actually do a dance move.

Her teacher performed a piece:

 Here's the group that performed:

They gave us a cd with the music and it was so sweet seeing Rylee teach Kelsey (and one of her friends that wasn't in the class) the dance. That is what I should record - much more participation than the 'official' performance.

I can't blame her too much -  I'm not a big 'perform in front of any crowd gal' myself.

Young Women's Camp

The reason for my blogging hiatus was girls camp. This year I was stake camp director and let me just say it was nuts! Man it takes a lot of time putting something like this together and we are lucky enough to be able to go to a camp that provides a lot of activities.

We have an amazing group of young women in our stake.  They really did plan and put together a lot of it. We just 'made it happen'.

This is where our spirit walk ended - right on the waterfront.  It was so beautiful watching the sun set on the river, listening to uplifting music, feeling the spirit as we waited for everyone to finish.

It was a tensy bit less relaxing for me as I was riding my bike (best idea ever!) all around camp like a crazy person making sure everyone was where they needed to be.

 Some of our ward gals moments before a flash mob.

The stake YW Pres did a remake to the song "All about that Base" I tried to post a copy of the video but couldn't (I don't have it) I will forever refer to the song as "all about that Faith, don't doubt it" it was awesome.

Most of the stake and ward leaders.  Its absolutely amazing what a group of volunteers can put together. I'm so happy I got to meet and get to know more amazing women in the area/stake.

 Our theme was 'Laying up Treasures in Heaven' I was referred to as Captain Allsop and was mostly  seen walking around wearing a giant pirate hat and sequined eye patch. It was great.

 Even the priesthood joined in the dress up fun!

 He seriously wore the patch all day. (most were worn above the eye, but not this brother.)

I learned a lot, mostly about myself. My testimony certainly grew and I saw first hand how when the Lord wants something to happen, He makes it happen. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done differently, but if I'm not taking credit for the good that happened that week I guess I shouldn't blame myself for the bad. It was fun to see all our hard work come together.

I missed my family terribly though.  We counted 10 out of the 12 nights I've been away from my daughters have been for girls camp. That's crazy.

I could have done without the bug bite/sting that sent me into town to get a steroid shot because of swelling with only minutes to spare to get back to camp in time for dinner/flash mob/ testimony meeting. I had a great experience but I think others should get the opportunity before I repeat ;)

Birthday and the Beach

Lucky for us, Michael gets Pioneer day off.  Even more lucky, that lovely holiday is close to my birthday! We decided to make a mini trip of it and headed to the coast! For being the middle of the week it was busier than I expected.

Michael had been down just a few weeks prior and it was perfect. Its amazing the amount of seaweed brought in just a few short days.  The water was so hot, it was almost cooler out of the water. We had a blast reguardless. 

Drip castles are a must:

 People seriously pack rakes to make a path from the seaweed. The girls HATED it the first day but realized it wasn't going away and the freak-outs were less common day 2.

 It was a nice relaxing couple days where I tried to forget about girls camp for a few hours. It *sort of* worked.

My one birthday request was to get cupcakes from a cupcake bakery called smallcakes.
Mission granted, plus much more. They were delicious.

 Michael also got me a new bike! I really wish it wasn't so dang hard to pull two kids in a bike trailor. Unfortunately Kelsey was feeling a little under the weather and threw up all over me in the bike shop. I quickly said, how about the silver 'girl' style. Michael proceeded to also buy me a new shirt and we were outta there.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday America!!

I love Independence Day. Seriously, its one of my favorite holiday's (I've tried to list Holiday's in order of which I like most, and I just can't do it)

Anyhow, we heard there was a big breakfast, games and patriotic fireside at the church (put on by the missionaries for all three ward units that attend at our building). They order in which items are listed is extremely important. It was a very long fireside (which isn't bad when its expected) and a few snacks - like one watermelon one meat/cheese tray and two pastry packs. Not enough food to even consider waiting in line for. We were bamboozled.

We sang the star spangled banner and busted out of there ASAP: we had a parade to get to.

So, we headed to Castroville and hit up McDonalds (with the rest of the ward/city) for the old-time parade.

 Surprise! My children didn't want to have their picture taken.

 yea, they are covering their ears from the noise of the fire trucks. . . . that's it.

 Of course we had to make a few patriotic foods:

 And drop a few dollars on fireworks: This was almost half of what we set off. We hosted again this year and it was AWESOME! I love being surrounded with friends, laughing, eating and celebrating

 Miss Kelsey enjoying the show:

 Just one corner of the counter, about a 1/4 of the cups we cleaned up.

Happy Birthday America! We love our freedom!

Farwell Dear Friends

While living in Texas we've been blessed to have great friends we consider family. And although we live in a fairly transient "military ward" and move in-outs are fairly common one family we became especially close to moved this summer which was much hard reality to face. Rylee's first best friend. She (still) talks about her constantly.

 see you later sweet friend. tear jerker right there:

 We definitely should have done the photo session before it was an hour past dinner time.

 It took a loooong time to convince Kelsey to sit by her friends instead of taking their fake picture.

 In other news Rylee has taken up nail biting. ugh.

 And in the 4 years we've been friends I think this is the first picture I have of the two of us. lame.

Good thing we have another reason to visit Wisconsin (not in the winter). Miss you dearly sweet friend.