Fireworks

James did a great firework show over the water on the 5th. (We missed most of things of the 4th and the kids fell asleep in the car)

I was shocked that Nathan joined in with the sparklers. Fireworks have not been his thing thus far. Last year he was scared of them and this year he held his ears because of the noise. I was glad that he gave it a try!

Family Reunion

My grandma hosted the reunion this year. Here she is with her brother and sisters. Corky, Edith, Ben, and grandma. (not able to make it this year, Jerry Sue)

Here is grandma, mom, and her sister Jacquie. It was so wonderful to see Aunt Jacquie and her daughters Dawn (and her 2 boys) and Angie. It has been over 10 years since we had seen them, but I have great childhood memories with them!

Here is Jaycie and my cousing Angie! The kids loved all of our extended family members!

Grandpa Don Dobbins, the fisherman, did a wonderful fish and shrimp fry for us the evening of the 4th. We had the standard auction at the hotel meeting room and games in the afternoon. I won the "guess how many monkey finger puppets are in the jar" game. We had a good time with everyone together.

Kemah Boardwalk

There was an amusement park, shopping, aquarium, etc. downtown in the city of Kemah. We spent one HOT afternoon there.

We all met up and rode the train.

A "blue" snowcone saved the day while we were waiting on a ride to be fixed. Jaycie had been talking about riding on an airplane earlier in the day and it took us a while to figure out that the ride is what she was talking about. Great grandma had told her about it and we thought she was talking about a real one that some of our family members flew on to get here.

Finally...the airplane ride.

Beach walk with Grandma

We wanted a little bit more time at the beach, so we went another day for a short trip. It was very nice, but windy.

Jaycie was very much in to seashells. She took a waterbottle from the car and began filling it up. We found lots of them on the seawall that we had to have! It was a great little day trip.

Schlitterbahn!!

We loved the water park!!! Thanks to the reunion for paying for half of our ticket.

The kids were able to do so many things and we could do lots together too! Some of our favorites included the river that goes all around the park. There were waves that pushed us a long. Mom and I had 2 person rafts that had an enclosed kid side and we held on to each other. We also did a family slide where we sat in a big circle raft and went down a curvy slide.

Jaycie went on the yellow slide a million times, Nathan did it too and a few time they went together. We fit the blue one in at the last minute. I never expected her to ask to go on the blue one...it was a big girl slide!! I was so proud and she loved it. She is just like me as a kid.

Nathan really liked the kids areas the most and of course the little frog slide.

Galveston Beach

We went with everyone to the beach our first morning. It was very hot, but the water was nice. Here are Jaycie and Nathan with Raylee, mom's cousin hanging out in the shade of an umbrella.

Jaycie loved her cousin Samantha, and referred to her as her mermaid friend the whole time. Nathan didn't like the salty waves splashing on him, but he did enjoy the sand.

Texas Vacation

My mom and the kids and I drove a rental car to La Porte, TX for our family reunion this year. We stayed at the Best Western. Here we are at the pool, and this is part of the clan....

Darrel, Dawn, Tyler and Nathan, Jessica and Jaycie, Chance, me and DeAn in the back

Jaycie and Nathan in our room. Jaycie made a picture for her cousin Samantha.

Turtle

This morning before church, Tyson was barking a lot so we went outside to see what was going on. This is what we found. I am not sure what kind of turtle this is, but it isn't the box turtle that I used to find. I am not sure how it made it's way into our back yard either. My kids have seen all kinds of animals, but this was our closest encounter with a turtle. They were very excited. They sat and watched it for a while. When I came into the kitchen after some last minute sharing time preparations, the kids showed me how they made a bed and got some toys for the turtle. Too cute!

On our way to church, we took the turtle to the pond by Steve Bailey Honda where we were glad to see other turtles that looked just like this one. I am sure that primary teachers, friends, and school teachers will hear about their turtle friend. They really thought it was neat.

Date Night Party

For Date Night at our house, we decided to have a little party. We used Nathan's new slip and slide and snow cone maker. Here is the clan having some pizza.

Everyone enjoyed swimming and Jakey, Jackson, and Nathan did some batting practice. They did such a good job at sharing and taking turns....(all of the hard work is paying off!)

Everyone also took turns on the trampoline. They really liked it when Tommy held the sprinkler over it!!

I think that the snow cones were everyone's favorite.


Jakey and Jaycie on the slip and slide.

We love to hang out with our friends.

Saturday Fun

On Saturday, we had plans to be downtown so we decided to go out for breakfast at the Crackerbarrel. It was a fun treat. It has been a long time, but I like to go out for breakfast. It keeps the mess out of my kitchen!!

While we were there, we found these cute dress up sets that were very inexpensive. We thought it would be fun to get one for each of the kiddos. Here they are all dressed up. Nathan is a race car driver. Jaycie loves to pretend she is a hair stylist. She went a little far when she actually cut her and Nathan's bangs last month. I hope that this keeps her from doing it for real. Oh, and she had to practice on Daddy!! :)

After breakfast, the girls went shopping at Garden Ridge and the boys went downtown to the bike ralley. Here are the cushions that we found. We were very excited to complete our backyard set up....the grill, gazebo, and finally our chairs have cushions again. I am happy to be able to sit down in the shade now while watching the kids swim!

June activities

Jaycie had swim lessons twice a week for the month of June and she loved it. Every lesson she advanced and I loved to see her excitement for learning. It really helped that there were only 2 in her class. Every one was like a private lesson. She just had her last class and she got her passing certificate to move on. It was fun, but I am excited to not have to try and keep the schedule. It took up our afternoons on my days off!

I loved that the Bethany YMCA was right next to the library. We went after almost every swim lesson. We have been doing the summer reading program at the library. The kids have enjoyed it, and I challenged myself by attempting to find all of the books on this list from READY for Kindergarten. There are 100 books on the list that all kids should hear before starting school. I figured that we had the summer until Jaycie starts Pre-K so we could do it. And we have. With the exception of 5 or 6 that I haven't found yet. It has been good for the kids to be excited about reading. It seems like we couldn't fit reading time in for a while and this little challenge sparked our interest again. Jaycie got to color the star of the books that we read. I learned that I need to read in the afternoon around "quiet time" instead of trying to squeeze it in to the bedtime routine. This list helped us find some really good books that we haven't come across before. (Many award winning books and authors). I also re-learned how to find specific books in the library. Thanks to Marilyn Barta, our parent educator with OPAT for getting us involved in the READY program. It has helped me so much stay focuses on education at home. We are done with OPAT now that Nathan is 3, but we loved Mrs. Marilyn's visits!!

Swim with Friends

Christine and the boys invited us to swim at their neighborhood pool. Charly and Ethan came too. The pools were great and we had a lot of fun. The kids jumped in and splashed most of the time. Nathan jumped in without me catching him because Jackson did. Here we are during a safety break. Jaycie Nathan and Lincoln at the picnic table having a snack.

Then Ethan and Nathan wanted to play catch. Swimming is the only thing that we want to do in the afternoon in this 100 degree heat. Thanks to the Poyners for all of the fun!

Father's Day Eve

Poppy and Grandma were able to come and visit for the evening on Saturday. They came for Nathan's birthday and I took the opportunity to do Father's day too. Dad brought down buffalo burgers, baked beans, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

The kids played and swam. Nathan got a slip and slide and a snow cone maker for his birthday.

This is our neighbor Bradley's motorcycle. We all like it though. My dad and his little buddy are checking it out. Dad has always appreciated Harleys. This was the picture that I gave him and Tommy for Father's day. 5 x 5 picture collage in a black frame. It turned out cute even though it was an afterthought on Nathan's picture day. Jaycie just happened to need to be in one of Nathan's pics and it worked out.

Everyone was worn out when they had to leave. It was pretty late too. We always have so much fun when they come. We love grandparents!!