July 2016

My goal was to be all caught up (or mostly) on the blog by the end of the year :)  So, I'm going to do try and at least catch up to Thanksgiving! Here goes....

First half of July:

We went to the Round Rock 4th of July parade. Always a lot of fun and more like Mardi Gras than parade but the kids love it.

And you get to meet Storm Troopers... so 4th of July, right?

We had the end of our summer swim season. Aunt Michelle and Uncle Brett even came to watch the last championship meet!

And most awesome of all is that Evan qualified for Invitationals (the absolutely last possible time to do it) in the 50 Free! You get this special silver cap when you make an invitational time.

And their team won their championship meet against 2 other teams. 

The next day, we headed to Texas A&M for the invitational meet. It wasn't Evan's best meet (as his goggles fell off when he dove in), but it was a fun experience and he met his goal of getting to go so that's all that mattered.

The kids did a camp called Pine Cove in the City. It's a day camp version of the Pine Cove overnight camps. Here area  few pics from the camp:

One of my favorites from the week!

We even hosted 3 of the camp counselors at our home for the week. We had a lot of fun having them over to stay. We were sad to see them go.

And that's it for the first half of July! Stay tuned for the rest.

20 Year High School Reunion

After our Michigan trip, we drove back through Indianapolis to see my high school friends. It was our 20 year high school reunion (what??!!).  My really good girlfriends and I had decided it was a good reason to all plan to be in town at the same time. Three of us live close to Indy, but the other 3 of us are quite far away. So we don't have many chances to all get together.

We met up for dinner before the reunion so we could catch up (Katy had to miss on Saturday).

Eventually, we headed to the reunion. It was actually pretty fun. I enjoyed seeing some classmates whom I haven't seen in years and seeing what they are all up to. It's kind of crazy that it has been 20 years since we graduated high school. 

The next day, we all got together again for brunch at Sarah's house in Indy.  This time with all the families too. I love that our kids are good friends even though we don't get together that much. They always have fun playing together and pick up right where they left off... just like their Moms!

Attempt to try and get all the kids together

The girls (minus Stella)

The boys (minus a few)

And the moms (minus Lauren)

We loved catching up with everyone and hated to leave (we started driving back to Texas from Sarah's house!). Our time is always too short together.  But these ladies are so incredible, and I am so blessed to have them as my friends. 

The End of our Michigan Trip

After strawberry picking, we went to Oscoda so see Mema and Papa's new house and check out the area. They have a great house. It's not right on a lake, but it's very near to a small in-land lake. The kids enjoyed wading out into the water at the beach.

And then taking a pic in the BIG chair.

And they are also only 1/2 mile from a really big lake! Some might even call it a Great Lake... Lake Huron!  The kids ran around the beach area and Ryan of course fell in the water and got soaked!

Back at the lake house in Hope, we enjoyed a few more fun days. The kids did a lot of fishing from the pier.

Ryan helped Papa clean the deck.  No seriously, this kids loves to help and clean! It was really fun for him.

We swam in the water and enjoyed visits with friends (Ali and Julie came up for a bit).

We enjoyed a few last boat trips....

And we of course had to make Hobo pies and sit around the fire...

We sure will miss this place. It provided so many great memories (and I only found out about it a 16 years ago!).  We are sad to have to leave, but we are excited that it means Mema and Papa will get to be in Texas a whole lot more.

Goodbye Wixom Lake!

(Man, I love this picture... should have used it for my Christmas card!)

Strawberry Picking in Michigan

June is the perfect time in Michigan to go strawberry picking! We were heading up to the new house in Oskoda to move a bunch of stuff. We figured the kids would just be in the way so Michelle and I found a strawberry U-pick not too far away and took the kids there instead. 

This is only the 2nd time we have done this (the first was right after Ryan was born in Texas). I wasn't quite sure what to expect. But, we got our baskets and got our row and started picking!

As you can see, the kids loved it! We could eat as many as we wanted to while we were picking. So we did! I don't know if I've ever eaten that many strawberries at once. But man were they delicious! Fresh strawberries are just amazing!! 

As we were paying for our strawberries, the owner told us they had some baby bunnies. So, the kids got to go and hold them.

Another fun day in Michigan with gorgeous weather and family. Fortunately, this place isn't too far from Mema and Papa's new cottage so I think we will get to come back!

More Michigan

One of our favorite things about Hope, MI is the beautiful lake just steps from the house. It's breathtaking in the morning.  The past couple summers, we have had some bad luck with the weather so we were fortunate that this year, we got to enjoy a good week on the lake.

Everyone's favorite activity is tubing.

Especially the 3 man tube!

Evan and Caitlin also went in the smaller tube - which we can whip around a little better!

This year for the first time we let the older two try water skiing. 

Bryce helping Evan - the hardest part is just getting up. He tried a few times and was so close. Maybe next year.  

Daddy and Uncle Brett had to get in and show them how it's done!