Well, since my last posts were of the girls' school years and they start up school again next Monday, I guess I'd better catch up on our summer happenings. Going back over my pictures, the main events of our summer included our traveling to see family, which will be separate posts, but we did do some things around home (when we were home and weren't sick) so that's what this post is all about. A lot of my pictures are from the El Paso Zoo, where we have an annual pass; and it has been one of our best purchases. We go every couple weeks and between the animals and the splash area, we have fun every time and everyone in our family enjoys it.
The prairie dog section is one of our favorite spots since they have the peep holes to look inside their exhibit. We thought it was pretty cool that this one got really close and seemed to really like Tyler.
I was trying to get a cute picture of Taryn, but since we had just passed by the big birds and the rest of the girls calling to them trying to get them to call back, Taryn was doing the same thing. Hence, no smile, but a bird call instead.
The splash area is the best part of the zoo because we head there first so that the girls are cooled down for the rest of the walk around.
Taryn even enjoyed the water even though we didn't have her swimsuit on. It made me laugh to think she was just in her onesie, like it was her very own wet t-shirt contest. :)
I loved how great the pictures turned out on my new phone. The details down to the water droplets were seriously amazing to me. One of our other trips to the zoo, we were able to get a picture with all four girls at this meerkat display. I thought it was pretty cute.
Besides the zoo, a lot of our summer was spent in our pool. One of the pluses to our new purchased home was the pool, and after we finally got it up and running, we probably swam in it 5 to 6 days a week. Here is what our pool looked like by the time we had to wait for a pool service to come and fix some leaks. We were a little sad that it took as long as it did to fix, but the girls were still in school, so my one stipulation was for it to be completed by the time school was out.
We ended up having to empty the entire pool and fill it back up to start over with all the chemicals. It was a long, long process because our workers took forever to do everything, but it was done by the last day of school (like I was hoping), but then the weather did not cooperate so we had to wait an extra day before trying to swim. But, the wait was well worth it. The girls love to swim and by about the second week Tessa started swimming as well as Abby, so now we have two fish in the family and they all really love to be in the water.
The other funny story about our backyard is the squirrel family that has taken over our drainage pipes. They dug out all the dirt and rocks (which are now huge mounds in our backyard) and we see them run around, drink from our pool, and chirp at each other all day long. We first only saw one huge one and then we didn't see it for a long time right around the time we were draining the pool, so we thought it may have moved on with its source of water gone. Then we saw a squirrel again, but thought it was a new one because it was so much smaller than what we remembered, until we saw three baby squirrels and put two and two together. We had a momma squirrel and now there's a family of them back there. The girls like to watch them from the windows and luckily they stay away whenever we're outside, so we seem to get along with each other fine. However, we did find one of our swim toys chewed on and hidden in our hill outside one of the pipes, so we're having to keep an eye on stuff like that. But it is a pretty fun story to tell.
After living in El Paso almost an entire year, Tyler finally found a lake where we could fish. We've gone multiple times, but have yet to catch anything, but we keep trying. Nearby parks and swings make it easier for the girls to want to go. I also think it makes for good pictures and memories because these two pictures were taken by me from the same spot. I took the picture of the three girls with the lake behind them and then turned around 180 degrees and took this picture of Taryn. The fence in the background of that picture is actually the US/Mexico border. I thought it was pretty interesting and liked having the record/memories of that.
This past weekend in August, this same lake/park had a kids fishing tournament. We had a lot of fun, but still didn't catch anything! The girls did get t-shirts, we all got free lunch, and we tried to win stuff with our raffle tickets, but no luck on anything. But it was a fun family outing that only cost us less than five bucks for half of the day. This is a picture of Abby trying to reel in what we thought was a fish, but soon found out it was just tangled with one of the kids who was next to us who cast into our lines. Abby was super-bummed, but she's got the motions down.
The entire middle of summer (it seemed like) was taken up by being sick. We came home from our Utah trip sick and it lasted for over two weeks. Between the four girls passing stuff back and forth, we seriously wondered if it was ever going to end. One kid would throw up one night and then be fine for a day or two and then she'd throw up again. Mix this in with three other girls doing the same thing on the off day, plus some diarrhea for good measure, and it made for a very un-fun couple of weeks. At one point we had all three girls sleeping on the floor of our room just so we could be near them through the night because we knew at least one of them would probably wake up needing to throw up. I included this picture of Tyler carrying all three girls upstairs for bed because Tessa was carrying the "throw up bucket" to have near the beds. We probably had four or so of those buckets all around the house during those two weeks. At one point I found this note upstairs written by Tessa. I don't know when she did it, but I thought it was pretty funny. Can't tell how legible it will be in the picture, but it says, "I love you and I hate diyareea." I posted this on Facebook and just said it was too true and what we all felt like in our house that week.
My parents came to visit us during our sick time, but luckily they didn't catch anything from us. We were able to still enjoy our time with them, since the sickness that the girls had was so weird. They would feel fine and happy up until they got sick and then would be fine again right afterwards. It was so hard to get them to settle down, lay down, or anything even though I tried and kept telling them things like "no, you can't do that, you just threw up." It was seriously one of the weirdest stomach bugs we have ever had.
We still found things to do to entertain ourselves while we were quarantined at home. Tyler finally pulled out this science project volcano he got for a birthday present and we did that one day. It wasn't as exciting as the picture on the front portrayed it to be, but the girls still enjoyed it.
You can always count on Tessa to find something silly to do to entertain the rest of us. She came up to me one day looking like this. Good thing straws can keep a 6 year old happy for a couple minutes. We really did have a fun summer, sick or not, and the girls got along exceptionally well. I love getting pictures of all four of them together especially when they're all happy to have me taking pictures.
We attempted to go camping with friends one weekend, but it was during the "sick period" so Tyler put up our small tent in the play room and the girls played and slept in there for a couple of weeks. It took up practically the entire play room, but it was well worth it. We finally took it down when we realized school was about to start and we knew we needed to get the girls back on a school schedule.
Tyler's parents came to visit us and surprise Tyler over his birthday this past week. We were able to go on Post and meet Tyler for lunch one day. We ate at Smashburger and right next door was a little playground, so the girls had to play and had to have pictures.
The bright colors of all the climbing toys made for really pretty pictures.
Abby was technically too big to play in there, but since it was practically empty and she mostly followed Taryn around, we figured it was okay. They had more fun there than I thought they would, and we had to drag them away when it was time to leave.
Abby spent the entire time with Grandma planning the birthday party. She decided on the decorations (balloons, ribbons, banners, including a tear-through banner), a surprise yell when he came home from work, and the "eyeball" theme which was how she wanted to decorate the cake, the banners, and all their cards. It was pretty fun and we kept talking about how she could probably be an event planner if she wanted because she was so involved in all the details and making it sure it was all done perfectly.
It was fun having Grandma and Grandpa with us. It was a great way to celebrate Tyler's 36th birthday and to celebrate the last week of summer before the girls head back to school. We had a great summer!
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