As the summer was quickly coming to a close, we ended up with a letter that talked about Abby's award ceremony for the Reflections Contest. The State Level Awards Ceremony was going to be held the beginning of August in Dallas. Since we have family so close, we decided to take a week and head out there so Abby could go and we could visit family. At this point in time, Tyler had started having Fridays off because of the government furlough. We were a little nervous about him missing hours and pay, but we decided at least it was during the summer when the girls were home and also on Friday giving us a number of long weekends in a row. Tyler drove us out to Wichita Falls where we hung out with the family on the weekend. The cousins played, we ate a lot, and played a lot of games, and had a good time. And when do we go to Wichita Falls and not end up at Chuck E. Cheese? Never! We celebrated Rebecca's 4th birthday while we were all together.
The Award Ceremony was on Sunday, August 4th. We left the three younger girls with Grandma and Grandpa and Tyler, Abby, and I drove down to Dallas. As we drove, I kept thinking about how it was probably the first time just the three of us were getting to do something together since Tessa was born. I told Abby to enjoy it since she doesn't usually get her mom AND dad all to herself for that long of a time period. We went straight to the assembly hall where the awards were being held. We attempted to look for a snack to eat, but did not find anything besides some questionable street carts, and we didn't have too much time to venture very far on foot. We did find these very large "B" and "G" signs which I guess are found around the Dallas area these days?? I have seen other peoples' pictures with them, so we decided to get one with Abby in them too.
We received her award and took pictures with the PTA backdrop before the ceremony began.
We found out as we were entering the hall that she had to sit with the other winners, so here she is with the other music composition category winners.
As Tyler and I found our seats, and as we waited for everyone else to arrive, we were treated with a slide show of the photography and drawing entry winners, while the music composition entry winners were piped through the sound system. So about every 10 minutes, Abby's song that she wrote and sang came over the loud speaker and Tyler and I would just smile. We were so proud of Abby and all her hard work.
As the ceremony began, each of the kids was taken up on stage to receive a medal for the level of award they won at the state level. I've written it before I think, but Abby received an Award of Excellence, which sounded like the second highest award. The only award that was higher was the Overall Award of Excellence, and those entries went on to be judged at the national level. For Abby's first participation, we were super excited for her. And she loved the fact that she got a "gold" medal.
This is a picture of all the Music Composition kids who won a medal at the state level. Abby had a great time, was not nervous about being on stage, and even met some fun new friends after hanging out with them in the seats and backstage.
After the ceremony was over, we met up with John and McKaye who now live about 5 minutes away from the Arts District where the ceremony was held. We got to see their new place and then we ate dinner with them and McKaye's family. They also took us on a tour of the rich houses in the downtown Dallas area and we saw some famous people's houses. We then took Tyler to the airport to fly home and work for the next week while the girls and I stayed and played with the cousins. Tyler flew back Thursday night (as another one of his long weekends began) so he was there to drive us home after the next weekend.
Whenever we go to Wichita Falls, it has also become an every time occurrence to make a trip to Jump for Joy. The girls love it and I love how the bright colors make for really cute pictures. I could not get Taryn to stop long enough for a non-blurry one however.
The cousins had so much fun playing together.
We also celebrated Chloe's 5th birthday while we were all together. Scott was not able to be there because of work, so he's on the phone via Facetime so he could see her blow out the candles.
Once Tyler was back for the second weekend, we took our usual trip to feed the ducks and walk around the pond. I think we always stop at this particular tree to get a picture of the cousins, but it's always so cute, so why not?
And finally, one last picture of all seven young grandkids together at Grandma's house. We always have so much fun together.
As we drove home the following Sunday, we stopped halfway (which is in Midland) and saw Tyler's cousin, Tyson and his family. They moved to Midland right after we moved to El Paso, but this was the first time we finally got in touch with them and stopped to say hi. They fed us dinner, and we visited while the kids played. It was fun and made our very long 9 hour trip not seem so bad with the fun break in the middle.
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