The Rest of the Summer

The last month of our summer pretty much flew by. We collected school supplies, swam, and tried to get in the last few play dates with friends before school started.We finally made it out to the zoo as a family. Over spring break this year, the zoo opened up their new huge playground with tall tree slides. I took a couple of pictures as the girls took turns coming down the tallest twisty slide. Tyler also got a turn as he helped Taryn up the steep steps and down the slide.

 

 

We still have annual passes to the zoo, and we really like going to see the animals, play in the splash pad, and now to play at the treehouse playground.

 

Aubrey and Taryn enjoy stealing my phone and taking pictures of themselves or of anything around them. Taryn sometimes lets me be in the picture with her.

 

 Aubrey spent a couple hours with my phone one day. These were some of her pictures. I also had tons of videos she had taken of herself singing and reenacting some music videos that the girls had seen on the Disney channel. They were pretty funny to watch and I definitely kept a few to be included in our home video dvd. 

 

The week before school started, they had the kindergarten orientation at school where Aubrey got to meet her teacher and see her classroom. Here is the one picture I got from that night. This may be included in her recap of kindergarten if I forget that I've already posted it, but either way, here it is chronologically. She was super excited to meet her teacher and to meet some of the other students. We did not know anyone in her class, but we did see a few familiar faces of other parents with older kids who are the same age as either Tessa or Abby. My favorite part about this night was when we were in line to have a family picture taken by the teacher, we were behind another mom and daughter who seemed to be new because they weren't talking to anyone. I pulled Aubrey up by me and told her this little girl will be in your class, why don't you introduce yourself and say hi. And she immediately tapped the little girl on the shoulder and said, "Hi. I'm Aubrey. What's your name?" I was so proud of her. Some kids are pretty shy about that kind of stuff, and she didn't even hesitate. It really made me feel confident that Aubrey was going to do just fine in Kindergarten, and so far she really has.

 

Tyler's birthday always happens right before school starts. Luckily this year Tyler and I got to go out on a date to celebrate. Tyler was using up a golf gift card he had received last year, so we got to play a round of golf together. I hadn't golfed in years, but it was a lot of fun to play together and just spend some time together just the two of us. I made him let me take a picture of us as we drove towards the first tee. The course was really pretty and we saw rabbits running everywhere. It really was a lot of fun.

 

 Our last hurrah before school started was when we went to Elephant Butte Lake. It was the final weekend of the summer, just two days before the first day of school. We were invited by our friends, the Moss's, who have a boat. So we were able to go hang out on the lake and take turns riding their tube in the waves. It was a blast and as we prepared to go, I realized our girls had never been on a boat before. They were really excited to try it though and they loved it. We spent some time on the beach to eat and just swim around, but the majority of the day we spent cruising around on the boat.

 

Abby probably spent the most time out on the tube. She and the Moss's kids, Annie and Jaxon, took the most turns riding on the tube. Abby was nervous about falling off and into the water at first, but once she got the hang of how to hold on, she didn't mind it going faster and faster and trying bigger jumps.

 The rest of the girls each took at least one turn on the tube while the boat drove quite slowly, but they did not want to go any faster. They much preferred riding on the boat and watching the older kids take turns on the tube.

 

Taryn was very nervous at first, and whenever the boat picked up speed, she kind of freaked out a little, but by the second half of the day (after lunch), she was walking around the boat like a pro. It might have helped that she spent an hour or so taking a nap on the boat, but either way she was so much happier the second half of the day as you can tell from these two pictures. 

 

We would stop every once in awhile for the kids to just jump into the lake and swim for a bit. Taryn liked this part once she got comfortable with her life jacket and the water. Tessa and Abby enjoyed doing flips off the back of the boat into the water. This second picture is one of the few times I took a turn on the tube. I went with some of the little girls and they took it pretty slow for us. At one point, we stopped near some high rocks that the older kids and Tyler were able to jump off of, almost like cliff diving. It wasn't super high, but it was higher than any diving board my kids had every tried. I was too far away to get any good pictures, but I did get a good video of one of Abby's jumps.

 

We had so much fun and were so happy that the Moss's had invited us. It may have to be the new place we go whenever we have family come visit us. It really was the best way to end our summer!