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!

A Family Reunion in Midland

What's in Midland you ask. Not much, but for one weekend in August, it was the destination for our family reunion. Why Midland? Not because it's the most exciting place with the most variety of things to do, but because it was the half way point between all our families. With us coming from El Paso, Scott coming from San Antonio, John coming from Dallas, and Mom, Dad, and Paul coming from Wichita Falls, we each only had to drive around 5 hours to get together instead of one family (most likely us) having to drive 9 plus hours to see everyone. We appreciated the location and knew that as long as we were all together, fun would be had. And that was true!

 

Of course, it didn't come without drama, but at least it was minor drama. We were all supposed to be staying in the same hotel, but there was a mix-up between the website we booked rooms through and the hotel, so Mom and Dad ended up in a different hotel down the street. Not too bad, plus Grandma Solheim was able to be with us, so they probably preferred the separation from all the kids anyway. The best part about our hotel was the indoor swimming pool complete with twisty slide. Everyone loved taking turns shooting out of the slide. Even the little girls got turns with Tyler or Scott holding them so they wouldn't go under water. It was funny to hear them scrape along the sides of the slide to keep from going too fast. The first picture is of Aubrey coming out with Tyler. She was so excited to show Grandma and Grandpa this weekend how she had learned how to swim without floaties. Unfortunately, the week before we left, she had been complaining about her ear hurting and after going to the doctor we found out she had a pretty badly infected swimmer's ear. So she wasn't supposed to put her head under the water for like a week. So she put her floatie back on, but still swam and took her turns going down the slide being held by someone who would keep her out of the water. They had a pretty big hot tub too, so I snapped this second picture as Grandpa got put in charge of tending the little ones who wanted to swim in the hot tub.

 

We spent most of Friday at a park where we reserved a pavilion to eat and the park included playgrounds, a splash pad, volleyball nets, and horseshoe pits. We also brought a lot of outdoor games to keep everyone happy. We had a lot of fun and I tried grabbing pictures of all the different activities. Here's Aubrey and Rebecca on the playground, and Chloe and Tessa on the swings. We had another interesting occurrence while at the park. A reporter came up to talk to me while I was watching Taryn play. She said they were doing an article on updating parks in the city and wanted to take some pictures of people using the new playground equipment. So she took pictures of Taryn playing and got our names and Taryn's age to be in this newspaper article. But since we were just visiting, I probably won't ever see if we were actually in the newspaper or not. I did try looking for it online once, but didn't come across anything. The reporter thought it was hilarious that we were all in Midland for a family reunion but no one lived there. She asked where we were all from and just laughed wondering what we'd find to do there. Playing at the park was at the top of our list, so we had a good conversation about the city and what things we could do there. It was funny.

 

Tyler brought horseshoe stuff and he and Abby played with Paul and Grandma. We played volleyball, ladder golf, and other lawn games until the kids finally talked us into going over to the splash pad.

 

 We were worried about the weather (it was supposed to rain all day), but it just stayed overcast and the splash pad was still turned on, so we let them go until they got too cold to be in the water any longer. I took a lot of pictures while they ran from one thing to the next.

 

 

Scott had us take a selfie together. (Is it not a selfie with two people??) Anyway, here we are as we watched the kids play in the water. 

 As the kids started tiring out for the day, they started huddling around Grandma. I took this picture and thought it turned out really cute. 

 

When we weren't out eating or playing, we spent the majority of the our time in the hotel. The room we stayed in had a complete kitchen so most of the big group get togethers were there. Our room also had this huge walk-in closet so we would just send the girls in there to play with their barbies or to watch movies on the ipad, so we could shut the door and let them be. They didn't seem to mind. They loved it in there.

 

We were on the second floor and our room looked out onto a huge open lobby and the pool. The girls would take their toys out there to play occasionally too. They had these cute benches with the lamp in the middle where the girls liked to sit and play. Here are two pictures. One taken on the first floor with them, and one taken from the second floor right above them.

 

The lobby also had ping pong tables, arcade games, and a mini-golf set-up. The kids loved taking turns playing everything, going from one thing to the next. Grandma even had brought some little crafts like flying airplanes and pinwheels that the kids got to put together and play with in the big lobby.

 

I loved finding all the cousins together as they played. They loved watching Tessa, or whoever, play on the ipad. As long as they were happy being together, I wasn't going to complain about what they were doing. I also grabbed some of them in the hallway to take a picture. There were some steps right outside our door, so I thought it was a great picture spot. 

 

We put up tables when we all ate together in our hotel room. I took this picture because it included some of the adults. Aubrey found new best friends in McKaye and John. She wouldn't leave them alone the entire weekend! Good thing they didn't mind the little tag-along.

 

We ate out for a couple of meals, so of course the pictures continue. We ate at an On the Border because I love that place and they don't have one in El Paso (and we ARE the border, so it's crazy to me that we don't have that restaurant...don't get me started!). Anyway, so I got my fix while we were there. We took pictures while we waited to be seated. 

 

And then after dinner, they had a small fenced area in front of the restaurant where we took a lot more pictures. Most of these included Grandma Solheim so we could make sure she was included in the memories. I love the one of Chloe, Aubrey, and Rebecca. Those girls are going to be trouble. Only one year separates all three of them in age, and they love playing together when we get together. It's so fun to see them grow up together.

 

 

 I love taking pictures of Grandma with Aubrey because this is her namesake. Aubrey Jeanne was named after her great-grandma, Jeanne Solheim.

 

When we first saw Grandma Solheim and Grandma and Grandpa Black at the hotel, I started taking pictures as my kids climbed up and down each of them. So here they are:

 

 

We love being with family. No matter where we are, as long as we're together, we can make memories and have a great time. We can't wait to get together again - no matter where it is.