September - The Month of Camping

September always seems to be filled with camping weekends. This year was no different. Our ward's annual camping trip is always in September. This year we decided last minute to go (just like last year) because the weather was questionable again. It was supposed to rain the entire time, but after hearing other families were still going, we decided we would too. We didn't even take a tent. We planned to sleep in the van thinking that would be better if it rained all night. Well, it hardly rained at all, so the weather held out and clean up in the morning was so much easier without having to put up a tent. The girls stayed toasty warm in the van (except for Abby who was next to the back of the van), so even sleeping in the car wasn't bad.

 

The girls got to spend time Saturday morning running around with their friends and as always doing the little zip line. The bishop's daughter celebrated her birthday while we were all up there, so we had cake after breakfast and the kids got to break open a pinata. They had a lot of fun.

 

On our drive back home, we decided to stop at the little zoo in Alamogordo again like we had a couple years earlier. With our El Paso zoo membership, we even got in free! Abby liked the bald eagles and Aubrey liked the huge tortoise. (That's also Tessa's favorite animal.)

 

The girls also really liked the playground and would have stayed there a lot longer if we hadn't rushed them along.

 

We were excited to hear that the kangaroos had new babies, and we even saw the baby joeys sticking out of their pouches from far away. We really liked the deer too because they came so close to the fence. Tyler even helped feed it the leaves that it was trying to reach through the fence.

 

A couple weekends later, we decided to camp again. This time we went just as a family into New Mexico because it was their other free fishing day for the year. We went to Ruidoso again (like we did in the summer) and we camped the night before. The most exciting thing that happened that night was when I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of heavy animal breathing and stomping. I was scared that it was a bear, but it sounded more like a horse from how it was breathing and walking, so I figured it was a big buck or something. I thought I was the only one awake and I was trying to be super quiet so I didn't say anything until the morning, but when I did Tyler said he had heard it too. He thought it might have been a wild horse, which signs had warned us about on the drive up the mountain. He found a few tracks in the mud around our tent that made him think that it came around the trees and had had to slide to a stop when our tent was right there. It was crazy.

 

We got there too late to take any pictures in the evening, so while Tyler put up the tent and all our stuff in the morning, the girls played on these logs that were right behind where we put the tent. My phone had also died so I had to take all my pictures on my iPad. I was glad I had that, so I could get some pictures. They loved this big trunk that had a little step and perfect seat on the back side.

 

We even had to take videos of the girls walking along the fallen tree like a balance beam. The best video was of Abby who slipped and fell half way through. She even loves rewatching it and laughing every time.

 

After leaving the camp area and finding donuts for breakfast, we headed to Grindstone Lake. This is where we fished over the summer when they had a huge kid's fishing day. Tyler was hoping with less people this time and getting there earlier we would have a better time of catching fish, but it was still kind of busy and we had to walk a quarter around the lake to even find a spot. It was right near a lot of rocks so at least the girls had fun playing on the rocks, using chalk, and helping Tyler fish. I only took a few pictures but this first one of the girls helping Tyler fish is one of my favorites because you can also see the view we had.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we didn't catch any fish this time either. Tyler was a little bummed. On our way home from the lake, we stopped at a pistachio farm where they have a structure of the world's largest pistachio. Of course we had to take a picture. The girls were having fun pretending to hold it up. They had a lot of flavored pistachios to sample, which the girls loved trying.

 

We really enjoy making these family memories and doing outdoorsy stuff together like camping and fishing. We've been having a lot of fun.

A New School Year Begins

Another school year begins and we now have 3 in school!! I feel like that is so crazy, but they were all excited to start school. Now we have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader, and a Kindergartener. I usually do posts for each of the girls to recap their entire year, but for now, I have at least first day of school pictures plus some picture day photos I took myself since I didn't want to pay for school pictures. So that will be this post. I forgot to take pictures at home, so I grabbed these pictures in the parking lot of the school before we walked in.

 Aubrey was so ready to start school. She didn't seem nervous at all. At one point I had to leave to take Abby to her class and Aubrey was a little hesitant for me to leave, but once she started coloring, she was fine. When I stopped by one last time to say goodbye, she was almost too busy to even talk to me. She was already deeply engrossed in what she was doing. I knew she was going to be fine and she was.

 

I had the girls dress up for their picture day which was around the 2nd week of school. But then I made them pose in the front yard before we left for school so I could take my own pictures. I thought they turned out great.

 

 I got real smiles and laughs from them by telling them: "think of daddy in a dress" and it worked every time.

 

Taryn was still in her pajamas but she did not want to be left out of the pictures, so I took a few of her too. Always adorable.

That was the beginning weeks of school. The girls are still enjoying it, so that's good too. Taryn is managing being home alone with just mom. We read a lot of books, do puzzles, and still have fun with exercise classes, park days, and music class. She does ask quite frequently where the girls are, but she doesn't seem to mind that it's just me and her for now. They are all doing so well.

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.