dance recital + surviving the blue bell famine of 2015

anyone else in central texas sick of the rain?!?  it seriously has rained everyday for the last three weeks.  historically, by memorial day we are praying for rain in church as many in our rural community are farmer or ranchers and depend on rain.  this year we are praying the rain stops.  our area has been hit hard by severe weather and flooding.  thankfully, we haven't directly been affected.  my prayers go out to all those who have been affected especially those in the wimberley, tx area.

this weekend natalie & kevyn had their dance recital.  they did so good and looked so cute on stage!  their class performed two routines - one ballet and one tap.  they performed their ballet routine to the perfect nanny from the mary poppins sound track (so sweet!) and their tap routine to abc by the jackson 5 (such a hoot!).  kevyn gets so into her routines and really feels the music.  i love watching her!  and nat looks so cute concentrating to get each step right.  

we really enjoyed their teacher this year and kevyn can't wait to start up again in the fall.  nat is still undecided.  ;)

if you follow me on instagram (there should be a link in the sidebar or click here) you would have seen that we've created a summer bucket list.  we have four days of school left (woohoo!) and can't wait for the sun to come out so we can start enjoying our summer!  our chalkboard is full of things that we came up with as a family and include a campout, a lemonade stand, going to an aquarium, and hosting a bbq on our new patio.  that patio has not been completed yet so completing the patio is also on the bucket list.  ;)  also on our bucket list are smaller items like decorating cupcakes, making chalk (pinterest to the rescue!) and making ice cream.  being the overachievers we are we decided to go ahead get started by making ice cream. 

i'm not going to lie...  it was pretty darn good!  and it gives me hope that i will survive the blue bell famine of 2015.  

~becky

the big catch

We’re back from another fun and totally relaxing weekend at the lake Sommerville!  The weather in Texas this summer has been pleasantly mild and we’ve been spending as much time outside as possible to enjoy it.  I woke up early Saturday morning and went outside to drink my coffee and needed a blanket to keep warm.  That’s nuts!  It’s July!  IN TEXAS!

Our highlight of the weekend would definitely have to be Saturday morning’s big catch.  The guys had set out jug lines the night prior so Saturday after breakfast we all hopped in the boat to see if they had caught anything.  You can usually tell if you got a fish by if the jug is being tugged or pulled.  As we were approaching the third jug you could tell something big was on the line.  The jug was being pulled on pretty good.  We ended up catching a rather large buffalo carp.  It was exciting, but since buffalo carp don’t exactly taste great we ended up throwing it back. 

As the guys were re-baiting the lines, Kevyn noticed that another one of our jugs was being pulled on pretty good.  And as we got closer you could tell the guys were getting pretty curious too.  It took the three of them to pull the line up and to their surprise they had caught a 44” and 48 lb blue catfish and another 7 lb blue catfish below that!  It was pretty exciting to watch them pull it in and then figure out what to do with it once we got it in the boat.  There was no way it would fit in the live well.  It was as big as Neely! 

A catfish of that size might not taste that great either, but we still decided to keep it and hope to give it a try in a few weeks. 

I also figured out why Kevyn had a new found interest in fishing.  As she was watching all the commotion I heard her say “Mmmm, catfish!”  And then lick her lips.  Geez…

On the way back to the campsite, the guys got a lot of attention for their big catch.  They had several people stop to take pictures.  My sister-in-law and I thought it was quite funny that Jeff was stuck carrying the fish and therefore forced to be in all the pictures since we know how much he loves taking pictures.  ;)

She's going to hate me for this picture when she is older, but I love it! :)

By chance, Saturday was also the Dam Lake Fest at Welch Park.  We stayed at Yegua, and our campsite looks directly at Welch.  We had heard on the radio that they would have fireworks that night so we positioned our chairs to look out across the lake at Welch.  At about 9:45 we were able to watch a pretty magical fireworks show across the lake.  It was awesome.

I hope you all had a great weekend as well!

~Becky

summertime

Hi all!  We are deep in the heart of summer and loving every bit of it!  No homework.  No cheer practices, soccer practices or swim practices.  Our evenings are open to do whatever we please which is a rare treat!

Although the girls are enrolled in the Sonshine Adventure program at our church, they really haven’t had a chance to go much.  Which stinks because they really enjoy going.  Sonshine takes them on day trips to nearby attractions, transports them to the library for the summer reading program, and plans special activities for the days they stay on location.  Over the past few years I’ve watched this program really grow into something awesome and I feel the need to do something at the end of summer to show my appreciation to the director and all the young people they have working there.  Fingers crossed I can actually pull something off!  J

After the first day of Sonshine and headed to swimming lessons.

The girls have attended two summer camps.  One was a day camp at Camp Lone Star.  Our church provides transportation two weeks out of the summer (which is awesome!) and allowed me to drop them off at the church versus making the 30 minute trip 2x a day.  You have to be five or older to attend, so there was one unhappy little girl left behind on the first day.  Kelby definitely had some jitters the night before their first day (not surprisingly) but by day 2 she acted like it was all no big deal.  When I picked them up on that Monday and asked them how it was, they almost couldn’t contain their excitement when they told me that Kevyn ordered a diet coke and candy bar from the snack bar and Kelby ordered a RED gatorade and candy bar.  I don’t allow them to drink soda and we try to avoid red food coloring.  Clearly they were enjoying their independence.  Oh well, I guess it could be worse.

The very next week the girls went to family camp with my mom (aka Granny), Aunt Joyce and Uncle Dave at Camp Lutherhill.  The week ended with them coming straight to the July 4^th parade in Round Top.  You can see all that action here.  Lutherhill posts pics from the week online so I stole a few of the girls. 

Between camps and a week of VBS, we’ve snuck off to some nearby lakes and the beach for long weekend trips.  Seriously y’all…  my girls have tans like nobody’s business.  It’s ridiculous.  They’ve also gotten over their fear of the tube.  Memorial Day weekend 2009, when Kelby was 2 ½, I thought it would be a good idea to ride with her on a tube while the boat went really slow.  Let’s just say it didn’t end well and was a total mom fail.  We’ve dealt with the repercussions since.  But, that phase is now over and we love the tube!

my picture.  kelby's edit.

Another fail on my part…  I decided the best way to get in the water one day would be just to jump in since the water was slightly cold.  So I took off my hat and quickly jumped.  When I came back up my sister-in-law reminded me that I had also been wearing sunglasses.  Had.  They were now gone.  I’ll be finishing out the remainder of the summer in some old Ray-ban’s that have seen better days.

We’ve also been able to spend some time in Port Aransas.  Jeff’s family has made it into an annual trip and the girls really look forward to it.  I commented to Jeff on 3.5 hr ride there how the girls have come so far from the days where we had to stop what seemed like every 10 miles.  I remember the first trip with Kevyn being a nightmare!  This year we only made one stop at Chucky Cheese for lunch.  (Which in my opinion is kinda nightmarish.  Bad food and lots of germs.  It definitely was not my pick.) 

Sorry for the bad iPhone pics.  I really thought I was taking pictures with my "real camera" only to find out nothing was saving because I didn't have my SD card inserted...  duh!

Our first evening in Port A.

Grandma took Kelby, Kevyn and cousin Lyla shopping one morning and Kevyn and Lyla both came back with new flip flops.  Kelby however came back with a hermit crab that she named Brittany.  Her name has since been changed to Krabby.  Did you know if a hermit crab gets stressed they could lose appendages?  Not joking.  I read it in the handy pamphlet they send with the crabs.  I’ve used this to my advantage by reminding Kelby when she starts to get loud (which is like non-stop) that she needs to quite down so she doesn’t stress out Krabby.  I like Krabby.  I really do.  So much that that very same day I went back to the souvenir shop and bought Krabby a bigger cage and a friend.  Her name is Patty.  Krabby Patty.  Get it? 

Funny story, on the way home Kelby was reminiscing about her time in Port A and said, “I thought I was going to go to the beach and just come home with some flip-flops….  Instead I got crabs!”  HERMIT crabs Kelby!  HERMIT crabs!

Well it’s time to wrap this up.  We are headed to the lake again this weekend and I’ve got laundry to do and packing to get done.  I hope you all have had a great summer so far!