Another HOT SeaWorld trip

 LONG lines!!! We went to SeaWorld on the Friday that we were at the Frio. It was a lot different than the day we were there in June. There were a ton of people there, everywhere! Rides that we just walked on were 30-45 minutes waits, and everything we tried to do was packed. We usually go to places like that on off-peak or rainy days, so it was our first experience with normal crowds. The girls didn't know what to do with themselves. Since it was just the girls and I, we were a little limited on what we could ride. We ended up just riding one water slide, then playing around for the rest of the time. The water slide we rode on was Brooke's favorite. We got in the line at the very bottom of a lot of stairs! It went pretty quick, until we got to the very tip top. We were about five groups away from going when a lady passed out in line from dehydration or heat exhaustion. They stopped letting anyone go on the ride until the EMT got there. 25 minutes later, we were on our way! I have a video, that I will try to upload just to show how much fun it was :)

It definitely was a fun day, but I am not sure it was worth it! At least we didn't drive all the way from Houston to encounter all that drama.

Frio Camping with the Griffins

We love the Frio, and we love it even more when we get to share it with friends! The Griffins decided to come down to the Frio for the weekend to camp. We had so much fun together. Playing in the river all day, hanging out at night, and just being together. The kids had a great time. Brooke and Hannah played especially well together. They shared the two Barbie dolls that I had brought amazingly well, and they had so much fun "floating" down the river while holding hands. Their favorite time was when all the kids hooked up for the "cutie train" and we pulled them around the river like a big train. I think the bigger kids favorite was the mule rides and just playing in the parked mule. Whatever we were doing, we were all just glad to spend some time together!

Sleeping In!!!

We have been so lucky that all of our girls have always been late sleepers. I kind of attribute it to the fact that I never ever make mornings fun. If they ever woke up really early (or earlier than I wanted to get up), I would just have them snuggle with me for a while. Sometimes they would fall back asleep, sometimes they would just lay there, and sometimes they would get bored and figure out something to do to entertain themselves. I think they just realized early on, that it was just as fun to stay in their own rooms and hang out :) This summer things have really gotten crazy, and almost everyday one of them is still sleeping by 9:45. It's always fun to see who comes down first to snuggle with me that morning. It's pretty nice, but it also kind of cuts into our day. We are usually never out of the house for errands or anything until after 12 or 12:30, but I can't complain because I love laying in bed. Sleeping in and not having a morning routine is definitely my favorite thing about summer! Only a few more weeks of it left. So sad!

Summer "School" Struggles

I got it in my mind that I was going to have the girls do more school work than we have in past summers. I thought I was being pretty fair - reading everyday, 3 days of writing, and 3 days of math. Apparently that was way too much to ask! Unfortunately, there have only been a couple of days that everyone does their work without complaint. Adilyn and I have gotten into some amazing battles about her work. I think a couple days it took two hours or so for her to finally squeak out her 6 sentences. Yikes! I have still stuck to my guns, but I have combined a couple things to make it seem like to them that they are doing less work. It's all about the presentation! How dare I want to make them smarter?!?

Fort Worth Fun

Summer has gone by SO fast. I realized that I hadn't been up to Fort Worth at all, so we had to squeeze a quick trip in before summer was truly over. We went up on a Thursday morning, and we went right to NRH2O. Dad and Brandon went with us, and we had so much fun! We only stayed for about 4 hours, but we could have stayed all day. They had one of the funnest water slides that I had ever been on in my life there. It's in the background of the picture of Dad and the girls. We rode it at least 4 times! The funniest part of the day was that we could get Brooke on a tube ride that she loved. It was a pretty high slide, at least 4 stories up, and she sat in the front of a double tube with me. Her booty was too little, and she would slide all the way down, so she had to sit up on the edge. She loved it! We literally rode that thing at least 10 times. Every single time down she would yell, "This is so crazy!!!!" My little daredevil! We had such a fun time, and I was really glad Brandon was there to help so we could ride some of the big rides a lot easier.

We had to stop in at Old South Pancakes House for breakfast, and Brooke was so excited about her Texas waffle! What other state has a waffle shape?

We decided to hit up the mall (my least favorite place) in hopes to find a couple dresses for Hannah's wedding in Michigan. The girls were pretty good, and Pops was very patient while us girls shopped and shopped.

We didn't find very good wedding dresses, but the girls loved their new Descendants sweatshirts (which we did actually use in Michigan)!

Coco loves having new laps to sit on and snuggle! She usually hides during the chaos of the day, but she always comes out at night.

On Saturday morning, the Mastersons invited us to the Kimball Museum. They have a drop in session for kids, and we had so much fun! These first few pictures are in a little play area that they have. When the session started, we went into the museum and looked at two paintings. The moderators talked about different aspects of the paintings like texture, color, and style. Both Adilyn and Kacy were very in to answering and asking questions. After that we went back to the studio, and the kids could decorate pictures of themselves. They were supposed to make themselves a costume. Brooke made the best and most-filled up collage ever, Kacy and Adilyn took a little more time. The final products were amazing!

Later that night, we met my friend Lindsay for dinner and we went to a star party at the museum. It was pretty cool, and we saw Saturn, Jupiter, and the moon in different telescopes. It was great to see Lindsay, and we loved looking at the planets!

Our last outing was meeting Mom and Greg at Ihop for breakfast. She brought the girls little fans, and we had a great breakfast to fill us up before we headed home. Another great trip "up north" :)

Dork Diaries

I bought Adilyn the first Dork Diaries book, because I thought it would be something she would like. I can't get her to read a "real" book yet. She gets bored with all the words. :) These Dork Diaries are written in journal entries with some drawings and some doodles. She loved it! So, then she got on a mission to read all 9 of them this summer. They are apparently pretty popular, so we had to request them from the library. It's been so cute seeing her get all excited about reading. Every time we would get an email that one was waiting for her, she always wanted to rush right up and pick it up. One time I even took one away from her because she had a major fit one day. You would have thought that I took away a million dollars or something! I love that she likes to read, and I know one day we will be sharing book titles as adults like Mom and I do now. A family of bookworms - love it!

The "Talk"

I am usually very honest with my girls about body things. They already kinda know about periods, why girls shave their legs, and how babies come out. I had pretty much answered them honestly about everything, and usually I get an "eww" or "yuck" when they learn their new found information. Sometimes I'm pretty sure they wished they would have never asked! Anytime they asked about where babies came from, I usually just said that God put them there and that was usually enough. The other day, they asked a little more detail. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to say when the time came, but I figured I would just wing it :)
Of course, I didn't get too terribly graphic. I just talked about girl parts and boy parts and how they go together, and sometimes a baby is made. They were pretty quiet, and then Kacy piped up, "I mean, I want kids, but I do NOT wanna do that! Can you just do it once?" Hilarious! Adilyn was just embarrassed, and she didn't say anything. It was pretty funny!
A couple weeks later, Kacy made some comment about being willing to "share" her privates. I was like, "What?!? Wait - hold on a minute!" So, we had to have another discussion about when it's okay and appropriate to "share" her "virginia" (as she calls it). I am sure there will be many more discussions about sex in the future, but I am glad that I am comfortable talking about everything. I sure hope it makes them more comfortable coming to me with their issues later.

La Torretta - Year 2

We took the girls to La Torretta again this year because Mom found a great deal on Living Social, so we decided to go for a night. The girls love it there! They can ride the water slides alone, and Brooke loves the lazy river. It's all pretty small and easy to get around, so it makes it pretty easy for us to watch them and let them do a few things on their own. We had a great time playing in the water, and we ended up eating dinner at the little restaurant there. After dinner, they had a s'more roasting party by the lake. We roasted marshmallows and played in the lake for another couple hours. The next day we got up and had breakfast at our favorite little breakfast place, then went back to play some more. We stayed a lot longer than we thought we would, and stayed until about 5pm. Another great mini vacation :)