Things we teach our kids....

Giving is better than receiving....

There is power in Prayer....

A good fist bump is sometime all you need to make a connection with someone.....

Summer list continued....

We have been rocking the cheap and free activiteis Houston has to offer this summer...the past two weeks the kids and I have participated in the following activites:

11.  VBS-- one thing I love about Baptist churches is that they always offer VBS for free.  We have some friends that attend Spring Baptist church and they really have a great children's program.  Kai and Andrew had a great week learning about God and helped raise over 1000 dollars for at risk kids to go to summer camp.

12. Free Bowling-  I am always a skeptic of these "free" programs, but I checked out Kids bowl free and it actually worked.  The kids had a blast bowling two games for just the cost of shoes.

13. Spring Creek Greenway- this is also a cool place to go for free activities for the kids.  You can hike or you can attend art activities, story time in the wood, go fishing, or attend kid friendly lectures on frogs and worms and all sorts of other fun stuff.

14. Public Library- we obviously checked out books and attend story times but our library has all these awesome programs and classes like:

15. Art days at the library- this week the kids made and earth, sun and moon system that spins around.

16. Kid performance at the library-- this week we saw Peter Pan, but in coming weeks we will see Frozen, The Lion King and Suessical.

17. Galveston- we went down to my parents place for the weekend.  The seaweed is pretty bad this year, but that did not stop us from having fun.  My kids just used the seaweed as a platform to jump off.

Summer Plans

Usually, every summer, I make a list of 100 things I plan to do with the kids.  We  get about half way though it and then realize that we have have run out of money or time or ambition.

So this year I decided to simply list all the awesome stuff out as we do it in hope that it gets to 100...so here goes

1. Splashtown-- we have season passes this year so we go about once a week.

2. Miller Outdoor Theater-- this is on our list every year and we never go...so it figures that the one year I do not make a list, it is one of the first things we do.  We was The Nephew's Magician performed and had a picnic in the park.

3. Make homemade playdoh-  this is always fun and we used it for a bible study we were doing with kids.  We were using it to discuss Lot and his wife (and technically we made salt dough to go along with the story line-- but I am still counting it)

4. Build a fort- The boys had a friend over the other day, and of course, right when they were ready to play outside a huge thunder storm rolled in, so we made a huge fort that took over the entire living room and watched movies instead.

5. Shoot BB guns-  my boys have never shot guns before, so they were more than thrilled when at my niece's birthday party the BB guns were brought out to play with.  We sat in the back yard for about two hours shooting at shoes and water bottles.  And of course they both want one now!!

6. Cook with the kids- my kids love to cook, so we have been trying out all kinds on new things (mostly desserts).  Our favorite so far is a gluten free double chocolate chip muffin (we like to pretend they are good for us.)

7. Road trips- we went on our first road trip to see Ryan's family.  His uncle Mark passed away, so while we awere going for a somber occasion, we got got to see a lot of family, which is always good.  We stayed one night at Wes and Deann's house-- where the kids got to ride around and drive golfcarts ( I think that should count as number 8).  After the funeral we got to celebrate the arrival of new life by visiting Sam, Maddie Karen and Greg.  Sam is due in August so they had a big baby shower.  The kids swam all evening and by the time we got to Doug and Cassie's house, everyone was exhausted.  We got up the next morning and drove to Wills Point to have a Father's Day breakfast with Rick, before heading back to Houston.

8. Ride around in  Golf carts-- see above

9. Swim, Swim, Swim- I am weird and I like to count things....like all the different pools we swim in in a given time period-- so far this summer we have swam over at my parent house, over at Terri and Aaron's house, at Destiny's house, and at Greg and Karen's house...so we are up to four so far

10. Go to the Drive in--- this is another item on my list that usually never get done, but we went to see Maleficent at the Tomball Drive in and it was a really good time.  The weather was great, the kids had fun, and the movie was really good.


So that is it for now....Hopefully I will be updating again soon and maybe next time I will remember to take a camera with me on our adventures!

Soccer

Andrew played soccer this Spring.   

I would like to say that they kicked booty and were awesome, 

but they were not. 

They only won one game and Andrew was not present for it.

But he has had fun.

And I got some pictures of him playing that made him look like he was awesome.

He said his favorite part was "when he almost scored that goal."

He has one more game next week.

I hope they win!!

Go Lightning!!!

God Moments

So my doorbell rang today and when I opened it I saw my twenty year old neighbor standing there frantically thrusting an armful of kittens in my face.  She walked right in, and on the verge of tears, told me how she found them in the street and that her mom is highly allergic and she just didn't know where else to go...

I looked at these three puny kittens with there eyes swollen shut with a gooey infection and  reluctantly said, "take them upstairs to the spare bath tub....lets clean them up and get them some food."

As we cleaned up the cats she told me how she had had a dream about cats last night and something told her to walk down this road she does not normally go down today.  The funny thing is that she is currently in a book study I am doing on the Holy Spirit... so she did not think twice in saying that it was God who warned her about the cats last night and the Holy Spirit that led her right to them today.

Once we got them clean and fed and put some ointment in their eyes, I called a friend that I knew recently had a cat pass away and was wanting another one.  I didn't tell her why I wanted her to come over I just said I had a surprise for her.

When she got to my house and saw the kittens she almost broke down herself.  She instantly wanted all three so we loaded them up in my car and drove her back home.  On the drive home she told me  that when I called her she had been crying.  She was feeling so lonely and isolated, and now she just could not be happier.

God saved those cats and he saved my friend today.

Thank you God for the little moments of heaven you allow me to see here on earth!!

Day 6- LegoLand

The night after Weeki Wachie we had the pleasure of spending the night with some friends that lived in Orlando.  God knew we were going to be in the care of some good local people that night because it was this night that Andrew decided he could no longer walk.  His foot was swollen and very tender to the touch....he had not done anything to break it but he refused to put any type of pressure on it.  Our friends took us to an urgent care clinic and after two hours and two x rays, it was decided that Andrew had acquired an aquatic infection and given antibiotics should be fine in 12 hours time.

So even though he was not walking yet, the next day we loaded up a stroller and headed to Legoland, in hoped that he would recover when he saw all the exciting things to do.

Unfortunately that did not happen....instead he developed a fever and slept through half of the day....While he did not get to enjoy the rides, he did get to see some awesome 4-D movies, played with legos, and enjoyed looking at all the cool sculptures.

Malia and Kai, on the other hand, had a blast.

Kai loved looking at the Star Wars exhibit and rode every roller coaster two or three times (there were no lines at all-- an amusement park miracle).

Malia had to take a picture by just about every single lego statue we saw.  She loved the rides and did not complain once about not getting to ride in the stroller (another amusement park miracle)

The boys spent most of their souvenir money here. Andrew bought a sword and a Lego set and Kai bought a mace and a lego set.  We played hard all day long and once we got back to our friends house we were all exhausted.  Andrew's foot was still very swollen and he was still running a fever despite the antibiotics.  Then to add to the struggle Ryan had a pleurisy attack in the middle of the night--so we decided to ditch the rest of our plans and drive home the next day.

Day 5- Weeki Wachi

This was definitely the girl day of the trip!!!

"Mermaid Land" as Malia called it was a really cool state park.  It has been around since the 1960s and still uses the underwater technology that was developed n the 60s to produce the shows.  The shows take place in the deepest fresh water spring in the country and wildlife swims through the show all the time...we saw turtles and fish, but they claim manatees have also swam through.

There were wild peacocks all over the park.  This one gave us a little tour.

They have wildlife shows where the kids got to pet a snake and a baby alligator

The nature trails made you feel like you were walking through a tropical jungle,

and the boat tour was just breathtaking.  We saw turtles, fish, osprey and bald eagle nests.  Plus the views were amazing and the water was so clear.

But most important....were the MERMAIDS!!!

They did two performances during the day..."The Little Mermaid" and a "History of the Park."

 We saw both shows and then Malia made me go back to watch the Little Mermaid again!!

The performers stay under the water the entire time, getting oxygen from tubes that pump in air.  It takes 6-12 months for a mermaid to train to adjust her body/oxygen intake to do the required moves to perform in the shows.  It was pretty awesome.

The boys enjoyed the shows...but had to show their manliness by swimming in the fresh water spring (which was freezing) but very fun.

This might have been my favorite day of the trip.  You can't go wrong with mermaids, peacocks, and fresh water springs.