Rain!

It rained today....almost all day! It was a delightful soaking rain which we need so very badly. Lauren wanted to put on her rain coat and boots and play in it. I checked on her and was able to take some  photos!

What do you do in the rain....collect water from the gutter and pour it in your rain coat pockets, of course!  And what are boots for....collecting yet more water from the gutter!!! Yea for the rain....we are thankful for it, and hope it saves our trees, prevents fires, fills up the lakes and helps the economy! Rain, rain, come again soon!

Back to School. Kindergarten & 3rd Grade

Lauren started Kindergarten and Ryan started 3rd Grade! It's one of those moments that really stops you and makes you think about the last five and a half years. It seems so short, and yet I can hardly remember life without Lauren, like she's been here forever! Lauren is so very ready for Kindergarten and so excited that I can only feel excitement for her. I think it helps that she has watched Ryan go to school for 3 years and she's comfortable with the school. Then we were so fortunate for Lauren to have the same Kindergarten teacher that Ryan had. She is amazing, loving, enthusiastic and very nice, and Lauren is familiar with her. Lauren is very excited about having her.

We went to "meet the teacher" Friday night and she asked me why it was so short...she wanted to stay longer. Then she came downstairs Saturday morning announcing..."Only 1 more day until school!"

Ryan is in 3rd Grade, and also seems very relaxed and a little excited about school! He was very positive after "meet the teacher" Friday night! He has 2 teachers...one for math and science and another for reading and social studies.


Here's a picture of Lauren going to the "meet the teacher" night. She wore her new soccer uniform (she starts soccer in 2 weeks) and her new "light up" Kindergarten shoes!

Kindergarten at David Elementary

Yesterday my mom and I had a girl's lunch while Mark took Ryan to a Cub Scout Astros game. We went to a tea house and made a big deal out of celebrating her going to Kindergarten. Last night she picked out her clothes for the whole week.

Ryan enjoyed an Astros game with friends and even got to run the bases! He had such a great time and it helped make him excited for seeing his friends at school. I think we learned a good lesson....to do something really fun with the kids the day before school starts. It really helped Ryan to be excited and not to have all day to worry about the first day of school!

Here the kids and Mark are before we rode bikes to school.

1st day of Kindergarten and 3rd grade

From a practical standpoint, it will be nice to have both kids at the same school! I think we've only had that one time....when Lauren was 2 and Ryan 4-5, they were at the same preschool. They'll be together for 2 years in elementary school, and then not again until high school when Ryan is a Senior and Lauren a Freshman. That makes me a little sad, but what can you do.

So, we've had a fun start to the year!

Lake Travis Vacation

Mark's mom, Nancy, has started a tradition of renting a vacation house every other year for a vacation with her 2 son's families. It's a great chance for us to see Mike and Camille and for Ryan (8) and Lauren (5) to spend time with their cousins, Nathan, (15) Jack (13) and Sami (9).

We've gone to Destin, FL, Sunset Beach, NC and Lake Grandby, CO. This year we went to Lake Travis, a lake outside of Austin. We towed our boat and the house had a dock, and we had a true lake vacation for a week, filled with boating, fishing, swimming.

Mike and Camille flew into Houston and were able to spend one night at our house and see where we live. The kids had fun swimming in the pool and fishing. The next morning we all drove the 4 1/2 hours to the lake.

The kids had a great time on the dock and on the boat. Jack, Nathan and Sami all learned how to knee board or wakeboard for the first time! And Lauren also learned how to knee board on this trip! Ryan was very proud that he was able to "teach" everyone! Nathan became quite good at the wakeboard, and Mark wowed the kids with his big jumps on the wakeboard and showed that he's still "got it"!

That's really all we did, plus play pool and fooseball, cook, eat, walk up and down the long walkway to the lake, apply sunscreen, prepare boat and dock bags with drinks, shoes, bait, goggles, etc. and read the occasional magazine. Also, I have to mention the animals... we saw lots of deer, which would drink from the lake in the afternoon, and we also saw 2 water snakes, (one of which Jack caught), a skunk, and many, many fish that were caught, including the elusive large carp that Mike finally caught on our last night!  Nancy and Gary were able to golf a few times also, which I'm sure was a nice break! It was hot, which is normal for Texas in the summer, but we are also in a drought, and the lake was down 24 feet! Fortunately the house we rented had a floating dock and a walkway long enough to accommodate it, and we were on the main part of the lake. So, it didn't impact our boating. But you can see the water level in soem of the pictures.

Our one outing was out to dinner at the Oasis restaurant, which is known for its sunset views of Lake Travis.  (complete with islands...due to the low lake water).

It was a successful vacation!



Deck



Sunset view from deck. Dock at bottom of hill.

Lauren, Sami, Grandma Nancy

The dock was the hub of activity for the week, followed by the kitchen!

Lake Travis from Oasis, with islands to left

Famous shot of umbellas at the Oasis

 The kids were selected to ring a bell at the Oasis at sundown!

Jumping backwards. (they played on this jetski lift for many hours!)

Lauren and Sami

One of Ryan's fish!

The Bonniwell Cousins....5, 8. 9. 13, 15

Relaxing

View of deck from boat dock

Nightly fishing and play at the dock!

Watching America's Got Talent!

The familiar boat scenario....Mark driving, 3 people on the tube!

The Oasis

Lauren's first time knee boarding....she's a natural!

Mark jumping the wake



Happy Birthday Grandma

This post is a little late, but are you surprised! May 29 was my mom's 63rd birthday and we celebrated a few times...before and after our Memorial Day lake stay. Here are pictures of the kids presenting "Grandma Jacqui" her cake. They blew out her candles, so we re-lit them, and sang again....and blew them out again, and again. This went on quite a few times!

Relighting and blowing out candles resulted in these belly laughs! Happy Birthday Mom! I'm glad you are close so we can celebrate it with cake and candles!

Memorial Day - 2011

Our summer started off with our traditional lake weekend with our good friends, Scott and Lisa, and their kids, TJ, Luka, and new addition, baby Mikayla. Lisa's parents own a townhouse on Lake Conroe, where we keep our boat, and so it's perfect...30 minutes from home, our boat, their jetski, pool, beach area, and as much relaxing we can do while tending to kids.

This year the Histands also joined the group for one night, so the first day and night, there were 8 kids! They had a blast. Ryan was camera-averse...I think it comes with his 8-year old attitude! So, he's not in some of these.

Lauren's favorite thing to play is still "baby dolls." So you can image how much she loves Baby Mikayla, 4 months old, and she asks to hold her and push her in the stroller. In fact, one of the highlights for her was pushing the stroller from the pool back to the townhouse. Here is Lauren holding her.

The water was very low, so the kids had a great shallow play area in front of the dock and could walk to the jetski and play on it. We anchored the boat past the jetski, as the water was too low to use the boat lift!

The only very stressful thing for me is that Lauren had a horrible ear infection. It started Tuesday. I took her in Wednesday, and by Wednesday afternoon she was in true pain. Ibuprofen was wearing off at the 4-4.5 hour range. It was horrible. The pain lasted for 2 full days. She was not allowed to get her ear wet, jump into the water, etc., as they suspect she had a hole in her eardrum and we didn't want the nasty water in there! She was very careful, and really understood that we needed her ear to get better now, so that she can swim in the lake when we go to Lake Travis in a few weeks. She really understood that, but it was still stressful for me trying to make sure she didn't get wet, and was still having fun. On the ear infection note, we went back Monday for a post-antibiotic check, and she still has water behind the eardrum, and they can't tell if her tube is still in.So, we will use antibiotic drops at Lake Travis, but she can swim. I hope that she has grown enough that her ears are not prone to ear infections. Last time her tubes came out, we had 8 months of infections, followed by a 2nd set of tubes. I'm trying to be positive.

Here's my favorite picture of Lauren from our trip. She's almost 5.5! Freckles, pink lips, dirty sunscreen-filled hair, spunky and so beautiful!

In general, we noticed the kids have really matured, and the weekend was much more relaxing that past ones! So, another Memorial Day gone. Here comes summer! 

 

One of the funniest posts is one from Lisa about her perspective of Memorial Day 2009. Maybe it's just because I lived it!  I copied it below, without photos. 

 

Lake Fun on Memorial Day Weekend - 2009

by Lisa Gunden

One of our favorite summertime activities is going to the lake with the boys and Mark and Denise and their two kids. This Memorial Day Weekend, Angie and Seth and several friends all joined us at different stages of the weekend.

Here is how the kids spent their time:

-Swimming at the pool

-Eating hot dogs

-Tubing

-Playing in sprinklers

-Swimming at the beach (for some reason Luka thought it was real cool to put sand in his hair.)

-Eating cookies and hot dogs, and freezer pops (Logan, TJ, Lauren, Luka, and Ryan)

-Shooting water guns

-Napping

-Jumping in the razzle dazzle castle

-Boating

-Throwing tantrums
-Riding bikes, trikes, and scooters in the garage while it rains (Note the swim goggles hanging from the bike, and what you can't see is all the scotch tape on the bike helmet that TJ used to "fix" his helmet.)

-And finally, sleeping

 

 

Here is how the adults spent their time (and notice there are no pictures of us):

-Putting sunscreen on the kids

-Lifeguarding at the pool

-Microwaving hotdogs

-Monitoring the sprinkler power so it doesn't spray the adults

-Packing the beach bags

-Applying more sunscreen

-Setting out cookies and grilling more hot dogs

-Filling up squirt guns (or fixing them)

-Coaxing kids to nap

-Blowing up or unplugging the razzle dazzle castle, based on interest at the moment

-Re-applying sunscreen

-Packing boat bags

-Managing temper tantrums

-Refereeing all the bikes, trikes and scooters at once in the garage while it rains

-And sleeping, finally, after one heck of a night-time complete non-routine

You get the picture...always fun, but always good to be back home!

 



The Bahamas

Mark and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary May 12, 2011. When Ryan was born, I thought....by the time our 10th comes around, the kids will be old enough for us to take a trip alone. I've always had that in my mind, and we really did it! With the kids 8 and 5 now, it seemed managable. It was the first time we've both been away from the kids for more than 1 night. Preparing to leave them was definitely stressful, but once we were gone, we were able to relax.

We went to Sandals Emerald Bay resort in Great Exuma, Bahamas for 5 nights! I left detailed notes about our schedule, house and activities for both my mom and Mark's mom. They took care of the kids, who felt special having "both grandmas" watch them! We were very appreciative that they were willing to do this for us!

I was on email...as I knew my mom could reach me if she needed it to, and It was reassuring to know the kids were doing okay.

One the second day, the kids wanted to write us. Here were their emails:

From Ryan:

Hi Mom!

We had a fun time at Dosey Doe's. The play was awsome, and it was also funny! I have been having a really fun time. The childrens's museum was really fun, too, and the bagels were awesome, as usual. And Shankz was really fun. On the last hole, I got it all the way up, and I got it in hole number one.

Last night I really enjoyed it, but I had a really bad stomach ache.Grandma gave me the medicine she used to give you (I asked her if it was the same bottle! she said no). It made my stomach better.

Please give Dad my news!

Love you! Ryan

From Lauren:

Dear Mommy,

I gotted a pink elephant pillow pet, but I named it Fat Elephant. I love you as sweet as root beer! Yeah! I miss Daddy, too.

I hope you are having fun on your first trip without the children. we are having fun, too.

Love, Lauren

We had a great time and were able to actually relax, wake up on our own terms, talk to each other, hang out together, go sailing and snorkeling, utilize the swim up bar and frozen drink menu and feel what it was like 10 years ago, when we honeymooned at a different Sandals. 

But a big difference is 10 years ago, we returned and went back to our jobs and on with our lives. (which I imagine must have included so much free time I don't know what we did with it!)   This time, we still came back to our jobs....but we also came back to 2 amazing kids who we love so much, and who missed us and were soooo happy to see us. They truly appreciated us for at least 24 hours....and were so sweet and loving.  Lauren told me I was the best mommy ever, and Ryan just makes sure  I know that he REALLY  didn't like us leaving.

So on we go with our busy lives, but I am trying to retain the relaxed feeling of the Bahamas, and the loving, patient feeling I had toward my husband and kids upon my return! They are what really matter! And just think, if we wait another 10 years, Ryan will be 18 and Lauren 15. I hope they will have similar feelings about us then! And really, I hope we don't wait that long for another adult getaway.

View from our balcony

Emerald Bay's beautiful beach!