Tube

After we decided to keep the boat for the next two days, we looked into renting a tube to tow around the lake.  Best decision-Norah and Ava loved it!

Perks

Not only was the interior of the rental exactly what I'd love in a lake house, the kayaks, noodles, towels and tubes made our stay that much more comfortable.  Jack and Ava loved kayaking around whenever we beached the boat.

Water Front

When hunting for lake house rentals two weeks before check-in, you are limited to what is available.  There were only 3 places available that were big enough and close enough for my taste.  One had no  WiFi, one was in the middle of funeral arrangements for their son and couldn't be reached and the third was perfect.

I can honestly say this place has it all.  The only surprise was how much the lake dried up and as a result how far away our lake front property actually was from the lake.  It was a walk, but considering how amazing the rest of our accommodations were, we never complained too loudly!

This Guy

When we knew we weren't going to make it to Arizona, I wanted to make a trip to a nearby lake and rent a boat.  I remember how much the kids loved being on the boat at Canyon Lake in Arizona and hoped a trip to Cedar Creek lake, about an hour drive from our house, might be another tradition for our family.

Because Ben has shown so much hesitancy about swimming this year, due to our lack of a pool nearby, we weren't sure about how long to rent the boat during our lake trip.  It was a significantly better deal to rent the boat for multiple days as opposed to one, but because of Ben's hesitancy, we reserved for a day and left it open ended depending on what he did.

Hugs

Staying up until 10:45 at night didn't make the morning good-byes any less rough.  We weren't sure if the girls would see each other again with our trip to the lake keeping us away all week.

Being in the same class at school (not at church though) and on the same volleyball team kept these girls pretty close.  Kate will definitely be missed!

Sleepover

 

We don't do sleepovers right now, and might never do them, but our friends that are moving needed some last minute help while they took a day trip to check out homes in their new area.  We agreed and Ava couldn't have been happier to share a whole day and two nights with her friend Kate.

The first night they slept in separate rooms, while the second night we thought they should bunk up and have one last hurray.

See Ya!

The year we moved to the area, at least 3 other families moved in with kids the same age as ours.  While we were all here, we continued to have kids at the same time.  It has been a fun journey for us all, but this week one of those families is moving.

A going away party was held and we brought a Too Much Chocolate Cake with cream cheese frosting.  The night was spent at the restaurant Seasons 52 and ended with a mean game of Pictionary over some delish cake.

These guys will be missed, but they are off on an adventure so they couldn't be happier!  Congrats guys and good luck!

IPad?

I went to the gym with the kids while Ben was taking a nap.  While we were gone Ben woke up and to keep him entertained and away from his laptop, Kyle set Ben up on the IPad.  It was pretty crazy to come home to this!

Besties

Knowing that Ava's good friend Kate would be moving in a week, we decided to invite her along to the water park.  They spent all 4 hours side by side and even managed not to get separated from the rest of us once!  So glad Ava has had such a close friend at school as well as at church.  We will miss their family and wish them the best on the new adventures in Connecticut.

Hawaiian Falls

With Jacob here, we decided we had enough bodies to attempt a visit to a water park.  It was a hot day and after 4 hours we headed home with some memories.

Roadhouse

You can't visit Texas without going to Texas Roadhouse, at least not in our opinion.  Jacob has one of these restaurants near his house in Arizona, but that's not the point!

The kids love this place and we all left full-mission accomplished!

Special Guest

Having Jacob here not only inspired us to whip up some authentic AZ enchiladas with imported sauce brought over by Jacob, but we had another reason to whip up this...

 

Nana and Papa are both from a small town in southern California that boasts nothing but the birthplace of Cher and a Mexican restaurant named Celia's.  Whenever we are driving to LA we stop of in El Centro and grab a bit of heaven in the form of this Special Quesadilla.  Nothing says awesome like a deep fried cheese crisp!

Jacob was equally impressed!

Another 1000

Uncle Jacob may have only put 4 pieces together on this puzzle, but the kids thought it was so fun doing their candy puzzle with Kyle and Uncle Jacob.

After it was all done, I took Ava to the Dollar Store with me and together we found 14 of the candy bars pictured in the puzzle.  It was fun to eat a few of them and get started on the next puzzle-Schloss Neuschwanstein!!

HOT Day at Six Flags

We have a standing rule that if you come to visit, Six Flags is on us.  This time someone actually took us up on our offer and we planned a fun-filled day at our nearest theme park.  Jacob has not been to an amusement park of this caliber before and despite the horrible 91 degree heat and humidity today, survived both The Texas Giant and Titan.

Ava rode Mr. Freeze for the first time today and Ben, Norah and I split from the group and spent a few hours on all the kiddie rides.  They had so much fun running from ride to ride without any lines to wait in.  Before today they would spend most of their time waiting for the big kids and only getting to go on rides here and there.  I was glad to have sacrificed my roller coastering to see these kids smile so much!

We were all drenched with sweat most of the day, but I don't remember any of the kids complaining about it-they love Six Flags.

End of Lessons

After the contest, we all geared up for an amazing display of swimming at Norah's final swim lesson.  She was so much more advanced than the rest of her classmates in the highest division of the Minnows swim classes.  Even her teacher recognized she had maxed out the skill level of her class when she commented on Norah's swim certificate that the only thing Norah needed to work on was listening and following the pool rules.  No kidding!

We love our little Norah-fish and think she will be as great at swimming as those who have come before her.

Dunk Contest

After a few hours, literally, of video gaming to make up for ditching Jacob at the airport, breakfast was had on the "veranda" and then a mean dunk contest between brothers evolved.

Somehow I got this amazing picture of Kyle mid-dunk with my phone (what luck!).  Jacob and him competed and in the end, I think Kyle's 720 degree dunk with a blind swish probably made him the winner!  Jacob had a few good 540's, but I still think Kyle was the winner overall.

The kids loved it, although their weight lessened the bounce each contestant was able to use for his dunks.

Uncle Jacob

This morning, 40 minutes after Uncle Jacob arrived at the airport, we finally woke up and realized what had happened and Kyle raced to the airport to rescue his 17 year old brother.

Sorry, Jacob, we love you but we couldn't hear the world's quietest alarm!

Jacob will be here for about a week, and in addition to the awesome time Kyle has with his bro, the kids absolutely love spending time with their youngest uncle.

Bye Nana

Having Nana here is always so helpful and the kids spend time with her without us, bonding them together more than if we were there.  They love her so much and will miss her when they wake up tomorrow and realize she is gone again.

I took this picture right before Ava headed off to bed and her and Nana had just finished drawing pictures together from her new favorite book (Drawing is Cool, How to Draw Everything).

Getaway

Jack never got sick again, lucky for Nana who flew in just 7 hours later to relieve us while we pursued some business in Portland.

I've not been able to sneak away with Kyle for work before and enjoyed the 2 nights we spent in such a green city.  Flying 1st class was not half bad either!

The first night we got in around dinner time and made it our reservation at the Urban Farmer without a minute to spare.  We had so many delicious bites of our scallops, halibut, twice baked fingerling potatoes, mushrooms, and cheeses that we left no room for their equally delicious desserts.

We ended up taking a walk and checking out Voodoo Donuts, although we didn't buy any due to the extensive line formed and our unbelievably full bellies.

The next morning Kyle headed off to his inventor interview and I was left a few hours to myself that I spent jogging around the Willamette River, finding souvenirs for the kids and a lot of walking and shop/eatery perusing.  It was great fun and Kyle and I reunited after lunch for a trip to the Columbia River Gorge.

We didn't get to do much hiking.  My sandals and general lack of preparedness prevented such an excursion, but we did drive through Camas, and check out their amazing farmer's market and freshly baked Oregon goods.

Our date for the evening included a portfolio manager for Intel, one of Kyle's big clients.  We met at the Paley's Place and dined for nearly 3 hours on pork belly, soft shell crab, roulades, cheeses, a charcuterie of delicious salamis, chilled oysters, bacon green beans and a grilled pork loin chop.  Our bill reflected the amazing food we all consumed, but still we felt the need to continue to dessert and headed over to Papa Haydn.

The evening was long at that point and we all were ready for it to end after 11.

Back to the Vintage Hotel Plaza for another quiet night.

After, After Party

Today we were all trying to pretend like the last few party days were over and we were all full of energy and back to our normal lives.  This was the case, until we got home from church and Jack vomited up the equivalent of wine all over our white carpet and continued to lose it for the next 4 hours.  He was so exhausted after so many bad nights in a row that he just fell asleep like this around 7:30.  Poor guy!

Lost Tooth

Ava lost a tooth she has been battling for at least six months.  She finally yanked it out today before we headed to BJ's for dinner.  Now her holes are much more symmetric.

Shaq Year

With his Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson years behind him, Kyle embraced a birthday that started off with such horrible news from our babysitter, no special breakfast and no presents-all thanks to the night away he planned.

He had leftovers for lunch and then had dinner at BJ's with the family so he and I could just attend a movie that we later found was sold out.  The evening ended with us in the media room watching Red Dawn and eating another slice of the homemade chocolate I made him with chocolate cream cheese frosting.  

We are going out next weekend to attempt a do over of today's sorry excuse for a birthday.

After Party

We all woke up today with somewhat of a "hangover" from our late nighter on the fourth and unfortunately as a result weren't in the best mood to celebrate our 12 anniversary.

Nevertheless, we had breakfast and even got a sitter to do a special lunch/antiquing trip in downtown Plano.  We ended up finding two small chairs for the master bath as well as a mirrored tray for my linen instead of something to put our TV on in our bedroom.

Lunch at Urban Rio was tasty and fast, getting us home in plenty of time to open our anniversary gifts and have a nail painting session before Ben woke up from his nap.

Since we decided that today was a celebration of the beginning of our family, we felt a "birthday-type" dinner at Texas Roadhouse would be only appropriate.

After our first dinner, Kyle wisked me away for more than just secondsies at the Dallas Chophouse, but for a night at the Joule Hotel downtown.  He had secretly packed what he thought I might need for a night away from home and didn't spring it on me until after dessert that we wouldn't be going home for the night.

 

At first we were booked in a room smaller than Ava's that had a circle bed.  They swore it was king size, but it looked tiny when we walked in and stood next to it.

Luckily, it was a slow night and we were able to switch for free to a bigger room with a bigger bed.  The front desk clerk personally walked us to our new room and took both of these pictures, she was so nice!

 

Before heading to bed we spent time at their rooftop infinity pool chatting and admiring what a great view one has from the 17th floor of a building.  It was a great getaway, but ended abruptly in the morning when we had to head home and rescue our babysitter from a night of vomit, flooding and bed wetting.  And in the end, she charged us $56 for the ordeal.

4th of July & Pillows

We wanted today to be fun for us all, but with Kyle needed to do some work (what a surprise) and us not having access to a pool or boat or anything of the sort, our day became a mish mash of activities that we hoped would prove memorable despite the above mentioned setbacks.

Once everyone was up we sped over to a nearby lake along with what seemed like ever camper in the DFW metroplex!  There were people camped so close to each other it was a sea of tents at what is normally a quite calm area of the lake.

We hung out at the water's edge for nearly 3 hours and then rushed home to make it to the Despicable Me 2 movie at 2.  Unfortunately, everyone who didn't make it to the lake made it the same movie as us, landing us in the 3rd row!  It was so intense, my eyes felt like they were bleeding when we left.

While we were at the movie Kyle spent some time working while Ben spent some time sleeping.  We then all prepped for the upcoming BBQ at our new neighbor's home.  Their new grill wasn't working, so it ended up taking 1.5 hours to cook hotdogs and hamburgers for us all, making for a late evening for us.

By the time we made it home we were all so exhausted, it was such a battle to get everyone in bed!  I vowed (once again) that it is definitely not worth the heartache to keep the kids up past their bedtime.  I repeat, not worth it!

Once everyone was asleep, instead of watching fireworks, which I figured I could do in six months at the New Year, I decided a better use of my time would be to make a few pillows that coordinated with the arm chairs.  I love that they mimic the two tone effect on the chairs and that I was able to use the large amount of leftover fabric from the upholsterer.

1000 Pieces

One of our summer goals to was to find and put together a 1000 piece puzzle-mission accomplished!  We ordered a donut puzzle and after a little over a week, these three puzzle-doers had it completed.