Mid-Summer Review

One thing I can say for myself: I am consistently an inconsistent blogger.

Lots of things happened in the last few months so I'll just give some highlights.

#1 School ended!

#2 Tyler quit his job!

#3 Tyler started a new job!

#4 We went to Maine!

#5 It's super hot!

#6 We celebrated the Fourth of July!

I thought the exclamation points made all of the highlights so much more exciting, didn't you?  Doesn't it feel like we have had a AMAZING! summer so far because of those?  I thought so.  

Some details to go along with the highlights for those who are interested:

#1 The last week of school was full of award ceremonies.  I guess I just didn't realize that with two kids in school I would be going to an awards ceremony almost every morning of the last week of school.  So of course I scheduled swimming lessons for Amelia that week also.  Which meant that we were rushing to get to the school, hoping that our kids got their awards by 9, then rushing to the swimming lessons, and finally wandering the halls of the swimming facility chasing Wesley as Amelia followed me crying and reusing to go into the pool for her class.  Money and time well spent, wouldn't you say? 

This is Lily's kindergarten class at her Kindergarten awards ceremony.  She is in the middle of the top row, with the big red flower.

Here is C.T. with two friends from church.  They each won the Lil' Texan award at the last school-wide awards ceremony, which is a great award to get based on citizenship and performance and just generally being a good kid.  Lily won this award the first term, and C.T. won it the last term.  Bookends!

#2 Tyler was frustrated with his job.  He just didn't feel like he was getting the professional experience that he wanted long term, so he found a new job and quit his old one.  5+ years with Citi are complete and a new phase is started.

#3 His new job is with PACCAR, which is the parent company of Peterbilt - you know, the semi truck people.  (I always think of the movie Cars. Lightning McQueen is looking for Mack on the highway screaming "Mack!" at an approaching semi and the truck bellows "I'm a Peterbilt you moron!").  He's an accounting manager in their marketing division.  It's a lot to learn and quite demanding, but I'm sure we'll see him again someday.

#4 My family reunion was in Maine this year, near Bar Harbor.  I've always wanted to go to Maine.  As a child I loved the books Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine. If you've never read them, check them out.  The illustrations are wonderful.  I read One Morning in Maine to my kids a few times in preparation for the big trip and I'm happy to report that Maine lived up to my expectations for the most part.  It was so great to see my family and the kids adore playing with their cousins.   

We took a boat tour through the harbor to Little Cranberry Island. 

My nephew James loved to hug Wes.  As you can see, Wes just kind of went limp and waited for it to end.

We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park and Amelia was thrilled to be there.

Me with my cute Mom and Dad at Sand Beach in Acadia National Park.

We didn't come prepared to swim at Sand Beach on this day, but that didn't stop our California kids from jumping into the ocean anyway.  They were soaked!

The whole gang rode bikes through Acadia.  It was beautiful, and the weather was so perfect. 

We went canoeing. 

We took a little hike to this small Light House.

Some of us at Bar Harbor - so lovely there.

We had a great trip.  We flew to Boston and rented a car and drove the 5 hours to Maine, so on the way back we decided to leave a few hours early to get in some sight seeing in Boston before our flight home.

In front of the Old State House on Boston's Freedom Trail

That turned out to be a bad idea.  The kids were terrible!  We tried walking the Freedom Trail, but only made it part way before we just abandoned the whole venture.  Such complaining I never heard!  It made me so thankful that we hadn't done our original plan of driving to Maine from Texas stopping at different cities along the way.  They just don't appreciate walking around looking at old buildings yet...:)

#5 I know summer in Texas is always hot, but I guess I'm getting wimpier because I don't like going outside at all - not even to go to the swimming pool.  So, we've been kind of boring, holed up in our house with the fans on, making a lot of snow cones.

#6 We had a good relaxing Fourth of July.   Our ward has a pancake breakfast at the park every year and we went to that.  The weather wasn't too sweltering so I could stand it.  Tyler smoked some pork for our lunch of Bar-B-Que smoked pork sandwiches, potato salad, baked beans, and chips.  We made homemade strawberry ice cream for dessert.  We had the exact same meal for dinner - isn't that what you're supposed to do on holidays?  Recycle all the food every meal?  We went swimming in the afternoon and headed out to see some fireworks in Denton.  Usually we set off a few of our own fireworks in a nearby parking lot, or most memorably, at the park 'n pop lot.  This year we skipped that and just watched the show.  It was pretty stress free and the kids were able to have fun with their friends - a great Fourth of July.


Happy Summer!