Monthly Archives: May 2016

Memorial Day weekend in Houston and Austin

Friday, May 27 we drove down to Houston. The wildflowers along the road were awesome.

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How did I get such clear-ish photos of the flowers? Traffic came to a near-stop as we crossed a flooded river.

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It took an extra hour, and we had to ford a flooded road or two, but we eventually made it to the Rumsey’s home in Spring.

Saturday we went for a walk to turtle bridge. Here are Raine and Alexa on their scooters crossing the bridge.

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Carter, Alexa, and Raine found more “treasures” than they could carry in their hands.

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Raine and Alexa with a herring in the background.

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That afternoon we went for a swim.

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It was exhausting!

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Sunday we joined the Rumsey’s for sacrament meeting then packed up and headed west toward Austin. We saw even more flooding as we crossed the Brazos in the hardest hit areas. There was water everywhere.

We made it to Austin just in time for Daddy to check-in for his triathlon. They cancelled the swim, just like last year, because the current in the river was too strong.

The kids decided to check out the rooftop pool at the hotel (it was only on the roof of the parking garage, 4th floor). Here they are waiving to me up in the room.

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Monday, Daddy left early for his race and stood under a bridge while the rain poured down and the lightning flashed. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then sat on the patio watching the rain.

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The bike portion of the triathlon was canceled but they were still going to do the run at 10:00. Daddy decided that he didn’t want to wait around that long so he came back to the hotel and took a shower. As we left the hotel about 11:00 we had clear blue skies and sunshine!

We met up with the Walkers for lunch at The Salt Lick and had promised the kids that we would go to the Inner Space Caverns, but lunch took so long that we didn’t have time to take a cave tour. We mined for gems instead.

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We looked at the zebras and then hopped back in the car for the drive home.

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Carter’s kindergarten graduation

Carter graduated from Kindergarten today! He is on the back row, second from the left.

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They sang three songs before receiving their diplomas.

Here is Carter walking across the stage. (I love how they hand them the diploma and then take it back from them before they leave the stage!)

Carter loved Mrs. Schultz, she was the perfect teacher for him.

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After the ceremony we went back to his classroom for photos.

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Carter and his best friend Ben.

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Father and son’s camp out

May 13-14 was the father and son’s camp out at Worth Ranch, in Palo Pinto County. They roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s’mores, slept in a tent, hiked, performed service, and had a great time. That’s about all I know!

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Raine and I had girls’ night on Friday. We ate dinner at Freddy’s frozen custard, watched Studio C, and put Jamberry nail wraps on Raine’s nails. It was so much fun that I didn’t take any photos!

Saturday wasn’t as exciting; the non-profit board that I serve on had its quarterly meeting so Raine had to tag along. She brought her portable DVD player and watched a movie during most of the meeting then listened to music and drew pictures. At some point I had to sneak over to where she was sitting and tell her to quit singing along to the song she was listening to. It was adorable, but slightly distracting!

Kinzlers’ visit

Our good friends, the Kinzlers, came to visit the Friday and Saturday before Mother’s Day. It has been a while since we’ve gotten together so it was fun to catch up. The kids played together like old friends.

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Emerson, Raine, Ophelia, and Carter testing out the marble run they made.

Saturday morning we attended a wedding open house at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. We saw many, many of our friends from the old ward there and it was fun to catch up with each of them. The weather outside was gorgeous so we took a quick walk around outside before saying goodbye to the Kinzlers.

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Ophelia, Raine, Carter, PJ, Emerson, and Katya throwing coins into the fountain.

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Ophelia and Raine taking a break under the tree.

Mother’s Day 2016

A couple quick family photos . . .

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then dinner and presents.

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Carter thought that since he gave me two presents, he should get to open one of them!

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This one was my favorite:

Monkey bread and Godiva chocolate, that pretty much sums me up!

Kindergarten Mother’s Day Brunch

Friday was the kindergarten Mother’s Day brunch. They “sang” a couple songs, a capella, and recited something their mom says.

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The entire kindergarten.

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Here is most of the performance:

Afterward, Carter and I had brunch together.

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Carter made me this cute plate and place-mat.

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It looks just like me!

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I came back later that morning to eat lunch with Raine.

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Soccer team photos and more

Raine’s U7 team, the Peppermints.

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Back row: Leighton, Amber, Demi, Hannah, Coach Kim
Front row: Valerie, Peyton, Madelyn, Raine, Kennedy (missing Eugenia)

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Carter’s U6 team, the Great White Sharks.


Back row: Heath, Carter, Luke, Ryan, Coach DJ
Front row: Blake, Conner, Ashton

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Peppermints ice cream and trophy party

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Sharks ice cream and trophy party

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