The 4th of July started early. Around 4:30 a.m. mother nature put on a spectacular fireworks show — lighting up the sky with rapid-fire streaks of lightning and booming thunder. Carter climbed into our bed at some point.

We headed to the Ward picnic at 8:30 and enjoyed a yummy breakfast. Last minute, Raine remembered that they were having a bike parade, so we threw on some ribbon and tissue paper. Carter didn’t want to participate.

Raine and Cambrie

Carter tried to catch water balloons. Fortunately, he didn’t catch any!

Later that afternoon we packed up our towels and headed to Lake Lewisville. We had a picnic, then rented a boat to tube the lake.

Both kids wanted to ride with Mom first, to make sure it was okay.

Mom and Raine

Mom and Carter

Carter also wanted to give it a whirl with Dad.

Once they were comfortable, they both hopped on and spent the rest of the time on the tube.

Family selfie.

It was great weather to be out on the lake. The evening was more than warm enough to enjoy the water, but we didn’t feel like we were being baked alive under the sun. Here are a few other neat photos of the sky with the kids riding down below.

We headed for home about 8:00 and as soon as we pulled into the garage, Carter wanted to know why we didn’t see any fireworks. Raine has always hated fireworks and we were up so early in the morning that I didn’t feel like fighting the crowds in order to watch a fireworks show. Fortunately, Carter was easily pacified with the promise of our own party with glow-sticks, poppers (the only legal “fireworks” around here) and, most importantly, FatBoy ice cream sandwiches!

Mother nature started another impressive fireworks display shortly after mid-night. Needless to say, we all had a hard time waking up Tuesday morning!

Raine’s portrait of Daddy.

Raine’s facts about Daddy.

Carter’s facts about and portrait of Daddy.

The week after school got out, Grandma and Grandpa Anderson came for a few days.

6/9/16 They went to the Fort Worth Zoo.

6/10/16 I skipped out of work early and we all went to play Lunar Golf.

Then we stopped by Bass Pro Shop to see the animals (and eat some fudge!)

It was a quick visit, but Raine and Carter loved having Grammy and Grampy come to our house.

4/1 Raine is on the right side of the bottom-middle photo.

4/5 Carter’s field trip to the Dallas Arboretum. Daddy met him there so they could pal around. Carter is in the middle row, first one from the right.

4/5 Raine in music class, she is in the striped dress playing maracas.

4/5 Raine’s class grew radishes.

4/6 Raine, in the top-left photo, meassuring in math.

4/7 Carter’s class, learning about plants.

4/8 Author Kimberly Willis Holt visited 2nd grade, Raine is wearing the purple jacket.

Raine with Kimberly Willis Holt when she signed her book.

4/11 Raine, in the middle-left photo, measuring objects in the classroom.

4/14 Carter’s class learning about the weather with Mr. Anderson.

4/15 Raine, in the top-right photo, using PeppleGo.

4/20 Raine presenting her alligator passion project.

4/22 Carter making Earth Day art.

4/27 Raine learning about alliterations.

4/27 Carter’s class doing math with virtual manipulatives.

4/29 I was the share reader for Raine’s class.

5/4 Raine, in the top photo, reading.

5/5 Carter’s class made these awesome cats in art class.

Here is Carter’s cat.

5/6 Raine, in the center-right photo, during maker spaces.

5/11 Raine, with the purple headphones in the bottom photo, playing Toontastic on her iPad.

5/16 Carter’s class with Ms. Marshall the school counselor (Carter is on the bottom row 2nd from the right).

5/16 Raine, in both of the top photos (gray cardigan), working on addition scoot.

5/18 Raine’s class doing fruit loop multiplication.

5/20 Raine, top left, got some new books from the book fair.

5/20 Raine’s class during reading time (Raine is in the front middle, not looking at the camera).

5/24 Raine’s art project this year, it was impressive!

5/24 During the library’s summer reading program presentation, Raine held one of the signs. She is in the top two photos on the left, pink shirt and black skirt.

5/27 Raine’s class doing the tube tug-of-war on fun day. Raine is in the background of bottom right photo looking bored.

5/31 Raine during the 2nd Grade celebration, bottom left photo. Her greatest accomplishment in 2nd grade was getting to reading level 40.

6/1 Raine’s class playing Gaga ball. Raine is wearing the tie-dyed shirt in the top-right, 2nd-right, 3rd-left, and bottom-right photos.

6/2 Start of summer party. Carter with Ben and Spencer, waiting to go down the water slide, in the rain.

Carter coming off the water slide. They didn’t need to add much water, the rain kept it pretty wet!

Raine with Mackenzie and Zoe, waiting to be dunked in the dunk tank.

Raine, Erika and Anna doing the whip and nae-nae.

6/3 CES teachers celebrating the end of the school year.

Here are a couple more art projects that the kids made this year.

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

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

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.

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

Raine and Alexa with a herring in the background.

That afternoon we went for a swim.

It was exhausting!

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.

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.

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.

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

5/21 Bahama Bucks

5/21 Carter the rock-star

5/25 Costa Vida

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

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.

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

Carter and his best friend Ben.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

Ophelia and Raine taking a break under the tree.

A couple quick family photos . . .

then dinner and presents.

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

This one was my favorite:

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