First order of business: open the swim-related presents.

Second: head to NRH2O to try out the new swim goggles that Grandma Anderson sent.

That new spider-man towel was warm and fuzzy.

This little video of Carter swimming is an accurate depiction of what he looks like the entire time we are at the pool. He spends most of the time with his head under water, diving to the bottom and doing flips. He is such a fish!

After we got home, he opened the rest of his presents.

Raine always seems to give the best presents.

Love this!

When dinner was over, we sang happy birthday and ate cake.

This video of us singing happy birthday (twice) perfectly captures the many moods of Carter! Raine told him to blow out the candle, then she was pantomiming to him to not blow it out and he didn’t like it — hence the angry eyes and muscle arms. His face when the candle burned out the second time was classic; and if all else fails, act silly!

Here is Carter’s spotlight sheet from Primary, it pretty well sums up how he feels about things:

Carter is such a cute little nut! He is still a snuggler and momma’s boy but also loves to be rough and rowdy. He isn’t much of a socialite and prefers to stay home, but he makes friends easily when he wants to. I love when Carter comes up to me while I’m getting ready and says, “Mommy, you look very beautiful.” He can be the sweetest little guy in the world! He is also turning into a pretty good little negotiator. Anytime I want him to do something that he doesn’t want to do, we negotiate. He’ll usually ask, “What do I deserve if I do this?” In June, I had signed him up for a soccer class at the Rec and he told me that he wasn’t going to have anything to do with it. So the morning of the first class we started negotiating. Two hours later, we had finally come to an agreement: he would go if I bought him his very own pack of gum! Of course he loved the class and didn’t require any incentives to attend the next week. It’s always amusing to see what his “price point” will be — a treat, gum, toy, money, video game time, PBS Kids video, sometimes it’s even just watching a Mormon Ad, I never know going into it what will strike his fancy!

We spent Independence Day down in Corsicana, at the Walker’s grandparent’s house. It was originally planned as a bishopric retreat, but the first-counselor’s family couldn’t make it so it ended up being a fun get-away with the Walkers and Eastmans. Ashley’s parents own a beautiful home on Richland Chambers Reservoir and they hosted us for a fantastic day on the lake!

Raine loved the boat and tube, even though she fell off once. She spent the entire day on the water.

Raine and Boston

Carter eventually consented to a short ride in the boat.

But as soon as it was over, he booked it back up the house . . .

. . . to the baby pool! He spent the entire day in there.

Once everyone was sufficiently worn out, they vegged in front of a movie.

Raine and Cade

After sunset we all sat on the dock, watching the fireworks along the shore. None of the kids like the loud explosions of fireworks, so it was perfect for them to watch from a distance. They enjoyed the glow sticks more than the fireworks anyway!

Daddy canceled most of his Sunday meetings on Father’s Day so the kids actually got to see him. It was great!

Raine gave him a tie that she picked out herself — purple, of course.

Carter gave him some neon-green superman socks that he picked out!

I am pretty sure that this was his favorite part of the day!

The first week of June, Raine had a week-long camp with her new first-grade teacher. After the first day, Mrs Gwinner told me what a great reader Raine is. I just nodded, thinking “Yeah, she knows how to read.” But not fully comprehending it . . . until I went over to the front office on the final day of her camp and picked up Raine’s Stanford Achievement Test scores. Then I realized how good she really is! She scored in the 99%-ile in the nation on the reading section. Her grade level equivalent is 3.5. Apparently she’s a little advanced for her age!

I laughed looking back at the school year, remembering how I used to ask DJ, “why aren’t the books they’re sending home getting any harder? She can read them without even trying.” I guess the books were grade-level appropriate, it was just our little reader who wasn’t! But without anyone to compare her to, we had no idea that kindergartners don’t normally read Magic Tree House chapter books.

Seeing her reading score also reminded me of all the comments I got about her not crawling when she was a baby. “She is going to struggle with reading because she didn’t crawl” they told me. “She won’t be a good speller.” “Crawling develops the neck muscles and [blah, blah, blah] she will struggle in school.” I didn’t buy into it then and now I’m VERY glad that I didn’t. I could have done a lot of worrying . . . for nothing!

The score that didn’t surprise me . . . listening! Apparently I’m not the only one she doesn’t listen to!!

I also picked up her final report card:

All I can think is, “thank heaven we started her a year early!” She loved school this year and would have been bored out of her mind if she would have waited until she was 5 to start.

Saturday, May 31 was our annual Primary Temple Trip — we sure love this little outing! The kids sit on the lobby steps, across from the recommend desk, while a member of the temple presidency and a temple matron talk to them. After that, they sing “I love to see the Temple” and the divide between earth and heaven almost seems to disappear. Then we turn them loose outside in what is supposed to be a self-guided tour, but always devolves into chaos before we’ve even gotten half-way. By the time we reach the water fountains it is pure pandemonium! But it is a great experience every time.

Raine always loves to touch the temple because “when you touch the temple, the temple touches you” (President Monson).

Carter DID NOT want his picture taken. But I got some anyway!

At one point, I was taking Carter to the restroom by the waiting room and he looked at all the doors (showers, closets, etc) and asked, “Is Jesus in one of these doors?” I told him that Jesus wasn’t behind one of those, but when we got back out front I showed him the big ornate doors and told him that Jesus was behind those. I’m pretty sure that Carter was expecting to meet Jesus while we were there — it is His house, after all.

Someone told us about the secret garden, so we slipped away from the group to find it.

Raine and I went to Carter’s music program at St Philip’s on the 27th and it was hilarious, as usual! Raine loved seeing all her old teachers, classmates (they were all in pre-K this year), and friends.

Here is Carter waiting for the younger classes to finish.

The three-year-old class all lined up with their teachers Ms Lenise and Ms Melissa.

Carter made a best friend this year — Kaden. He is the tall boy in the red school shirt, third from the left. Carter also liked to play with Morgan, the little girl in a plaid skirt and rain boots, and Brody, the little guy on the right holding Ms Melissa’s hand.

Here is the video:

In case you were wondering what they are singing in the first song, here are the lyrics (the video starts part way through the verse):

Monday, Monday, reach and run day
Tuesday, Tuesday, tap your shoes day
Wednesday, Wednesday, stretch and bend day
Thursday, Thursday, twist and turn day
Friday, Friday, jump up high day
Saturday, Saturday, pat your body day
Sunday, Sunday, that’s the one day
We can rest and do nothing at all

Now clap, clap, clap for the weekly rap
Count to seven and do it again
(Repeat first verse)

Now clap, clap, clap for the weekly rap
Count to seven and pick up speed !
(Repeat first verse with faster tempo)

Now clap, clap, clap, for the weekly rap
Count to seven and that’s the end

Saturday, the sixth day of our vacation, we left San Antonio and drove north to the Natural Bridge Caverns — an extremely commercialized, easily accessible cave with some amazing formations. The cavern gets its name from this “natural bridge” over the entrance.

There was a concrete path with handrails throughout the cave as well as lights on each formation, trash cans, and benches. It was hard to imagine what this would have looked like in its natural state because of all the conveniences, but the formations were untouched. We reached a depth of 180 ft during our 1/2 mile hike.

The rooms of the cavern were enormous and the formations stretched from the ceiling to the floor. Those people on the far side of this photo give it a little perspective.

The photos don’t even begin to capture how incredibly other-worldly the formations are.

After we resurfaced, Raine wanted to climb on the canopy. Carter didn’t want to, so we ventured over to the gift shop to try the fudge!

After a week of fun and sun, we finally made it back home to sleep in our own beds! This was a vacation that I’m sure we will do again sometime.

Friday was check-out day. The kids sure slept hard that night!

We had one last swim in the pool before we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to the beach. (This was the view from our bedroom window.)

We left the island and headed toward San Antonio. Along the way we stopped at a fruit stand to get some Mexican vanilla and fresh-from-the-border produce. We also stopped . . . well, some things are better left in the rear-view mirror.

We checked into our hotel in San Antonio and then walked down to the riverwalk for dinner.

Here is a clip from the mariachi band that serenaded us:

We walked by the Alamo on our way back to the hotel, but the kids were more interested in the street performer dressed up like Batman across the street!

Thursday, we started the day with a swim in the condo pool.

Carter loved that he could swim the entire width of the pool. He is really getting to be a good little swimmer. He can come up for a breath and then keep on swimming.

After lunch we headed to the boat docks for a dolphin tour. We played on the KOA playground while we waited.

A little snack while waiting to board the boat.

Our boat was called the Osprey.

First thing we saw out in the bay was the US Coast Guard and their enormous gun!

It was an eco-tour, so they drug a net to see what they could find as we crossed the bay.

They pulled up a couple different types of rays, including this sting ray. The deckhand removed the barb and then let the kids touch it.

There were a number of sea stars in the net. Raine wanted to hold or touch everything she could.

Carter, on the other hand, didn’t want to hold anything.

Some of the other things we saw included a sea cucumber, a squid, a crab, a sea anemone, a catfish, and a number of other fish. We learned all sorts of interesting facts — we saw the catfish shred an aluminum can with its flipper, that was pretty cool!

A flock of brown pelicans.

When it was time to see dolphins, we made our way back up to the front of the boat.

Soon enough, we started to see them.

This is a short video of a couple dolphins as well as Raine helping the deckhand throw back the sea life found in our net. (I wish I could say that no animals were harmed in the making of this eco-tour, but as you already saw by the sea star and will see in this video, that simply was NOT the case. There were a number of seagulls following the boat, waiting for anything that was too stunned to swim away!)

A nice view of the beach on the ocean side of the island.

El Cristo de los Pescadores (“Christ of the fishermen”) statue.

That afternoon, we walked down to eat gelato at a little shop about a block from our condo. Then for dinner we headed to the Shrimp Haus. Those fresh gulf shrimp were yummy!

The view from our table.

The second day of our vacation we visited Sea Turtle Inc and the Birding and Nature Center.

There were a number of tanks with injured sea turtles. One even had a prosthetic flipper because it had lost three of its four flippers and could only swim in circles. This one had an infection in what they believe is a boat propeller wound.

Gerry the Atlantic Green isn’t injured, but has been so socialized with humans that he can’t be released. He played peek-a-boo with the kids for twenty minutes or more. Carter couldn’t get enough of him.

After the sea turtles, we went next door to the Birding and Nature Center. We walked the boardwalks and saw all sorts of birds.

Raine really wanted to see an osprey while we were on the island so we asked the staff if they knew of any and they pointed it out for us.

Here is a look at part of the boardwalk from the top of the tower.

After exhausting the kids with all that walking, we headed over to Black Beard’s for a fishy lunch and ice cream sandwiches.

Later in the afternoon, we went north to beach access #5 where cars are allowed onto the beach. We continued north between the sand dunes and the surf until we found a good spot to hunt for sea shells. It was a fun drive, but we decided that the beach was nicer down by our condo; we returned home and swam in the ocean until dinnertime.