The Beach House

For our BiG summer activity, we rented a beach house at Crystal Beach for a few days in August! Aimee was super excited about going and that is about all she talked about for weeks before we left. She even was all packed two weeks before we left! Thomas picked up on her excitement and started talking about "going to beach house!"

When we finally got to the beach house, Thomas got mad because he wanted to "go to beach house!!!!" We quickly caught on that he was talking about going to the beach!!! We got to the beach as soon as we could!

Thomas loved driving his big yellow truck all around the beach! He'd drive it over mounds of sand, he'd drip wet sand onto it, he filled it with sand, he'd drive it into the surf and wiped out a few times with it too! Thomas and the big yellow truck had a great week at the beach!

Meanwhile, everyone else had their own adventures trying to catch waves with the boogie boards, hunting for seashell, burying eachother to make "mermaids," jumping waves, and best of all...collecting hermit crabs!!! We collected more than 100 of them!!!

Our second day at the beach was SUPER WINDY!!! So we went back to the beach house, got cleaned up and ventured into Galveston. We ended up walking through a beautiful white church and then took a tour of "Bishop's Palace," which is a really old house on the island. It was built before and withstood the hurricane of 1900, which destroyed much of Galveston.

After our tour, we met up with Edd's little sister, Paula, and Edd's brother, Eldon and his wife Stephanie and their cute baby girl, Sophie! We all rode the ferry back to Crystal Beach together. During our ride back, we got to see some dolphins as we rode back! Mattie and Aimee spent the ride getting acquainted with Sophie!

The next day, Melissa Z (married to Edd's brother Dan) and her two boys, George and Ben, joined us! All the cousins had a great time playing on the beach together!!! Edd got some great pictures of all the action!

We all had a great time! It was the perfect way to end the summer!!!

Back to School

Mattie & Mrs Clift Aimee & Mrs Carr Andrew & Mrs Dolmage

This was our first week back to school! Mattie was the only one excited out of the bunch because she started Kindergarten!!! I drove Andrew, Aimee and Mattie to their school, which is tradition so I can get the first day of school pictures! Andrew wasn't very excited about that. He wanted to just ride the bus! I did get a few pictures of Andrew, but he basically didn't want anything to do with us and wouldn't even walk with us. Are we at the embarassment stage already???

We took Andrew to his classroom first, then delivered Aimee. Aimee wanted us to walk in with her so we did. She was ok once she saw her friend, Hannah and her other buddies! Then Thomas and I delivered Mattie to her classroom. Mattie went right in and we got her backpack unloaded. I accidentally spilled her lunch trying to get her lunchbox out of her backpack...opps!!! We got it back into her lunchbox without any other problems. Once we got Mattie's things put away, I helped her find her seat. Mattie sat right down and started coloring! She wasn't even sad. I wasn't sad either. I took a few more pictures, then we left.

As I was buckling Thomas into his carseat, he asked, "Where is Mattie?" I told him that she was at school. At that moment, I was overcome with emotion and shed a few tears, but it only lasted a moment. Thomas gave me a strange look, like he was confused or maybe it was disbelief or maybe shock that his errand buddy was no longer. Thomas was back to himself a second later and we were off to Wal-Mart for our weekly shopping trip.

When we were done at Wal-Mart, we took a "boy detour" and watched a big backhoe dump dirt into dumptrucks. They are doing some major road construction right next to one side of the Wal-Mart parking lot. We drove the van close to the construction area and Thomas and I got out and watched. Thomas loved watching! We probably watched for 20 minutes or so. It was kindof fun watching tractors again. We used to watch all the time when Andrew was Thomas' age.

Bethany rode her bus to school. I offered to take her, but she didn't want to wait around for me to drop everyone else off. B was a little stressed about her locker situation. She'd gone before school started to "Camp Longhorn," with her friend, Amanda and unfortunately didn't have all the required forms so she was unable to get her locker assigned. So during B's first day sometime, she was allowed to turn in all her forms (we made sure they were all there!!!) and was assigned a locker and was able to get all her textbooks. B was hoping that she could get a top locker, but ended up with a bottom locker.

Well, now it's Friday night and we've survived our first week. We barely made it to the bus stop yesterday! We are all struggling in the morning! Mattie loves school, but is so worn out by the end of the day! She is making new friends and learned about "GERMS" today! I got a phone call from Aimee's teacher today! She said that Aimee is doing really well and seems to like being in her class. Aimee has Mrs Carr, who was Andrew's 2nd grade teacher! Mattie has Mrs Clift, who was Aimee's Kindergarten teacher too!!! Andrew has Mrs Dolmage. He's in new territory since he's blazing the path at Shadow Forest! Andrew is liking school too. He got split up from some of his friends, but still has a fair share in his class this year so he's ok.

So far, Bethany is the only one who has had homework. Poor thing was up past midnight Thurs night trying to get a history worksheet done. I was trying to help her with it, but it was quite challenging. B has been testing my brain this week! The other night it was grammer. I can't help her with Spanish though, but maybe I'll learn some vocabulary this year!

Mattie brought home a brown bag assignment for me on Friday. I get to cut out and staple their first color book! Should be fun!

Hopefully this will be a good year for everyone!!!