An End to Summer

As you can tell by my lack of blogging, we had a very full and busy summer! When we got back from our fourth of July trip, Casey started three very busy weeks with the youth ministry! We had one week of VBS, he had one week of an event called Un-Civil War (a competition between the area youth groups for 5 nights in a row), and then he left town for his annual Rock the Desert trip in Midland, TX. Basically, it was three weeks where daddy wasn't home very much, but we made it through! The first week of August I had a three day teaching workshop for my new school, and then the next week we took a much needed family vacay. I guess you could call it "Family Vacay #2". We took the girls to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, TX. We stayed at the Lodge one night, and then rented a Priceline hotel for the second night (since you could use the water park at the lodge until 9pm on the day you checked out!). We had a lot of fun swimming and just hanging out as a family. The girls had a ton of fun swimming! We even got scaredy-cat Kailey go go on a couple big slides by herself!











We also got to see our friends, the Dugans, one day. We hung out at Grapevine Mills Mall. The kiddos rode some rides, the mall train, the carosel, and we had lunch before heading back to Temple. It was a nice way to end our very busy summer!

As always, there are tons more pictures on facebook!

Family Vacay 2011

We just spent a week with Casey's family, and had a little family vacay. We left for Shreveport last Friday, July 1, and returned here yesterday, July 8. We had a lot of fun, but we are glad to be home!

Last Friday and Saturday we just spent time hanging out around Casey's parents house. On Sunday, we left for a small town in northeast Louisiana (Delhi) where there is a quiet state park called Poverty Point Reservoir State Park. It has a very interesting name, but there is not much going on there! We spent from 4:00 Sunday, until 10:00 Tuesday at this cabin. We had a relaxing time, just hanging out, basically! Here are some pics:











We returned to Shreveport, and that evening Casey took us to one of his old fishing spots. We didn't catch very many fish, but it was very peaceful and fun to just spend time together.






On Thursday, it was Casey's 30th birthday! It's hard to believe! I surprised him with a quick trip to Dallas to spend some time with friends, and also just the 2 of us. On Wednesday night we went to the Rangers game with our good friends Marcus, Whitney, and Chris. Casey and I stayed at the Embassy Suites in Frisco (Priceline deal!) and then I reserved him a tee time at Westridge Golf Course (he had always wanted to play this course!) on Thursday. He played through hole 13, and then we both decided it was too insanely hot to continue playing, but we had a lot of fun!









After we left the course, I let Casey pick where he wanted to eat lunch. He chose Fadi's which is this insanely good mediterranean place in Frisco! It was YUMMO! Unfortunately, when we arrived at Fadi's Casey realized he had misplaced his wallet at the golf course. He called, they searched, and they couldn't find it. He and I went back there and thankfully he found it in the golf cart! It was not a fun hour and a half while that was missing!

After this, we drove back to Shreveport and had a birthday dinner at Ralph and Kacoo's, and then birthday cake at Casey's parents' house.






On the way back home yesterday, we decided to have a picnic at ETBU. We hadn't ever taken the girls there, and we hadn't been back in awhile either! It was fun. We got some sloppy Joe's at Bodacious BBQ, which is the bomb.com! We let the girls run around for a bit and then were on our way again!




It was a very full week, but it was nice to get to spend time together before the rest of the summer madness! (VBS, Six Flags trip, Un-civil War, Rock the Desert, ESL Certification test, SBMS workshop...etc.!)

June Recap

Well, as you can see, June has been busy! I didn't blog for the entire month! Here is what we have been up to!

June 1st: Last day of School!

June 2nd: Last day at BMS for me! :( This day was very hard for me because I had to pack up my whole classroom, and move into a storage building until my new classroom is ready at the new school (SBMS). It was very hard for me to leave my school and my friends behind.

June 6th: First teacher workshop of the summer. This one was actually pretty cool because I got a lesson on how to operate my new macbook pro, and I also recieved my new iPad 2! (Perks of moving to SBMS!)

June 12-18: Centrifuge Youth Camp in Glorieta, New Mexico. Casey and I both went this year, and had a ton of fun. The weather was GORGEOUS, and it was nice to get away for the week. We did some hiking up some mountains, drove into Santa Fe for missions at a skate park and did some shopping, and the students made several important spiritual decisions. On the way home we shredded a tire on our trailer, in the middle of nowhere, and ended up getting home a couple hours late, but thankfully nobody was hurt! (Including the youth guys who ended up having to lift the trailer, because the jack didn't work!) For the first half of the week Casey's mom kept Kailey and Makenna (at our house) and for the second half of the week my mom kept them (still at our house!) They were glad to have us home!






June 22-23: Curriculum writing for me. I had to go and listen to info about the new STAAR (replacing TAKS) exam. Then I had to work with another 6th grade ELA teacher to organize our TEKS/units to be in a logical format and add little notes of importance to each one. It was long.boring.tedious.awful. I left immediately from there (on the 23rd) to come home, load up the girls (and our stuff) and head to Kingwood.

June 23-27: Kingwood trip. My baby sister, Laura, is getting married on September 3rd, and we had her wedding shower on June 25th. I was in charge of making cupcakes for around 30-40 people, and it was a lot of fun! It was a really relaxing trip home!

June 28-29: ESL Certification training. I have to get ESL certified on July 30th, and so I spent 2 days in a workshop, learning what to study for the exam! The girls had their first babysitter on the 29th, and it went really well, so hopefully we can start using her more often!

In between all of these workshops and trips, the girls and I have been spending a lot of time at our local splash pad/water park. I got season passes for Kailey and I (Makenna is free) and we have been having fun going there for a bit each day before it gets too hot! Kailey also went roller skating for the first time, and we got a huge pool for the backyard from Casey's parents that we are spending time in.

We are leaving tomorrow for a weeklong trip to Shreveport and southeast Louisiana for a little family vacay with Casey's family! It has been a busy one so far, and it isn't slowing down any time soon! I do not have any teacher workshops in July (except for taking that test on July 30th) and I am very thankful for that. (Of course, they wanted me to go to one, but I said no. :) ) Here are some pictures from June!