Ethan is SIX!

Happy 6th birthday, Ethan! 

Ethan's birthday celebrations were spread out over the course of a week. We started on Sunday with cake (a Pokeball), birthday ice cream and presents (a water-safe remote-controlled car).

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, he had a special breakfast - a waffle with icing and sprinkles on top. After a full-day of school, he picked Kraft mac & cheese for dinner followed by soccer practice.

On Saturday, I took his friend Logan and him to Build-a-Bear, where they each got a Pokemon animal. Logan got him some Pokemon cards and a Bakugan ball. Then we went to McDonald's for lunch, and they played on the PlayPlace.

* * *

Ethan is still super friendly. He easily made a good little group of buddies here (Logan, Liam and Layne) when school started. He also has a good friend in his church class (Seth) who rides his bus and lives in our neighborhood, but he's in 1st grade instead of kindergarten.

He is still willing to try just about anything. He is a great little swimmer, played soccer again this fall and is enjoying all the fun of learning to read. He is exhausted each afternoon (6:50 am - 3:30 pm with only one 20-minute recess and one 30-minute lunch break would be a lot for anyone!), but hopefully he'll continue to adjust to that too.

He is still having quite a bit of trouble with potty-ing. As soon as Ryan left to move here in February, he started having accidents, and despite all my best efforts through the summer, I couldn't seem to get him to snap out of it. His teacher was very sweet though, and she has set alarms on her phone for him. When he hears her phone chime, he knows that means he needs to go to the bathroom. He comes home dry most days, but he has accidents if she forgets to turn on the chimes, which has only happened twice on Mondays. Anyway, I really want to gradually hand the responsibility back to him, but I don't think he's quite ready yet.

He is still very impulsive, and he really does just about anything that pops into his cute little head. I am struggling to teach him to think before he acts, and I really worry about him. A boy dared another boy to kiss Ethan on the bus this week (on the lips), and Ethan let him. He is just so scattered and aloof, I get so frustrated trying to keep him on task and out of trouble. I keep thinking he'll grow out of it, but now I'm wondering if it's just his personality. He's just so dang cute though!

We love our Ethan, and our world would be so much more boring without him in it. Keep smiling, my happy boy.

Happy birthday, Ethan! 

Beach Trip!

When you live in a place that doesn't have fall (aka temps under 90) until November, you can take a trip to the beach for Columbus Day in October. And that's just what we did!

At the end of my parents' trip to see San Antonio, we headed to Port Aransas (about 3 hrs away) on Sunday morning. It was a little rainy and windy when we got there, but we headed to the beach anyway. The kids collected seashells, tried to race the waves, and we flew Ryan's stunt kite.

After checking into our condo, we had dinner and then went for a walk along the beach. That's my dream kinda evening! We continued our seashell hunt, and the kids got their jammies wet (oops).

Monday was our full-day beach day. Ryan, Collin & I went for a run along the beach in the morning, which sounds far more ideal than it actually was. Ryan is so much faster and more conditioned than me, that he wasn't even a speck in the distance when I turned around after a mile. Collin got to the one-mile turn-around about a 1/4 of a mile before me, and was back eating breakfast before I returned, but nonetheless I have a goal to make us a family who runs together, so I'll keep working at it.

 After we all got back, we headed down to the beach. The water was insanely warm (I hear this is a Gulf thing - always much warmer than the Atlantic and definitely the Pacific). We body-surfed and rode waves. Ryan flew his drone.

We collected still more seashells and built a sandcastle for the books. It even lasted until the next morning! 

After lunch and naps, we headed to the pool where the water was unfortunately icy cold. We grilled hamburgers and following the Davis' (my sister's husband's family) tradition we learned last Christmas and had salt-water corn-on-the-cob. No other way to eat on the beach now! Delish. 

After another walk down the beach at sunset, we had ice cream for a treat and headed to bed.

Tuesday morning Ryan took the kids down to the beach while my parents and I started the cleanup and packup chores. I hate how this eats into your time away so much. They rinsed their sand off in the pool, and we headed to Corpus Christi.

We stumbled upon a great little outdoor seafood restaurant right on the bay. After walking around the USS Lexington and the fishing pier (lots of hermit crabs) for a bit, the kids tried calamari for the first time and had fried shrimp.

It was a great little getaway, and I'm looking forward to doing it again and again!

Grandpa & Grandma Came!

My mom and dad came to town this past week. It was a very busy and fun week!

SAN ANTONIO MISSIONS - Fri

Today was our first temporary blast of Fall, and we awoke to crazy wind, blustery cold and spitting rain. We had intended to do The Alamo and the Riverwalk Cruise, but after doing the Alamo, we decided we needed to find a warmer activity. So I texted Ryan (who was on a business trip in Germany), and he gave me the order in which to drive to each of the Missions of San Antonio.

The Alamo

The Alamo

San Jose

San Jose

We saw Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan and San Francisco. My mom and dad got out at Concepcion, we all got out for San Jose, and then only my dad got out for pictures at the others. Then we grabbed some Mexican for lunch, which was disgusting. Oops.

FALL FARM TRIP - Sat

The Crew

It was still cold and rainy in the morning, so we opted to wait to go to the pumpkin patch in the afternoon, like the rest of the city (another oops). After nap time, we headed to Hondo, about an hour away. My dad took Collin & Brennan into the corn maze, while my mom & I took Kate & Ethan to the slide, tractor ride, playground and trampoline.

tractor ride

playground

We met up and had kettle corn as a treat before the hay ride and picking out pumpkins. It was sunny and a crisp 70, and I couldn't have dreamed of better weather.

hay ride

PORT ARANSAS - Sun, Mon & Tues
The next day (after Ryan returned from his business trip), we headed to Port Aransas for three days to have some beach time, but that'll be in another post.

OPTIMISM CEREMONY - Wed

Each quarter the classroom teachers select two children (one boy & one girl) who exemplifies a certain character trait. The parents are notified that the child will be honored at an assembly, but the child doesn't know. Collin's teacher selected him to receive the positive thinking award, and the ceremony was right before I needed to take them to the airport. It was really fun to surprise him at school, and even better that Grandpa & Grandma got to come.

If you know my Collin, you know his teacher was spot-on in picking him! After the assembly, we grabbed some breakfast at my new favorite spot: Magnolia Pancake Haus. Then I dropped them back at the airport.

At the end of our busy week, my mom said, "Ok, now that I've seen the Alamo and the beach, I'm done with Texas." Here's hoping I can talk her into coming at least one more time to see the Riverwalk! ...and maybe her daughter and grandchildren.

We had a great time! Anyone else wanna come visit us? I'm getting better at this tour guide thing!

Weekend with Munah!

Another friend from Peoria!

Munah lives in Houston, but she was a student at Bradley when we lived in Peoria. Ryan was her home teacher and I was her visiting teacher, and we kinda adopted her as our own for her five years of undergrad in civil engineering. She has lived a lot of places since and so have we, but she made the trek over to San Antonio to see us last weekend.

She moved away when I was pregnant with Ethan, so she met him and Kate for the first time. Collin barely remembers her (he was only 4 when she graduated), and Brennan didn't remember her at all. Shortly after they met on Saturday, she asked if we had any video games, and you'd have thought she was a goddess from another world; Brennan didn't give her much space after that!

She drove over Saturday morning, and played video games while Kate rested. Saturday evening we headed into San Antonio. We actually hadn't done the touristy things with the kids yet, so this was perfect timing.

First, we went to the Alamo because you can't be in San Antonio and not see the Alamo, or so I'm told. Honestly, I kinda find the place pretty lame, but it's right downtown next to the Riverwalk - which I love - so it's kinda silly to miss it.

Then we headed down to the Riverwalk. We took the narrated boat cruise around the 2-1/2 mile loop, which Ryan and I hadn't ever done either. This was my favorite part of the evening! I've been waiting to do it for a while.

Last, we had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was super fun. Every 20 minutes the robot-animals all freak out when a "thunderstorm" rolls through, and the kids really enjoyed it. And, honestly, the food was pretty good too.

On Sunday, Munah played a bunch of games with the kids before coming to church with us, having dinner, and then heading home.

She is such a big part of my memories of living in Illinois. She was a relatively new member of the church, and it was her first time away from home. It was my first time as a mom (Collin was born the day after Munah's 18th birthday), and we really did a lot of growing up together. Being with her again this weekend was just the best!

Kate's 1st Day

Kate started 4-year-old preschool the Wednesday after Labor Day. She is so excited to get to go to school like her brothers, even though she still isn't thrilled she has to go to a different place and doesn't get to ride the bus.

She's going to an in-home school, like Ethan did the last two years, and I really like her teacher. She's in the neighboring ward, and it took me about 20 minutes to realize that she actually lives in the same floor plan as our house. Duh.

Miss Tabatha
Pre-K

She goes on Mondays & Wednesdays from 9am-2pm. They do a long day because all the kids need to be ready for the extra-long day of kinder (7:30am-3pm) the following year. So Kate even takes a lunch like her brothers too!

You know what else that means? I am ALONE for 5 blissful hours twice a week. First time alone in a decade! So far I've volunteered at the elementary school twice, met Ryan for lunch and attended a general conference study group. I'm also planning to sometimes go to yoga, and I'm meeting friends at the temple monthly too. It's strange and awesome at the same time.

Labor Day at Garner State Park

We have a group of friends who lived in Peoria with us while we worked for Caterpillar who now work for Caterpillar here in the San Antonio area. Shortly after Ryan moved to San Antonio, but LONG before I did, they decided we'd all go camping for Labor Day weekend. The much-sought-after State Park opens reservations six months in advance, so we booked it last winter before we knew when or where we'd land. I am so glad I took the risk to schedule it when our future was so up-in-the-air. We had a fabulous weekend, and though the park falls a little short of Colorado standards, it really was a really pretty area.

We headed over Friday afternoon when the kids got home from school. We set up camp, had dinner and watched a movie in the tent. Ryan bought a projector that hooks up to his phone, so we can cast movies onto the side of the tent. Very fun!

Saturday morning we got to see all our friends who had arrived after we'd gone to bed Friday evening. Then we headed for our steepest hike. We hiked up a steep, rocky incline for about a mile to the top of Old Baldy.

After pictures, we headed back down, taking a less steep trail that was about two miles. The peer pressure of having kids his own age that weren't family really helped my sometimes-whiny Brennan. He led the pack!

Saturday afternoon we spent at the river. The whole campground is nestled along the Frio River. At other times of the year, you can float down it, but it was way too low for that while we were there. This first day, we played at the dam and everyone took turns cliff jumping, tree jumping and jumping off the rope swing. We had a great time.

After dinner, everyone came over to our campsite to celebrate Kate's birthday. Her birthday had just been on Wednesday, and she had really wanted to have a unicorn and rainbow birthday party, but since her preschool had started yet, we really didn't know anyone to invite. So Ryan had the idea to have a mini-party while camping. More than anything she wanted to have a unicorn pinata, so we made it happen. We sang to her, broke the pinata and had cupcakes.

She was by far the youngest there (the youngest of our friends' kids are the ages of Collin & Brennan), but they all were so sweet to her and were totally ok with getting candy out of a pink unicorn. ;-)

After Kate's little party, we headed to the country dance. There were a few line-dances, but we mostly got really good at the Texas two-step. Our family had no idea what we were doing at the start, but the older teens taught all my boys, and it was so adorable. They all asked each other to dance and learned the rule of "never saying no," even when Brennan was asked by a teeny-tiny 5yo we'd never met three songs in a row. ;-) He was very sweet to her. 

The birthday girl was exhausted and fell asleep during the dance

Sunday morning we hiked to Crystal Cave. It was pretty steep going up too, but the downhill was really easy. 

Look at this crew! Four families in all. Three from San Ant and one from Houston. 14 kids ages 4-16.

The tough elementary-aged hikers

Kate's hiking spot of choice

The cave ceiling was filled with daddy-long-legs to the point where it looked furry because of all their legs. Sick!

After lunch, we had a little discussion about the Come Follow Me lesson for the week, since we had all missed church. It was fun to hear old friends' testimonies and experiences outside under a giant live oak tree with our camping chairs all in a circle. That's a memory I won't soon forget.

As we chatted, a huge thunderstorm rolled in, cooling things off. The kids splashed in the mud and made a real mess, but it was super fun.

After the quick storm rolled off, we walked to the part of the river closest to our campground and played in the water. It was super shallow here, less than a foot, but the adults sat on the rock creek bed while the kids all took the tubes down the mini-rapids. It was awesome to have so many "babysitters" enjoying our kids. They carried them, fed them, danced with them, and even washed the mud off their legs and feet.

Sunday evening we went to the dance again. Our family only stayed about 30 minutes this time though. Kate hadn't napped in days, and we'd been up with the sun, hiked and swam all day, danced all evening, and we were all really worn out.

Monday morning we broke camp early, and we actually got home about 1pm. After getting everything unpacked and put away and getting the dishwasher and washing machine started, we watched a movie and napped in the media room.

It was really an awesome weekend. Camping is always tiring, and the Texas heat definitely added a new dimension we hadn't tackled before, but being together with old friends doing things we all love was so awesome. We hope to make it a tradition! Happy Labor Day!