Monday, October 28, 2013

Possum Kingdom Lake Camping Trip


 Tyler earned a half day of work last Friday so we headed out just after lunch to snag an good campsite.  The drive took about two hours thanks to our GPS that led us through no man's land...Two other families camped with us as well.
 We took the kids to the lake for some rock skipping and fishing before we started dinner.  Even though the tumbleweeds make the lake not so inviting this was the clearest water I've seen in Texas!
 We set up the tent in the boys' room the whole week before to get them used to sleeping in a tent and that was the best thing we could have done for this trip! The boys went right to bed and slept all through the night.  We were grateful for that when our other friends' kids took a long time to fall asleep. :)
 The next morning we woke up and found this guy outside our tent...Isn't that lovely?  Good thing I was not sleeping there another night!
 Here is the view from the tree. He was massive.
 Before lunch the following day we loaded everyone up in the truck down to a hiking trail to go exploring.
 Austin and Tyler led the way.  Doesn't Tyler look like a future scout leader?  High socks and all!

 Blake wanted a ride after a while
 He got a little tired so he rested on Bonnie's huge ponytail.





Kids making a funny face at the end of the hike
 After lunch we took the canoe and kayak down to the lake.  Here's the Watsons taking the canoe out for a spin
Austin doing some hardcore digging  





































Blake and Tyler returning from their kayak adventure. We did it!
I got to relax on the shore with this little cutie behind me while I kept my eye on the other kids in the water
 Blake is getting the hang of throwing the frisbee
and catching the frisbee!

Camping was a lot of fun and took more out of me than I thought it would.  Maybe it was lack of sleep from tossing and turning all night.  But it was well worth it to get our kids out there and spend time with friends.


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Horseback Riding

 For playgroup today we went to my favorite place, Nancy's house! She let the kids ride on her horse Beau and led him around the corral.
 Austin was first to go and loved it as usual.
 To my surprise, Blake was really excite to ride the horse.  Up to this point in his life he has hardly wanted to pet horses because he was afraid of them. Not today!  He didn't want to get off.
 He even insisted on an extra turn after everyone else had gone.
 While Austin was off playing with all the other kids, Blake stayed and watched the horse give rides. 
 He liked to climb up and down the fence too.

By the end of the day, Blake made a new friend.  He wanted to feed the horse an apple too.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Happy Birthday Tyler!

We've ALMOST joined the Cool 30's club.  Can't wait til next year!  Tyler requested a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.  At first I thought, how boring, but that's what he wanted and it made my life easier so I went with it!  In fact, it was so easy maybe I won't make creative cakes anymore :)
 We celebrated Tyler's birthday a day early and had some friends over for cake and ice cream.  It was a fun night! I really like how my belly is hidden in this picture.
 He probably wished for more tools...  :)
 Big thanks for everyone for coming on such late notice!
 We really have so many great friends here and it's fun to share birthdays with them.  Especially so I don't end up with a lot of cake and ice cream to eat on my own.
And it's great to have an awesome backyard so all the kids play outside while the adults can chit-chat inside.  Happy Birthday Tyler!!!

Flying

 Tyler's co-worker offered to fly us in an airplane and we finally found a Saturday that worked!  Austin and Blake were so excited to go up in one that looked like Dusty Crophopper!

 It was a cold morning and the wind was FREEZING! But the visibility was awesome and we ended up having a smooth ride.
 co-pilot
 Austin got to sit in the back with me.  Here he is testing out the headset.
 It took a few minutes after we got in to the plane to actually take off so I was able to get over all my fears of crashing beforehand.
 Blake got to sit up front with Tyler and got a great view.  I wish Austin could have had a better view but he was able to see a bit out his window.
 There is so much lingo when it comes to flying! It was neat listening to our pilot communicate with airports.  I couldn't believe how many planes were up in the sky.  You'd think we'd notice more planes flying but I really hardly see them. - Besides the huge loud jets that fly over my house everyday.
 It's also amazing how organized the flying system is.  With all the planes flying you'd think they'd crash into each other more often but it's all organized up there.  Makes me want to travel by plane more often than risk getting in a car accident.

Now I can see why people want to get their pilot license and private plane to travel.  It would be so awesome!

Alainna's Visit

 Last week my awesome friend, Alainna, whom I haven't seen since Austin was born came to visit me! She recently moved to Oklahoma and was driving to Dallas to visit family and made an extra trip to see us.  How lucky am I? 
 Here's our two oldest boys in the swing.  They all played together so well.  Of course we had occasional breakdowns but it was great to see them altogether.

  Our kids are all close together in age...Austin and Jonathan are 2 months apart, and Blake and Isaac are a week and a half apart.  Now our next babies will be two months apart! Although she broke the trend and is having a girl this time.  Oh well!
Can't wait to get together next time with 3 kids each!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

General Conference!

 The boys were really excited to watch General Conference this year.  They recognized the prophet President Monson and every time they saw him they would say, "Look there's President Monson!"
 Of course this is them at the beginning of the session.  They were off playing with their toys in no time.  It was a great one for Tyler and I as we got to sit and listen the the entire time and wasn't distracted too much by the kids.

Here's me at 28 weeks!  I went to Time Out For Women the weekend after General Conference and I had my first comment this pregnancy where someone said, "Wow, it looks like your baby already dropped..." Implying that I was due any day now.  I told her I still had 12 weeks left.  She was pretty surprised.  I don't feel like my belly is as full as it should be at full term but it is sticking out there pretty good.  But it does not look like I've dropped!