Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Between trips

This post chronicles the brief two weeks between when our first summer trip ended and our second began.

Whenever the cat's want to eat people food, they go whine to Heather and Sara Beth. Most often one or the other will provide the cats with a tasty morsel of something.
We went out to the Celebrate Freedom concert with our friends Jason and Dyan and their kids. The Texas summer behaved just as expected: hot. I purchased an unlimited bounce house pass for the kids. Sara Beth went on a tall inflatable slide several times, but Hudson definitely put the pass to good use and basically bounced around for hours.
Every now and again, I made Hudson take a break from bouncing in the inflatables, and we just sat listening to the concerts. Hudson was always ready to get back to the bouncing.
Our church had a family day at the petting zoo one morning. Heather took the kids. She said Sara Beth would have smuggled the pig home if she had brought a bag capable of smuggling farm animals.
Hudson had a blast as well.
For the 4th of July, we went and saw fireworks two nights in a row. The first one was down in Sachse and the next night we saw the Plano firework show. We decided to risk letting the kids stay up late two nights in a row, but they handled it without issue. Hudson didn't like the loud noises; fortunatly I came prepared with ear plugs.
Here you can see Sara Beth modeling some of the latest summer collection at the Gap.
Another day, Heather took Sara Beth out for a girl's afternoon to just hang out and play. They stopped for some shaved ice.
Hudson insists that Catta is his cat. He has explained to us that when she bolts away from him "it's because she's nervous." Whenever he sees her, he will try to pet her. If she is napping, he often is able to sneak up on her and get a few good pets in before she runs off.
This summer, Sara Beth has been able to hang out at the barn. Her instructor hopes to make Sara Beth one of her "barn girls" that will go around and help care for the horses. Sara Beth eagerly will clean the stalls and feed the horses and has spent all afternoon at the barn several days. Also, in case you are wondering about the below picture, she is riding a horse named "Tiny Pony". While she has grown this summer, it isn't THAT much.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Florida and Alabama

Well, I am noticing a pattern of being behind this summer. I think I am spending too much time playing and not enough time writing down an account of the things we are playing. 

The first vacation we took was back in June. We went first to Florida to visit with Heather's Aunt and Uncle an Cousins and then on to Alabama to ralax on the beach with her Mom and step Dad. 
One day, Uncle Cary, Hudson and I went to the Airforce base near Pensacola. Hudson enjoyed sitting in all the cockpits and AA guns pressing all the knobs and switches. He expressed interested in playing in the $20 flight simulator as well, but I told him maybe next time. 
While we were there Uncle Cary made apple fritters, among other breakfast treats, for the kids, and allowed them to help make them. They also got to swing around on a vine in the front yard hanging from a tree.
After playing with them for the weekend, we drove back about an hour to Gulf Shores Alabama to rexlax on the beach for a couple days with Heather's mom and step dad. For nearly the entire time we were there the surf was high; Hudson did not enjoy being knocked over by the waves. Instead, he preferred digging big holes in the sand (with some help from others).
Sara Beth did get a few good rides in on the bogey board, but after a few flips and scrapes, she was done with the big waves as well.
Instead, the kids preferred to just play with the grandparents in the wave free chlorinated pool at the foot of our condo.
Heather did get some good photogenic shots of her and the kids. I think this one, or one like it got some amazingly high number of "likes" on Facebook.
Sara Beth is very quickly growing up. She can now wear Heather's flip flops and has begun to eye other cloths in Heather's closet.
Once we got home, we performed some music. Sara Beth wanted to be the director and Hudson was content to bang on the drums in a close approximation of the beat.
Once again, I have no idea what is going on here. Parents have too good of an imagination and can come up with all sorts of ways that something like this can go wrong. Fortunately, everything worked out better than imagined and Sara Beth, the scooter, and the trampoline avoided breaking one another.
Hudson is completely obsessed with mowing lawns. He will use his lawn mower and weed whacker inside and out. He also repeatedly tells me that I need to buy a leaf blower because that is something else that is used for mowing lawns.