Summer Vacation 2014 Days 1, 2, and 3

Whenever we take big trips, we prefer to split the drive up to make travel easier and we try to make our stopping points places we can do vacation things too.  Shreveport, Louisiana was our first stop on day one.  Our main goals here were to try some Louisiana cuisine and see the fireworks at the Lousiana Boardwalk.  I was not impressed with Louisiana to be honest.  Just a different world out there.  However, the food was AMAZING.  I tried things I have never tried before including Alligator and crawfish.

Day two we headed up to Austin.  On our way we visited one of Jeff's cousins who he hasn't seen in years.  Once we were there, the girls and I spent a lot of time in the pool and we also visited the capitol.  The capitol was neat and the girls actually seemed to enjoy it.  The highlight of that part of the trip was feeding squirrels.  There were a bunch of them on the capitol lawn that would literally let you feed them by hand.

That evening we went out to see the bats fly out from under the Converse Ave. Bridge just south of down town.  Apparently, it is a big deal down there.  There are thousands (750,00-1 million)of bats this time of year live under that bridge and mate there.  Each night they fly out and a big crew of folks go out to see them do this.  We brought a picnic and sat an waited to see the action.  Unfortunately, they don't start coming out until it starts getting dark, so it is kind of hard to see.  But it was sort of neat....sort of.

The pics are out of order....oh well.

This was in ground and you could walk up to it on the outside and look down into it. 

This was so neat!  Tame squirrels.  I dreamed about this in college.

Fanciest door jam I ever did see!

Davy Crockett

Love waking up to happy, loving, sisters.

A beautiful rainbow on the drive ruined by a tongue.

Two Bilberry cousins

The cousins' wives

And 2nd cousins!

Watching fireworks on the 4th in Louisiana

B got SO tickled that a movie had this song she recognized from the radio.  She really belly laughed and it was SO cute!

The kids had never gone to burger king before so we had to stop and get a crown.  It turned out to be a very gross restaurant. 

This PBJ face was getting impatient with waiting for the bats in Austin.

Plowing through

Summer is almost half over.  Can't believe it.  I have even allowed myself to have a little thought of returning to school.  Not ready yet, but I'm fairly confident I will be when it gets here.  Why?  I have been plowing through my summer list with lightening speed.  I didn't exactly take my time.  Now I sit here almost half way through thinking, now what?  Not that I'm complaining.  Here's my list I posted several months back and here is how I am doing:

1.  Repaint the entryway, kitchen, and maybe even make a faux brick wall in the living room.  Hope I'm not being too ambitious here. (done will post pics below) 

2.  Finish the backyard children's oasis which will consist of a trail into our woods that leads to a clearing with a firepit.  Another trail will lead to a treehouse.  We also are hiring some folks to level some of our backyard for a trampoline, and take care of our drainage problems. (Decided against tree house.  Trees will come down later, but most trails are done and treehouse is just about finished too)  We are at a good stopping point for now.  Getting too hot.)

3.  Go swimming and get Brennan closer to swimming on her own. (done and still doing)

4.  Go to San Antonio with my kiddos and husband, and my folks to go to Sea World and a Water Park. (gearing up to leave Friday)

5.  Plan a couple lessons for my 6th grade kiddos and plan my K and 1st grade concerts for next year. (done)

6.  Keep my house clean, stay up late, watch lots of movies, do lots of grilling, get to know my new neighbors better, and go on a date with my husband!!!!  (done)

7.  Go to a One Republic concert and visit my sister in KC. (concert tickets bought, it's going to happen!)

8.  Recharge my batteries and get ready to take on another year of 6th grade hormonal kids.  Eeeek! (doing)

9.  Soak in my time with my kiddos and enjoy them at the ages they are, especially B who will officially be ready to start Kindergarten.  I am actually old enough to have TWO school aged children.   (Doing.  Even took one day to be with Bren one on one.  It was precious!)

10.  Help Bren get a head start on reading, so I feel like I have evened the score with what I did for each kid before they officially started Kindergarten.  Giving my children a head start for school, for me, is like giving them a big gift.  I can't say for certain if that is why Kadyn has just done so fantastic in school, but I would like to think that played a part in it.  I want to set them up to be super successful. (doing)

11.  Enforce a little quiet time daily so Mama can have a break from kids. (No need.  The kids are so occupied playing with their friends, I don't really need the quiet time because they give it too me naturally)

12.  Love and dote on my cat who tickles my funny bone daily. (done, done, done and still doing)

13.  Drink lots of refreshing drinks! (Not done, should do.  Don't want to consume the extra calories though)

14.  Take care of a lot of pretty flowers.  Enjoy driving up to my house and looking at my flowers as I pull into the driveway. (Yep, doing)

15.  Enjoy all the wildlife that comes out in the summer time. (Yep, everyday)

16.  Catch fireflies with my kids. (Kids have, I haven't, Mommy fail)

17.  Have a picnic. (Kids have several time in the yard, I haven't, another Mommy fail.)

18.  Get Bren more comfortable riding her bike with training wheels. (Done and still want to do more of)

19.  Go on dates with my girls by themselves. (Still need to do)

20.   Turn 37!!!!!!  (Almost there)

21.  Own 37 with pride and not fear. (I've got this)

22.  Practice my piano and ukulele. (Yes on piano and even added violin on.  Still will do Uke soon)

24.  Read all those magazines that have started stacking up. (still doing)

25.  Spend more quiet time with God and count my blessings. (Just started working on it)

26.  Continue my Sunday bible/praise/pryaer time with the kids and continue to let God guide my heart on this church thing which is still a no go for the time being. (Doing, started watching bible story movies.  This has been awesome!  Kids and I are retaining so much more this way)

27.   Clean the van inside and out. (Did inside once, need to do again.  Outside looks OK.  No need)

28.  Buy some new summer clothing and quality shoes. (Yes on the shoes, nope on the clothes.  Feel guilty spending more money after spending a bundle redoing the living room and kitchen.  Clothes can wait another year as long as I maintain my weight)

29.  Continue to grow my hair out and start to try new long hair updos as it grows. (Yep, still doing)

30.  Try not to resist the urge to cut my hair. (Yep, just keep reminding myself how much cooler it is now that I can pull it back)

31.  Continue to dream and make plans for our future with my husband...one of my favorite things! (yep and a little tricky now that we have a house that has some settling issues, not sure where that will take us)

32.  Talk the hubs into getting rid of our old, dirty, falling apart furniture instead of hoarding it downstairs (just sold it and watched it hauled off today!)

33.  Start a new TV series that I can get addicted too because I actually will have time for it. (Yep, Naked and Afraid.  Survivor type show.  Very entertaining)

34.  Catch up on all those recorded American Idol recordings. (almost done.  Down to the top 3!)

35.  Count my lucky stars that I don't have to redecorate 2 classrooms this coming school year at the end of my summer.  Thanks janitors!!!!  I promise I will keep it a secret that you let me keep my stuff up ;) (Yep! Hallelujiah!)

36.  Praise God that he gave me a job that gives me SUMMMERS! (Still doing)

I'm doing pretty good.  Most of it is done or in progress.  Only a few fails.  Ready for our vacation soon!  Then I will really start thinking about gearing up for school shortly afterward.  I am trying not to let myself pull out my too do list for the start of school yet as it is a mile long and if start tackling it now, my summer is officially over!  I want to enjoy most of my break without think about work so I don't feel cheated out of my break.

And to finish, here is a pic of our living room and kitchen color changes.  Our furniture are brand new lazy boys.  Both units have recliners and the sofa even has a drop down console.  It's not the most attractive things you ever saw and honestly not our preferred style.  We like more conteporary and modern furniture, but that kind of furniture isn't as functional or comfortable.  This time, comfort won out. 

Our other old couches were 14 years old.  I'd say we got our money's worth.  We bought those our first year of marriage it felt like a rite of passage because I could actually afford something nice like that for the first time in my life thanks to a new career.  So much life happened with those couches; so many life changes from marriage, moving, shifting careers, having babies (even laboring on them), running a daycare, you name it.  It's weird to me to have them go to another home knowing what they have seen.  It's kind of that concept of "If these walls could talk."  Only it's "If these couches could talk"  Heck, I've even labored on those couches.  They were definitely showing some wear, but I thought they still looked pretty good considering their age and what they've been through.  I'm glad they aren't going to a junk yard.  Stupid how attached I sound to those silly couches.

I wonder what things our new couches will see.  They will defintely fit our needs better for this time in our lives.  With the recliners built in, no one has the need to lay across the whole couch anymore.  Therefore, we no longer have to break out the bean bags just to have a place for everyone to sit.  And the little drop down console.  Finally, we have a place to put our drinks.  Never had a coffee table.  Never wanted one.  We like having space to move and not run into a coffee table.

Enough talk.  Here we go.  BTW the city pic is a pic of the skyline of Chicago.  Jeff and I have a soft spot for Chicago.  So far it has been our only vaca alone the two of us since we had kids.  Here are the pics:

Simply Harry

Kadyn asked me today, "Doesn't it drive you crazy that he follows you around all the time?"  Look at these pictures and tell me, would it drive you crazy?  No way.  I am totally flattered.  To me, it's his way of showing his affinity and affection towards me.

Crossing his paws is totally a Harry thing.  I often call him Mr. Cross Paws.

He has finally succumbed to the fact I no longer get up at 5:30 and no longer asks to come in a get his morning snuggles now until 8:30.

My view every time I cook supper.  Having his cat tree there has prevented him from getting under foot as much when I'm cooking.  

Mid yawn, but it looks so funny doesn't it!

And here we have Mr. Cross Paws again.

This morning I heard Kadyn talking to our boy, "Come back here meow!  I ain't kitten!"  And she wonders why I find it flattering that he follows me around.

Oh Summer, How I love thee!

Summer! Sigh!  I love summer.  Last summer was my first summer not having to work but....I had to spend a good chunk of it getting ready for my first year back to full time teaching music.  This summer, I have nothing I have to get done AND the kids are such low maintenance.  They have new friends across the street and keep themselves busy all day.  Other than feeding them and breaking up a squabble or two, it has been the easiest summer eva!

It has also been a mild summer.  Good thing is that we aren't dying of overly hot days.  Bad thing is, all this rain hasn't exactly made it easy to fit very much swimming in.  However, it kind of has worked out perfectly because it has given me plenty of time to get the painting done I wanted to do.  On non rainy days I have worked on our back yard some more.  I am no where near finished, but we have made a lot of progress.  It is about to come to a halt, however, as Jeff needs to start studying again for his next test and I can't move forward much more until some trees are removed.  We will probably start diving in again this fall.  I will say, this project has grown exponentially.  What started out as one trail and a tree house grew into 3 trails, a campfire area, a treehouse, and an entire landscaped area in the middle of it all.  I'm guessing it will take us at least another year if not two to finish, plus I feel a little guilty spending all that money at once to finish it.  Kind of have to spread that kind of stuff out.  Important thing is, the treehouse is almost done.

Speaking of rain, our house was engineered to rest on a lot of rock because the builders knew we might have water drainage issues, we do, after all, live almost at bottom of a very steep hill.  On really rainy seasons the water is supposed to flow through the rock under our house (which is all covered up with a plastic vapor barrier) and on down the hill.  Unfortunately, the water table has been so high from all this rain, we had a tiny spring on the back side of our house along the foundation.  They tried to create a drain in our foundation to prevent this problem, but got sloppy with the cement work along the foundation which sort of created a damn in some areas along the foundation.  This is BAD!  My dad and I spent some time investigating what was going on.  I sucked it all out with a shop vac and an hour later it was back which meant it wasn't left over rain water from poor drainage, it was ground water.  This put me into a complete panic.  Our house has settled A LOT and and I feared it wouldn't stop settling unless we fix the problem.  I put a fan in our crawl space to dry things out,  keep air circulating, and prevent mold from starting.  Then I just waited until things started drying up, praying they would.  It's been a couple weeks now and we've progressed to mud, no standing water on that back wall.  Coincidentally, our creak is dried up and the natural spring next to it is dried up too.

Needless to say, we seriously considering having the landscaping company we are hiring to fix our slope put a french drain in on that back wall.  We will also have to hire someone to come out and jack up the house so it is plumb again.  Yes, they can actually do that.  I just hope it stops settling between now and then.  I still hear loud popping sounds in the house at night.  I scares me so.  I was really hoping we could start saving to finish the basement.  Looks like we will have to work on our foundation first.  Sucks!

In other less frightening news, I finished my painting project.  Jeff has been great about letting me do what I want with my new color scheme.  I painted kitchen, living room, and both hallways in 4 days.  Now I've been waiting for various accessories to show up in the mail to fill in the room and make it complete.  It has been very exciting.  I will post pictures when it is all put together.  The colors I chose were slate grey and yellow.  I LOVE yellow!  Favorite color.

Soon we are off to San Antonio for our big summer vaca with my folks.  I am so excited, but a little sad about leaving Harry, or Hair Bear as we call him.  He is always with us on these long summer days.  He's a people cat.  Thankfully, my neighbor is a cat lover.  Although she can't spend a lot of time with him, at least he'll have a little human contact during that time.

Well there you have it.  Summer is almost half over.  Waaaa!  What a lovely one it's been so far.

B learned how to snorkel this summer and can swim without her vest in the shallow end a little.  Still a ways to go to be a strong swimmer, but at least we have a start.

We won the neighborhood award this May for best curb appeal and recieved a $50 giftcard to Home Depot.  Honestly, I'm not sure how they could give out any more awards.  No one here takes care of their yards.  Our yard doesn't really fit in with any of the others.  I love working on my flowers and making things beautiful.  One of my favorite things about summer!  I wish everyone else did too.  :(

First wall I painted.  Bye bye dark brown.  Hello yellow!

He was my supervisor.  I think he climbed this thing a hundred times.  He thought it was a cat tree just for him.

B's graduation

I am so bad about keeping up with blogs these days.  I'm busy and happy what can I say.  For so many years this blog was my outlet.  Now it's my record keeper. I seem to have enough outlets.  Suffice to say, you won't have to listen to me rant as much and just get sweet family updates.

B is officially a Kindergartner and oh is she so excited about that.  Her graduation was adorable.  I've always thought graduations for any grade except 12th was silly, but I must admit, it makes for some sweet pictures and my mother had a fabulous idea.  She wants me to buy a double picture frame.  On one side is the picture of her preschool graduation, and the other side is left blank for her high school graduation.  Maybe I should make a triple picture frame and add a college one in there too.  Not a bad idea.  Only thing that makes me sad is I can't do the same thing for K.  There was no preschool graduation for her.  Oh well.

Brennan is at such a fun age right now.  She has been really easy lately.  I know kids go through phases, so far this one is an easy one, with the exception of chronic forgetfulness and a reluctance to pick up.  She really is a doll.  I'm trying to soak it all in.

Mrs Waters (her principal and part time teacher)

Another teacher

And more teachers.  They were well stocked in the 4 year old room.  I was so impressed with the preschool she attended this year.

Big project

One of the great things about having two full time employed parents is that we have more money to make some of our small dreams come true.

I have always had a love hate relationship with our yard.  On one hand the scenery around here is gorgeous.  We have a view of a mountainside in our front yard.  We have have almost 2 acres of land in our back yard and most of it looks like a national forrest.  We also have a stream that runs for a couple days after heavy rains.  (Used to run nonstop all year until they drilled a new well, boooo!)  Sloped lots mean great sledding when it snows!

On the other hand that sloped lot it is a pain in the butt to mow. Kids can't play with balls or they will have to chase them a bazillion times down the hill.  That awesome forest in the back is littered with poison ivy which K and my man are very allergic too.  Sloped lots also come with major drainage issues and landscaping on a hill is a PAIN IN THE BUTT.  The soil here is ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY!  There is a spring that bubbles up right smack dab in the middle of our yard.  Nothing but weeds will grow there because it gets too soggy when it is active.

However, despite the drawbacks of our lot, we also saw a huge potential of what it could become.  This year we decided to make some of our visions come true.  Jeff has the hook up with a landscaping company who is going to cut a good deal make the lawn part of our back yard more level and therefore, more useable. In the process they will take care of the spring in our backyard putting in a french drain and then covering that puppy up with lots of rock and soil.  Woohoo!  This means, we can actually purchase a trampoline and set it up on level land.

I always imagined my girls running through woods in the back and having a ball. I would've killed to have a forest in my back yard as a kid.  We started to imagine even setting up a campsite in the back and camping in our own backyard.  This year we are going to make that dream come true.  I have started making a trail into the woods.  It is hard work but SO fun.  I feel like a little kid building my fort!  Since rocks seem to grow from nothing out here, I had no problem lining the trail with rocks that I found in our forest.  We purchased mulch to lay on the trail to make it look more trailish and of course we killed anything that was growing on it to protect K and Jeff from the poison ivy.  One of the trails is going to lead to a tree house that Jeff is going to build.  Another trail will lead to a circular clearing where we will put a picnic table and a firepit.  There should be enough room there for a tent if we ever wanted to camp back there.

Then, in the future (not this year though) we will make one last trail that goes all the way across our lot to an area that Jeff has cleared for the sole purpose of burning debris.  So the girls should be able to run around all over our woods on those trails and have a ball.

I am telling you guys, it is so stinking neat back in those woods.  It is so peaceful and serene.  I am totally getting a hammock and reading back there someday.  I also imagine culdesac BBQs and girl sleepovers in tents.  It's also WAY cooler in the woods, like 5 to 10 degrees cooler.  About the only potential hazard we now have to worry about is ticks.  Deet will be a staple at our house.

For the longest time we have been going back and forth on whether we will stay at this home or purchase a different one in the future that better fits our needs.  While we have plenty of room in our home, our kitchen is so tiny and we do desire a better space for dining since we do entertain every couple of months.  We also are yard people and everyone else in this neighborhood isn't.  That is a real bummer for us.  The commute to work really hasn't been an issue this year.  I would love for the kids to be closer to their schools and friends, but then I remember that Jeff made it all the way through his childhood 30 minutes from his schools and turned out just fine and still maintained friendships, so how necessary is that, really?

BUT....I've got to say, doing this stuff to our yard, makes me love our home all over again.  Dare I say, I even envisioned my grandkids running around on our trails.  We may never have a yard like this again. We both know we could remodel our home to fit our needs better.  We also both know the money it would cost to do so we'd never get back if we went to sell, so we have to be sure this is where we are going to stay if we move forward with renovations.  Decisions, decisions.  We've got plenty of time to decide I suppose.  For now, we sure are enjoying what God had blessed us with, and that's a one of a kind back yard.  I can't wait until it's done.

Thought I'd post some pictures of the beginning stages here.  We have a long ways to go.

Middle of the first trail looking forward towards tree house area.

This is the start of the trail.

Lemon tea always hits the spot after all that hard work!

Hard to see here, but there is a circle rocks at the end of this trail (no mulch in circle).  This is where the tree house will be.

This is in the middle of the trail looking backwards to the house.