Another Storm, Pictures with the dogs & the Zoo

This week we got more rain and 100mph winds. We did not get any damage but my brother did and my sister and mom lost power. Laurie got hers back on today and my mom is still without power. Here are some pictures of Jeff's house. A few houses near his lost entire roofs so he was lucky. He needed new siding anyway so now he will have something else to do.
We also went to the zoo . It was a nice day and were able to spend time with some friends that we do not get to see very much. They have 3 kids that are the exact ages and sex of ours within about 2 weeks. We wished that they lived closer even though 45 minutes is not that far. We were able to see a lot even though the lions and tigers were really the only thing that Jack wanted to see. He would have spent the whole day there. He really wanted to see the 3-legged tiger that they have but of course it had 2 cubs recently and went off display the day before we came. All in all it was a fun day.

We also took some pictures with the kids and the dogs.

I need to figure out how to label each picture. I will work on that!

Have a good week

Lake McConaughy

We headed off last week for our first camping trip of the year to Lake McConaughy. It was about a 5 hour drive. We left Wednesday night around 8pm so the kids slept the last couple of hours. We parked our camper in back of a friend's cabin that was about 15 minutes to the lake. There were 3 other families that were there so Jack and Will had a blast. The weather was warm each day and cool at night. Jack spent most of his time swimming and running in the sand with his truck. Will was content playing in the sand by himself or wandering out into the lake without his life jacket. We must have yelled 20 times "Will, come get your life jacket on!" Hannah sat in her little chair for the first day, the second day she decided that she loved playing in the sand and by the 3rd day she was starting to walk in the water. She is cautious and even more so with a lot of people around. Will is always by her side though to help her and play with her. The last night Will cried himself to sleep around 10pm when we returned from the lake because we did not have a bonfire. I had told him we would have smores one of the nights but it turned out that with such long days and no naps that everyone just crashed and the bonfire never happened. He still talks about it and how we were suppose to roast marshmallows and chocolate and did not. I assured him next time that we would get right to it the first night we arrived. The spot we camped at had train tracks directly in front of it and it was of course the busiest train track I have ever seen. I swear a train went by every 15 minutes around the clock. I am not exaggerating! Will, being the train lover that he is, thought it was great. Hannah on the other hand woke up each night around 2am and I had to bring her to sleep with us since she was scared of the train whistle. I am not sure why the trains whistled when they reached us but they did each time without fail. I almost forgot to mention that everyone brought their dogs and Jack spent a lot of time chasing them around and petting them. He loves animals and wants to be a vet or work in the zoo with the lions when he gets bigger! A couple of fun facts about this trip: 1. We used almost 2 full cans of sunscreen in 4 days and 2. After taking 99 pictures in 4 days and I am not in one of them! We had a great time and will definitely go back next year.

Happy Fathers Day!

The kids had fun waking up and giving dad their Father's Day presents. They fought over who was giving dad the blue shirt for 3 days. Blue is Will's favorite color so of course Jack wanted to give that shirt also to be difficult. As you can see in the picture, Hannah gave him the blue shirt. Other than that, it was a pretyy uneventful day!

More RAIN!!

We may need to invest in a boat if it does not stop raining! We have spent way too much time in our not yet finished basement for tornado warnings lately. These pictures were taken by Darren as the sirens were going off for about 2 hours. Jack and Will were very worried that he was not in the basement and kept yelling for him. I decided to go down the whole time so at least one of us would not get sucked away! The rain was incredible and the amount of corn cobs and stalks that were washed into our yard from the cornfield above was amazing. I don't think we got a picture that would do that justice. Jack had fun cleaning that up the next day!

The kids did not get to bed until close to 10pm and there was so much lightning and thunder that Jack and Will slept together. This was a big deal because they have tried to sleep together about 10 times over the past year or so and they always have to be split up because they never fall asleep or fight. I guess they were just exhausted from the nights events. I had to take a picture because they really look like good buddies here!

After Jack's birthday party, I took him into the doctor with an ear infection, the then on Wednesday I took him back and he had swimmers ear. He was in a lot of pain and laid around crying for the majority of the next 2 days. He is finally feeling better but no swimming for at least 7 days so we will need to find alternative forms of entertainment during the warm afternoons. We also had to pull out of swim lessons and will make them up next session.
Jack and Will start vacation bible school today and had a great time. Will was excited to make new friends and Jack was just excited to have something to do. Hannah hung out with mom and asked to pick Jack and Will up every 15 minutes.
Hannah is a little more interested in potty training lately. She asks to use the potty but does not stay on for long. She then quickly asks for jelly beans becasue grandma promised her some if she used the big girl potty.
Darren and I went to an outdoor wedding over the weekend and the kids spent the night at Laurie's. She had her hands full with getting everyone to bed and then waking everyone up at 2:30am for the tornado warning. They did not get back to sleep until 4:30am and were up by 7am. I picked them up around 9:30 and they were crabby to say the least. Will and Hannah slept for over 3 hours that afternoon. They love going to Laurie's for various reasons but Hannah will tell you that she wants to go because of the lip gloss. Livvy has a princess vanity stocked with little tubs of lip gloss and Hannah is in love with anything she can put on her lips; chapstick, vaseline, lotion, you name it, she loves it! The wedding was hot and after the rain came later that night I was lucky enough to get about 15 mosquito bites.

Jack had his first friend party over the weekend and had a great time. Darren took them on a hay rack ride, threw water balloons, went on a scavenger hunt and ate ice cream sundaes. It was a beautiful warm day with no wind which was a small miracle around here.