Final Vacation

We took one last vacation to San Antonio at the end of the summer.  Just our little family.  We went to the JW Marriott.  It is a great hotel with a mini waterpark!  We went a few years ago and loved it.  You don't even have to leave the place.  It was a nice relaxing time with the boys.

There is a new Buc-ee's between here and San Antonio.  We're weirdos and get excited about a gas station.  But this is no regular gas station...it's the mother of all gas stations!  There is tons of merchandise, tons of specialty food, and tons of super clean bathrooms.

We bought the boys a little Bucee keychain for their backpacks.  It was very hard not to spend a fortune in there!

Caleb went crazy for these suckers.  And of course, he barely ate it and wanted to throw it away.

There was aisles and aisles of candy!  It was a kid's dream!

This is in between the guy's and girl's bathrooms.  That guy talks to you when you walk by.  The boys were facinated with him!

The hotel is in the hill country of San Antonio.  It's beautiful out there!

This is one of the pools.  There is a lazy river, a great little kid's area, and several slides too.

All ready for some swimming!

This is the bottom of two of the slides.

They both really loved this slide.  You can either get out at the bottom or slide down another little slide into the lazy river.  I loved that the boys are grown up enough to ride it on their own!

This is the bottom of the side in the picture above.

They played together so well.





Look at this comparison.  Caleb was so little the last time we were there!

One of the nights we were waiting for a table for dinner so we went outside.  There were kids running everywhere.  The boys had a great time playing hide and seek with some of the kids.

We ate at a restaurant inside the hotel with giant screen tv's.  The boys loved it!

And another night we let them eat at their favorite....Olive Garden. 

There were tons of great places for pictures but of course that's not what the boys wanted to do.  I was able to get a few though.

The last day of swimming they spent most of their time in the big pool.

Caleb eating a Push Up pop.

All dried off and ready to go home!

We stopped by Chilis on the way home...another one of their favorite places to eat.  :-)

Camp Thurman

Ethan had been waiting all year to go to Camp Thurman.  It's a church camp in Arlington.  He went last year for the first time and LOVED it.  It's all outside so I was worried about it being so hot but the whole place is shaded with trees and there are 4 pools.  Last year he went in the beginning of June but this year he went mid-July.  It rained the first day...all day.  I was so bummed that his first day was ruined.  When I picked him up I quickly found out that the rain made it AWESOME!  They slid down mud hills and stayed cool all day.  He was actually bummed that it didn't rain all week!

All dressed for his first day!

This year he went with his two buddies Will and Tyler.  Clearly this pic was taken at the beginning of the day...when they were all clean!

Their counselors and another buddy from school.  This was on the last day.

They were all excited to find out that a teen from our youth group was working there this summer.  They also thought it was cool that they couldn't call him by his name but had to call him by his made up camp name all week.  It's like they were in on a secret.  ;-)

After camp looking cool with his home made necklace and sunglasses he bought at camp.

So what did poor little Caleb do while Ethan was at camp?  He played with his buddy Maddie!  (He was offered to go to camp but there was no way he was going...unless I stayed there with him.) 

I had to cut the cord and let him go to Six Flags while I stayed home and worked on a cake.  I was worried about my little man the whole time.  Then the next day was when the woman was thrown off the Texas Giant!!  Yes, I know they didn't ride that but it still freaked me out!

He played at her house on another day.  They play so well together.  :-)

July 4th



I always look forward to July 4th.  It's such a fun holiday full of swimming, fireworks, and food.  This year we went to a church family's house on the 3rd for some...well...swimming, fireworks, and food!  They live in Midlothian and have a lot of land.  Perfect for entertaining.  The kids had a great time swimming and the firework show was amazing!  We thought maybe there would be some little and medium size fireworks...but no.  They pulled out the big guns!  It was like a real firework show that happens on July 4th!  Amazing!

Then on July 4th we went to my parent's house and spent time with family.  Mondo bbq'd all of the chickens and hot dogs.  I think he got outside to get the grill ready at 6 or 7am and stayed out there until around 1pm!  Then he bbq'd some ribs just for us...so he stayed out there ALL afternoon working on them.  And they were so good!  Then that night we went to a friend's house to swim.  Whew, long but fun day!

Chocolate and vanilla cake pops. 

Swimming with our church friends.

Mmm...Mondo's hot sauce.

Great turnout!

Silly Tyler and Ethan.

These two were being too silly to get a good pic.

It's hard to see because it was dark, but all the kids were lined up on the fence to see fireworks.  There were several adults down by the trees shooting them off.

  

This was the next day (July 4th) at my parent's house.  Ethan was training to be a "junior pit master" as Mondo called it.

And so was Caleb!

Mondo's ribs.  Mmmmmm.....so good!

4th of July land at my mom's.  ;-)

Great job Mondo!

The grill that we only use once a year on July 4th.

Caleb and Caitlin...and Belle (my parent's dog).

 

Little twin cousins!

More cousins, Morgan and Maddie.

Moving on to the evening....this was at our friend's parent's house.  They swam until 9 or 10pm then the dads put on a firework show.  It was a little scary but we survived.  Of course the kids loved it!

Most of them were small but they shot a few in the air.  Caleb and Tyler were so funny standing by with their water guns in case of fire.  I took a pic but it was too dark to see them.