Summer

Summer has been extra busy and extra fun this year. After a full month of VBS and camps in town, we are finally able to relax this month. Lampasas opened a new roller skating rink up and we tried it out a few weeks ago. It was great, living small-town life means nothing is ever really crowded.  Even Jojo got in on the action an had a lot of people staring and talking about him. He was rocking the rink. 

This was Claire's first year to be able to go to all the VBS's and she did so good. She is turning into a confident, beautiful, sweet little girl. She is so different from Carly though. Carly has tons of friends and can be in any situation with any group of kids and will just blend in. Claire always ends up with one little friend that she holds hand with and becomes "best friends" for the week. 

Our church camp was really great this year.  We all got to be a part of it. Dylan took the week off of work and we both volunteered in the Preschool watching all the volunteers kids. We had such a fun week playing for 9 hours a day. The kids all had friends in their groups and came home exhausted and  filled each evening. 

 Thompson ISD started back up this month. It is so hot that it makes sense to spend it indoors for part of the day anyways. Now that Jojo is 3 we have started giving him some of his own "school" to do during the day. He loves file folder games and anything messy. Dylan has started working on his ABC's when he gets home from work each day. It is a great bonding time for them and I think they both look forward to it each day. 

July 4th kinds of snuck up on me this year. We always try to do something fun so last minute we made firework paintings. We never go to firework shows or go anywhere but prefer to stay home and relax.  This year we were blessed with 2 families wanting to come spend it with us. We grilled burgers and just ate snacks all day, while playing in the mud pit.

No summer is complete without making a ton of tie-die shirts. The kids loved doing it and literally someone is wearing tie-die every day. Jojo especially loves his and basically lives in them. 

We have really been trying to memorize more scripture this summer.  I found some fun ways to memorize the Beatitudes.  All 3 big kids have it done now and love practicing it daily. 

The library always has such fun activities in the summer and this year was no different. Every week we went and made instruments out of recycled materials. 

No summer is complete with a National Park. We spent an entire Saturday at the LBJ State and National Park.  The kids did the Jr. Ranger program and we all learned so much about our president. We got to tour his Texas White House, see the airplane he rode in when Vice President and participate in a living History Museum.  The girls got to pick green beans and pull weeds to feed to the sheep. 

This summer was Carly's first overnight summer camp.  She went to Camp Riverbed in Glenrose with our church.  Thankfully her best friend went with her.  She had the best time and even though we missed her so much, it was such a great learning and growing experience for her. 

I was beyond excited to pick her up on Friday! 

While Carly was at camp we decided to make our own fun.  We added bubbles to our waterslide which was a huge hit with the kids. 

We painted with friends and neighbors!

We froze liquid sidewalk chalk and then played with it on the driveway. It was very interesting. Clay of course had to do an experiment to see which color could win a race as it melted. 

Then we ended the day with a solar oven, where we made s'mores. It was the messiest s'mores we had ever made. The chocolate melted super quickly, which made for a messy delicious afternoon snack. 

It has been a great summer.  

We said goodbye to our first foster kids, babysat a few others for friends and have another set of brothers as I type this. It has been chaotic but good. Ready for the school year to start so we can get back to our normal routine!