Spring Break '09

What a week... Saturday we had Sydney's Birthday party at Pump it Up. She asked for donations to the Town Lake Animal Shelter instead of presents for herself, and she got a LOT of great items to give. Thanks to everyone who supported the cause! On Sunday, her best friend came to spend the night. We went to Pappasito's for dinner and then to the movies. Monday morning, we went to the animal shelter to take the donations. We petted puppies, played with cats, looked at the rabbits and found out our animal shelter even has roosters.




I took the girls to lunch at Chuy's - one can rarely have too much Mexican food! After that, Bria went home and we went to celebrate Sydney's birthday with my Mom & brother. Tuesday, we had lunch with friends and then Jake went to spend the night with Max while Sydney swan all day in Shelby's heated pool. That night, Shelby came to spend the night. The next morning when Jake came home, we went to 1/2 price books and then picked up lunch and went to the park for a picnic. The kids spent Thursday with their Dad while I got in a workout and some 'real' work, plus lunch with my Mom and husband. Friday morning, we left for Houston with Kristi and her kids to visit Jill and hers. We had lunch at Jill's gorgeous new house and then spent the day at the zoo.

monkeys at the zoo :)

Martin drove down Friday night, and Saturday our family left for Kemah to visit friends, see their beautiful, open house with two big porches and a huge kitchen, meet their dogs, and go sailing with Terri (with whom I used to work at CSC) and Scott. That was a blast with everyone taking a turn at the helm and kids exploring every inch of their big, beautiful sailboat. We drove back home late Saturday night. Today, we took Abby & Spencer to the movies with us and then went to the evening service at church. Jake was a pain today. Some days he's just really grumpy and hard to be around and today was one of them, but mostly we had a great week. I am grateful to have a wonderful husband to share weeks like this with - by myself it was harder to do as much for and with the kids. I love to spend time with my family and friends and to see my kids enjoy time with theirs.

We are gearing up tonight for Martin to be gone this week - he's out of town for work from tomorrow morning until Thursday afternoon, which is also his birthday. We have another busy, fun weekend planned for next week, including a date night/birthday celebration on Friday night, quick trip to Dallas on Saturday for an 80th birthday party for a family member, Brownie event for Sydney on Saturday night and soccer game on Sunday. There really is never a dull moment around here, but I like it. It's not all over-scheduled and overwhelming; we leave plenty of time for friends and playing outside and family movie nights. Thankfully Martin has the energy to keep up and make it possible for our house to run smoothly. We are also blessed with the happiest baby in the whole wide world. She travels well, enjoys all of the activity and cries maybe once a day for a couple of minutes when she's tired - she's truly amazing!

Camping at Enchanted Rock

This past weekend Sydney and I had an opportunity to bond a little, which was really nice. We went camping with a bunch of other fathers and their daughters from our neighborhood as part of Adventure Guides.

There were 10 girls in all with 7 dads. We got there at around lunch time on Saturday (Syd and some of the other girls had a soccer game earlier that morning) had a quick bite to eat and headed up to the top of the rock for a little adventure on the trail. Sydney is often very competitive and this was one of those times. She was very eager to be the first one to the top. After about half way up I saw that she was definitely determined to get there ahead of the group. So with all the other girls very close behind she managed to find her way to the top ahead of us all. I think she was too tired to be excited and went for the water bottle and snack that we brought up before saying much else. And by that time all the other girls and dad's were there to take pictures and explore the caves that were near the peak.

After our spending a couple of hours exploring we were ready to make our way down the path. Syd again decided to be in the front bunch but decided to walk down with her friends instead of alone.



When there wasn't any hiking or eating going on, the girls spent most of their time down in the dry creek bed. Boys in the next camp spent a lot of time in the creek bed too. Needless to say there was a little conflict brewing. The girls practiced sword play with sticks they found just in case they wanted to battle. They also spent a lot of time telling us the boys wouldn't leave them alone even though they did their share of invading the other camp.

The one night we were there it was extremely windy. Shelby decided she wanted to be in our big ol' 50 person tent since there was so much room. When I put the tent up earlier that day there was virtually no wind so I only tied down what was absolutely necessary to keep the rain guard in place. Since the tent was so big it caught a lot of wind. The big walls acted like a sail and the tent was shaking pretty badly when a gust of wind came through. Shelby was having trouble sleeping and asked that I go out and check on the tent. I think it was a combination of the wind and other creepy sounds from outside. I went out and did find that my knot skills were not very good. I retied one of the ropes holding the tent in place and added some that I didn't tie down before. That helped but the tent shook all night.

Sydney slept right through it all. I stayed up with Shelby. She was a little scared but we talked our way through it.



The trip was a total blast and it was such a blessing to be able to spend that time with Sydney. On the way home we drove down highway 29 and saw a bald eagle nesting. It's quite a site. ...something I never thought I would see in person. They are incredible birds.

A Letter to the Kids' Teachers