Frame Artists

Today is Sarah and Steffanie's combined July birthdays. We are doing activities both today and tomorrow to celebrate with them. The kids were thrilled today when we surprised them with frames to paint. Both Sarah and Steffanie enjoy any art project!

We printed off a bunch of photos of the cousins all together during this vacation, and let the kids paint their own canvas frame. Then they can keep the frames in their rooms to remember how much their cousins love them.

Lego Land in Texas

There was a burst of building happening this afternoon. Lots of creations did not survive for very long, but Steffanie demonstrated a great deal of patience to complete the details of her building. Ben made a house that you could drive and live in it too.

Sabbath Stuff

We connected with our family in Austin, and the kids enjoyed joining in their church VBS being held today. This was our first time to their church, and we enjoyed meeting their church family. Their guest pastor was a pastor we have heard before in Washington! The world felt small today.

Ronda was kind enough to snap a photo of our family group at James' home. We wished Clint could have been with us. Then we all worked on lunch. We had a selection of a sandwiches, including wonderful Ruebens. It was very hot outside and felt nice inside. It was really not a bad day in Texas for mid-July.

Birthdays in July

One of our ideas for this trip was to celebrate everyone's birthday while we are together. We don't get to see each other through the year, so we're doing "Birthdays in July." We started the big party today by celebrating Elizabeth's half-birthday. She is 11 1/2 today. We will get in a birthday celebration for everyone before we have to leave.

The swimming pool this afternoon was her choice, and then we came home to Heidi's famous fajitas. After supper, we made giant sundaes, and opened her card and gifts. Smiles were all around.

End of the Day

To wrap up our day, we drove to rescue Heidi at work. On the way home, we stopped to watch some bats under a bridge as sundown grew near. We were hoping to see them while we were hear, and it was nice to see them our first day.

The cousins haven't seen each other in 5 years, but were quick to fit back together again. Heidi led us in a bedtime worship, and we were off to sleep. Well, we stayed up a little longer, but we eventually went to bed. Tomorrow we will wake up to another full day.

Park Picnic

James and kids took us to a nearby park for our picnic. We gobbled our sandwiches and hurried out to play.

There was a fun playground with swings, and Christopher had fun swinging. Steffanie took Ben to find a toad and they enjoyed showing it to us. Sarah & Elizabeth stayed by the lake and watched the turtles popping their heads above the water.

We had to hurry to pick up Heidi at her work, but we hope to come back to this park again before we go home.

Visiting Texas - First Day

This morning we were slow to wake up after the long day of traveling. James took us to pick up our rental car, and we were upgraded to an Expedition since they didn't have the van we reserved. Becky is confident she can manage it on the road, but not so sure she'll be good at following the instructions from her brother.

Steffanie & Sarah tackled a 500 piece 3-D puzzle of hot air balloons, and in the afternoon we decided to go to the library. We were surprised with a special summer children's reading show. It was a magic show teaching us that "Reading is Magic." Very fun for the kids (& Becky & James too). Then we were off to an HEB grocery store to pick up some stuff for a picnic. It was a busy start for our day with 5 kids and only 2 adults since Heidi was working.