Bryon arrives! Boston and the 4th

Well, we survived the first 11 days of our trip without Daddy. Bryon and I had never been apart for such a long time, and he used the time to work around the clock to get ready for vacation. The kids for the most part were great. Other than a few incidents, such as Matthew digging for clams, using a hammer to open it, and daring Thomas to eat it raw (which he did), things went really well! We were THRILLED, however, to have Bryon with us! On one of our first days together, we decided to drive in to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail. I did this as a child, but was so excited to relive the memory with my own kids!

Mother Gooses's tombstone
The Make Way For Ducklings statue in Boston Common.
One of the scenes from the book.



In front of Paul Revere's house.
The Bunker Hill monument. After walking several miles, the kids begged us to walk the 300 steps to the top of the monument. About half way up, I realized I had made a big mistake. Apparently, I'm not 18 anymore! I finished the trek up and down, but was more sore than I have ever been for about 5 days afterward!
Cool looking cemetery
John Hancock's tomb.
A great view of the Paul Revere statue with the Old North Church in the background.
The end of the Freedom Trail! Hallelujah!


We also celebrated the 4th of July at the beach with cousins and sparklers. A great combo!

Most of the rest of this week was extremely low key. Lots of time at my aunt and uncle's beach/river, and lots of time with second cousins!

First two weeks of vacation

We had a fabulous, fun filled, and exciting four weeks of vacation last month! I have tried to decide on how to document this journey, and figured that I would start out with the first two weeks.

We were offered two weeks in my aunt and uncle's cottage on Cape Cod before my entire family got there for a week long vacation. Since Bryon couldn't take 4 weeks off of work, I decided to drive the kids up to the Cape for the first week in the cottage. I love to drive, and have tons of fun with the kids in the car, so we left on Tuesday at the end of June for our trip.

Now, at this point in the summer, we were already experiencing a drought, and so the thought of looking at the weather never occurred to me. No sooner had I left Texas, then a torrential rain storm followed us for 7 HOURS. It was the most miserable drive of my entire life, and I was contemplating dumping my car in Meridian, MS and buying airline tickets to Boston!

Finally, when I hit Alabama (and the angels began to sing), the rain let up, and I was so excited to see my friends, Karen and Tesney in Tuscaloosa! Not only did I get to catch up with my friends, but I got to meet Kirill, Tesney's newly adopted Down Syndrome child from Russia. Words cannot express the preciousness of this child. So sweet and cuddly!

I also got to see some of the devastation from the 4-27 tornado. So very sad to see what has happened to my first hometown.
We also loaded up with gear for the upcoming football season! Roll Tide!
After driving for several days, we made it to my cousin's house in Connecticut. Mary Beth loves Jen, and would sit for hours listening to stories if she could!

Finally, after 3 1/2 days of driving, we made it to Cape Cod! Other than the rain the first day, the rest of our journey was uneventful. What a blessing!
Walking along the jettys on our first weekend there. The weather was cool and somewhat overcast the first few days at the Cape. A typical November forecast in Texas! ;)
The biggest reason for coming up early was for the kids to take sailing lessons. Matthew adored every minute of the lessons, and graduated from a smaller Opti sailboat to a 420 sailboat in the first week of lessons. He even raced a 420 at a local regatta and came in 14th out of 32 contestants! Not bad for learning how to sail the week before!

Thomas also loved the lessons, and was so cute in his boat!
Matthew and his friend, Matthew on a 420.
Little Miss loved sailing as well, and can't wait to take lessons again next year!

Matthew, our mowing machine

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Matthew. I wish I could reach into the picture and hold this ball of energy one more time!

Who would have thought that this picture would be a sign of things to come?

Here is Matthew with Bryon right after Matthew's 1st grade year. It was his first opportunity to "mow" with Bryon's close supervision!
Last year, Matthew started taking over responsibilities with the yard, but this year, it is HIS responsibility! This is not because Bryon is a slave driver, rather, that Matthew adores the work. This makes perfect sense to us, since Matthew is the hardest working kid we know, plus Matthew absolutely loves the exercise and being outdoors. He mows the yard several times a week while Bryon is at work.
One day, Matthew, our budding entrepreneur, saw a terrible looking yard that had a for sale sign in the front yard. Matthew told me later that he had taken down the realtor's email address and had written her, "a very professional email". I was very curious what that email said, so I found it:

Dear Ms. ***,

My name is Matthew Barnhill. I am very good at mowing yards. I live at ***. That is just across the street of the house that you are representing. I am about to be 12 years old in a few months. I mow my yard once or twice a week. Just this last week, I mowed and weed whacked three yards in two days. One of them was mine, one of them was my uncle's, and the last one was a widow's overgrown yard. I also weedwhack with string trimmers, and edge the yard. After that is all done, I blow off the sidewalk with my Stihl Big 5000. As you can see, I am very devoted to my work. I am also very different from a lot of other people in that I enjoy doing it. I went to your website to find your e-mail address, and I happened to see that you are a very experienced relator. It would be an honor to work for you. I work for $15 each time a mow. $10 of it goes to me, while $5 of it goes toward the gas that powers all of my tools. My number is****, and my email address is**** Please contact me to see if you are available tomorrow.

I'm so proud of my hard working son, and look forward to years of pretty lawns! ;)

A memorable night at The Ballpark In Arlington

Bryon and I have had many memorable games at the Ballpark. It was one of our first dates, where we held hands for the first time, and we watched a play off game against the Yankees during a torrential downpour.

Nothing as memorable as this night!!

We had a great ticket package through Bryon's work, and were so excited to take the boys on a rare school night outing. We had heard that the weather was supposed to be bad (tornados in Oklahoma) but had also heard that it was going to be later on that evening. We were hoping for a quick game and hitting the car before any really bad weather hit.

Here we are at the beginning of the game.
Only Hamilton's second night back from being on the DL.
Then, the clouds started looking really funny. The announcer asked that all fans in the upper decks find seats down below due to high winds. Then, all the fans around us started calling family members around the DFW area. Apparently, people were taking shelter all around town. Finally, the game was suspended because of lightening, and we headed to the snack area to wait out the storm. Then, we heard tornado sirens. Employees with walkie talkies instructed all the fans to start heading underground. What we didn't know at this point was that we were going to have to hop the cement barrier and jump onto the field and walk to the bullpen in order to get underground!
Well, the boys thought this was one of the coolest things ever! They were jumping up acting like they were snagging a home run ball while there was a threat of a tornado above us! No fear!


This is the hallway from the players' garage to the field. Didn't expect this tour when we started the evening!
Finally, we were told that we could head back to our seats. You can see where we ran earlier that evening (right by the Snapple sign). After waiting for a while, the announcer told us that more bad weather was expected so we should go back to the snack area. After another drenching, we were told that the game would resume at 11:20 pm! I was ready to call it an evening, but, of course, was overruled by very excited boys!




We love our Baylor Bear, David Murphy!
We ended up getting even better seats, since most fans had the common sense to head home. The players were so sweet and turned around to talk to fans. I finally convinced the boys around 12:50am that we needed to start heading home. We could tell that we were going to lose at this point, and I had patients starting at 8:15! We got home a little before 3am. Yes, a very memorable night in Arlington!