Cape Cod 2012

Well, our fun trip to Cape Cod is in the books!  We had a fabulous time, and are enjoying the memories this week.  

 Mary Beth and her second cousin, Emma, were two peas in a pod the whole week!  They are both going into 3rd grade and are just two months a part in age.  What cuties!

 One of the first days we were there, Aunt Carolyn came up for the day.  We enjoyed a nice relaxing day at the beach behind our family's house.

 The traditional jumping from the dock.  I have pictures of myself doing the same thing many years ago!

 Running back to the cottage after a fun swim.

 Matthew spent the week sailing, and we did lots of resting, but decided on one day trip to Woods Hole.  The National Oceanographic Institute is there, and there were lots of fun activities for the kids.

 The Alvin vessel that discovered the Titanic in the mid 80s was launched from here.  I can't imagine how claustrophobic the divers must have been in this little thing!

 My family is famous for making up random games with balls.  Whether it be wiffle ball skee ball, or this game that resembled football, there is lots of ball game creativity in our kids!

 The end of the week was cloudy, but still nice for a day at the beach!  Lots of boogie board action in Nantucket sound!

 I told the kids that my one birthday request was for a few nice pictures.  They begrudgingly assented. They should be grateful that I take a tenth of the pictures of them that I used to!

 One of the teenage cousins offered to take a few pictures of us.  I was happy with how they turned out!

 My birthday dinner...lobster on the patio.  Nothing better!

 Corn shuckers extraordinaire!

 Poppy giving the kids a lesson on perfect lobster boiling.

 MB was ready for a fabulous lobster dinner!

 The kids loved throwing lobster carcasses into the river after they ate!

 Second cousins/cousins/siblings.

 Matthew had a wonderful week of sailing.  He is now a registered skipper of 420 sailboats! Unfortunately, the boats are too big to dock next to the yacht club, so they have to ride a boat to the middle of the river.  Therefore, there are officially zero pictures of our skipper.  He had bruises all over his legs and chest from the experience, but he couldn't have had more fun!

After a fun filled week, we made our trek home.  I would like to document for the record that Bryon drove 18 hours and 1200 miles in a single day.  He becomes a man possessed when it comes to road trips!  Fortunately, the kids are perfect in the car, and I loved (nearly) every minute of our close quarters!

The first half of July

Mary Beth was invited by Bryon's family to go to Disney World the first week of July.  Now, Mary Beth thrives in her very boy oriented world at home, but she loves the opportunity to hang out with her girl cousins in Conroe.  They are 5, 7, and 9, which is a perfect little playgroup for our nearly 8 year old.  She had a blast!



Meanwhile, we celebrated 4th of July at our house for the first time in 3 years.  We had a parade, then ate brisket at our house.  Then, our dearest friends were out of town, and they offered to let us use their pool and cabana.  We enjoyed swimming and relaxing on a beautiful Independence Day!

 The 5th of July, I headed down to retrieve our Mousekateer.  She was the most excited about seeing her long lost brother, Thomas, and jumped into his arms when she finally saw him for the first time in 3 weeks!

Strangely, there was only one weekday in a four week time period that all three of my kids were home. We headed to Hawaiian Falls with the kids and their buddies.

 Mary Beth...always the ham!

 It was so strange (and nice!) to see all three kids in the back seat!

 Last week, the boys went to church camp!  No pictures!  Michael and Jilinda graciously invited Mary Beth to join their crew last week as well.  This gave me the opportunity to work as well as enjoy one on one time with Bryon.  Now that Matthew can babysit, we feel like we are more able to go out by ourselves, but we rarely get the house all to ourselves!  We enjoyed cooking out, watching movies, as well as going out with friends.  Meanwhile, Mary Beth enjoyed playing with her sweet cousins at "Camp Frisco".

 Yeah, the boys are back!  They had an awesome church camp experience!  After they got home, one of Bryon's clients rented out a local waterpark, and we enjoyed a beautiful, cool evening together!

 Thomas had had it!

 Another fun adventure....Bryon enjoyed playing lots of golf in law school and our early married days.  After the kids were born, he rarely played, as he preferred to be home with the kids.  This summer, he has been playing much more, and the boys have LOVED it!  Before Mary Beth got home from Dallas, I even went out and rode around in the golf cart.  The boys are so fired up about playing, and Bryon loves finding yet another activity to do with his boys.

 Matthew is quiet adept at golf cart maneuvering.

Kamp Kanakuk

Thomas spent the last two weeks of June at Kamp Kanakuk.  Matthew was too old to attend K-Kountry this year, and Mary Beth wasn't quite ready to leave me for two weeks, so it was just Thomas this year!  He absolutely loved every minute of camp last year and could hardly wait to go, despite not knowing a soul there!  That's our Thomas!

I love that every day, the camp would post pictures of the kids having fun.  Here are a few of my favorites:

He made lots of sweet friendships with his barn mates, and adored his counselors from UT and Wheaton College.

Red Carpet night.  The kids had to dress like their favorite movie characters, so Thomas chose Rocky!

Bible study

Also interesting to us, Thomas chose wrestling as his clinic sport.  Who knew?

Nerd night

Dipping into the freezing Lake Tannecomo

One funny story....Thomas had written to Bryon and Matthew the first week of camp, and I was surprised that he had not written to me!  The day before we left to get him, I finally received a note!  I tore it open to find this message:

Anyway, after a quick two weeks, Bryon and I headed up to Branson to get our little boy.  Mary Beth was in Disney World, and Matthew stayed behind to hang out with the Satterfields.  Bryon and I had never been on such a long road trip by ourselves and had a ball!

When it was finally time to enter camp, it was 106 degrees and at least 90% humidity.  I don't remember ever being so hot in my whole life!  Thomas saw us and got teary eyed, which made me teary eyed as well!


"Here's a pen, darling!" ;)

After our hellos, it was time for Thomas to show off his sweet wrestling moves.  He wrestled most of the week with a kid in the older barn and wound up winning the best wrestler in his age group!  Way to go, T!  If only wrestling were a sport in Central Texas!

After wrestling, the counselors gave out character awards to the kids in their barn.  There are at least 10 different awards that can be given, and both years at camp, Thomas has received the same award!  It is called Faith on Fire, which is basically the award for bible knowledge and a desire to learn more.  We are so proud of our Kanakuk Kamper and were so happy to have him home with us again!