Last Day of School

Whoa!! The school year is over!  Oh my.  The girls had a wonderful time this school year, and they're both excited for summer vacation, and going to miss school.

Sunday night I headed out to Austin.  Our home inspection was Monday, and it was highly recommended we be there for it.  I got on the train to my terminal, and when we got to the first stop the train doors opened... but the outer doors didn't...  Good thing I didn't need to get out right here!

Back at home, Monica and Grayson were being cute together!  I don't think there's more story here... :)

When we landed in Austin... well... no one was there to drive the gate over.  I ended up on the second row, so I had a good view when they finally drove it over.

I was just in the hotel for the night, and I needed a place to work, so I... well... headed into work!  I tried out the train as I think that's the way I'll want to head in so I don't have to drive through traffic.  It was actually a really great trip in.  I liked the train.  I also caught the train back out to head up for the inspection, and right as I was getting off the train I got a call!...  Oops, the inspection was scheduled wrong... and it was Tuesday instead... so I flew out for nothing.  I got to go see the house again at least, and I took a marco polo walking through the house so we could remember how things were.

Back at home Grayson was reading bedtime stories.  He especially loves Oh the Places You'll Go right now!  And I LOVE the way he reads it.  He's really intense, and he points whenever he says you and such!  So funny.

Brooke had field day on Wednesday.  It's a day where they play various games and have competitions, etc.  Monica and the other kids got to come and watch for part of the day as well.  I don't think Brooke won any medals this year, but that's okay.  She still had a lot of fun playing with her friends.

At the end of the school day on Thursday, Winry had a preschool promotion thing.  It was so fun to see!  The kids all sang some songs to us, and it was rough when they'd talk about seeing everyone again next year knowing we're moving soon...

Everyone got an award, and Winry got one for being a great helper!  I'm glad she was great at school and was always willing to help everyone.

They had a little photo booth thing too, and I really liked this picture of Winry.

Here's a picture of Brooke when Monica picked her up from her last day of school!  All done with 1st grade!  Crazy!

Winry came to pick up Brooke and got a picture at the preschool classroom door!

When the kids got back it was time for us to get out of the house!  Our house went on the market this weekend, and we said showings could start Friday at noon, so we had to be out by then (school ended early on the last day).  We headed over to Paris Baguette... or whatever it's real name is if that's not right, and had lunch there.  It was REALLY good!  I got a breakfast sandwich, the girls got little pizzas, Monica got a sandwich, and Grayson got a donut.  It was the only thing he'd pick.  Lucky kid.

We went from lunch to the airport to fly out to San Diego.  Yeah, they told us to get out of town for the showing, so we did.  We got to the airport a bit early, but then our flight got delayed due to a hail storm that blew over the airport, so we ended up being in the airport for quite a while.  We took off after we were supposed to have already landed.  This meant we had time to ride the moving walkways!  But eventually we were on our way.  I'll also note here that I started feeling sick Monday when I was out in Texas, but it wasn't bad.  It kept getting worse and worse all week, and it basically came to a head Friday, so it was NOT my favorite trip to the airport.

Anyway, we made it to Monica's parents' condo, which was a great place to stay.  When breakfast rolled around the next morning we didn't have a kids plate for Grayson to use for breakfast, and after some looking I found Tupperware!  Grayson needed the biggest one, and so it was off to lunch.  Grayson didn't finish, so we just threw the lid on.

On Saturday we went to the beach.  As soon as we got there and laid out a blanket Grayson sat down and grabbed some Cheetos.  Priorities, right?  And honestly, he had some pretty good priorities here.

Everyone had a good time playing and splashing and digging, etc.  We found a lot of sand dollars, so apparently it's sand dollar season.  And I mean whole sand dollars.  It was pretty cool.  Grayson had fun filling buckets with sand and then dumping them out, and everyone else spent most of the time in the water.  I had fun mostly looking for shells, and I tried to dig up some sand crabs, but they didn't seem to be out this time of year.  So I guess sand dollars and sand crabs don't like each other.  Also, I found some whole mussels and I'd pull them out of the sand and they'd slowly pull back into their shell.  I thought it was pretty cool!

Brooke even got buried on the beach and turned into a mermaid!

I'm SUPER blanking on what we did that afternoon... maybe nothing... We were at the beach into the afternoon, but not the WHOLE day...  Anyway, maybe this was at nap time, not bed time, but Grayson was sleeping in the walk in closet.  He usually likes to look at books with his flash light at night, but wasn't having any of that.  In fact, he shoved all his books out under the door.

Brooke came in to get us in the middle of the night, and both her ears were hurting really bad.  I fought through my Nyquil and got her some Tylenol to help her out, and in the morning we went to an instacare as soon as it opened.  That wasn't until 8, so we got ready for church first.  She did, in fact, have a double ear infection, so we stopped at a pharmacy to get her prescription and some Motrin, which seemed to help a lot more with the pain.  We met everyone at church and got there in time for the last speaker.

After church we headed back to the house and Brooke took a nap, and I took a nap, and Grayson took a nap.  The healthy people (the Cammacks and Winry) went off for an adventure, and I really don't know what they did.  I'm really glad I got to take a nap though.  Brooke slept for quite a long time, which was good, and when everyone got back we just kinda kept it chill the rest of the day.

And that's where we'll cut off for now.  I'm writing this a week late, so I can foresee that this isn't the last we'll hear of Brooke's ear infection...  More on that in the next post!
 

Dance Recital!

Hello hello!  The girls had their dance recital on Saturday, and it was so fun to see!  They did an amazing job, and I'll link videos to all the dances later.  Grayson even did a good job and made it all the way through in his seat.

Our Bagster finally got picked up this week.  We tossed a bunch of stuff in there when we were cleaning up the house, and then it's just been sitting in the driveway since.

There's been a lot of work in the gardens, which means there's been a lot of bug hunting by the kids.  It's a pretty good season for bugs right now, with the favorite of course being roly-polies!

During Monica's last choir concert Brooke drew a picture while she was watching.  Monica was on the front row on an end next to the pianist.  I wish I'd seen this back when I wrote the post about the concert, but at least I caught it ever :).

While we were in Texas last week there was a hail storm in the area.  When we got home things all seemed fine, so I figured we missed the worst of it, but throughout this week we've seen signs that things were probably pretty severe.  In our planter boxes you can see that the hail left some pretty big divots in the soil!

There was a nice rain storm here this past week.  I remembered that I wanted to go see what the water runway looked like during a storm, so I headed over.  When I first got there I saw the water rushing in from our neighborhood.  I walked around to see the main water way, and it was not nearly so interesting.  The water seemed pretty easy going over there though, so I guess they did a good job designing things.

And when I got home I caught a little of the rain there too.  What a great house this has been!  And no water problems through all the rain the past few weeks.  Also, the video would have been shorter, but right when I started it there was a pretty big thunder clap, so I was letting it record but it doesn't come through in the audio very well...

Winry asked Monica if she could take the tape outside, and while she was out there she made a big stick!  :) She comes up with some pretty grand ideas, I love the things she does to keep herself entertained.

On Friday we had a photographer coming to take pictures of our house for our listing.  Monica took the kids up to Tyson and Tina's house, and I joined them after I picked up Brooke from school.  We were attempting to stay away so they house could be prepped and stay looking nice for pictures.  My dad, Jerusha and Celeste were there.  They had come out for the dance recital, so it was fun getting to see them all.  Grayson had a lot of fun playing with Grandpa.

Saturday morning we headed to a park for some morning fun.  We took snacks with us to eat there while we played.  I was eating some chips and noticed an ant hill in a crack in the cement outside the swing set, so I dropped a few pieces for them to eat.

The girls were both performing in the same recital and Brooke had three dances and Winry had two.  This means that they were in around a fourth to a third of all the dances!  Here is a link to Winry's two dances.  She even had a solo in one of them!

And here are links to Brooke's three dances. 

And here are the girls with their aunts after the show!  Brooke and Winry's big ask was for Jerusha to cheer loud enough that they'd hear her, and that definitely happened.

After the recital, we all went to Spice Kitchen for dinner.  The food was as great as always, and I'll definitely miss it once we move.  Hopefully we'll be able to find more great Indian food!  Anyway, Grayson used up all his sitting during the dance, and kept wanting to walk around outside.  After we ordered, Grandpa walked around with him for a bit, and once we'd finished eating I headed out with him.  There are a few statues around the area where the restaurants are.  There's a statue of horses, a boy with some dogs and a pocket full of frogs, and this one of a girl with kittens.  Grayson really liked the kittens, and even took the time to pet them.

And that's everything I've got for this week.  Hope everyone is fabulous.  I'm about to head off to the airport for Austin so I can attend the home inspection tomorrow.  Life's a bit crazy right now!!

Texas House Hunt

Howdy Y'all!  Still trying to get used to that. :)  We headed down to Texas the latter half of the week to do some house hunting.  It was a good trip, and we were able to drive all over the place and see a lot of areas, and even find some pretty great houses.  We were even able to sneak in a trip to Buc-ees on the way to the airport, even though it was about 20 minutes out of the way.

We got out the water table last week, and it stayed in the yard through this week as well.  Grayson really loved to go play with the water beads, and started to take all of his meals out there.  I think this started with a snack of raisins, and he took his plate out there.  Anyway, he had a lot of fun playing in the backyard with the water beads this past week, and started to eat out there too.  I think one night at dinner he even left the rest of us at the table and wandered the backyard while he ate.

Wednesday we headed off for Austin.  We had to get everyone up at 4 am to make our flight!  The kids were actually amazing on the flight out, and we had a good time at the airport.  We drove up and dropped Monica, Brooke and Winry off with the bags to check.  Then Grayson and I parked the car and rode the shuttle back.  I was able to take Grayson through TSA Pre with me, so we made up basically all the time.

Once we were all together and had found our gate I took the kids off for an adventure.  They really loved riding the moving walkways and escalators.

I was trying to take them to the end of the terminal to the outside place where you can watch planes come in and out.  Unfortunately, it was closed for some reason, but on the floor below it was still full wall windows to watch the same thing, just inside.  We watched the planes for a little, then rode the escalators up and down and watched a little more.  Eventually we headed back to our gate for boarding.

I sat with Grayson, and the girls sat together with Monica.  We got a second tablet for the trip, and Grayson got to watch shows, and the girls played games, etc.  Everyone was amazing and the flight was super smooth!

Once we collected our things it was house hunting time.  We went to Chick-Fil-A by the first house, and our realtor met us there.  Grayson got a yogurt for lunch, and wasted no time digging into it.  He LOVED it!

We also let the kids get ice cream, which they very much enjoyed. Winry said, "take a picture of me with this ice cream cone!" So we did!

I had to change Grayson's diaper, and when I finished he went running off while I was washing my hands.  When I came out he was playing with the garbage can, and a couple at the table by him were laughing.  They said he kept opening the door, and then it would scare him.  I was able to capture it, but the earlier times he did it were a lot funnier to watch.

Grayson got really sad because he didn't get an ice cream, so I went up and ordered a very small one for him.  He found his own unique way to eat it which would still allow him to spill it...

We ended up seeing 4 houses the first day.  There was one we liked quite a bit, one I really didn't like, and 2 that were okay.  Grayson started to get really tired by the end and fell asleep a time or two in the car.  We headed to Monica's aunt and uncle's house that evening for dessert, and while we were there Grayson completely passed out on Monica.  He also fell asleep on the drive to the hotel, which meant that when we got back and it was actually time for bed... he was WIDE AWAKE!  It took until nearly midnight to get him to finally go to bed, which was no fun after getting up at 4!

We let everyone sleep in the next morning, and then Monica's aunt offered to watch the kids for the day, so we headed back to their house to drop them off.  While we were there I took a meeting for my new job to make sure I could log into their system and my account was set up correctly.  Afterwards Monica and I headed out on the house hunt.  We saw some pretty good houses on this day, and maybe even found THE house.  It's under construction, but nearly completed.  Anyway, after wandering houses we eventually went back to get our kids and help clean up the mess they made.  Grayson really loved this big rug they had, and just wanted to lay on it most of the time we were there cleaning things up.  Maybe we'll have to get him something like this for his room after we move!

We made sure Grayson didn't fall asleep on the way back to the hotel, and he was much easier to get to sleep Thursday than Wednesday.  We had a double queen room with a pull out couch bed, so we could have everyone in a bed, but it didn't seem like a good idea to have Grayson up that high.  I took some cushions off the chairs and used an extra sheet to make him a little bed on the floor, and that's where he slept!  Also, on this night Winry and Brooke couldn't get along in the hide-a-bed, so Winry ended up sleeping on the couch cushions lined up.  Sleeps 6? More like sleeps 8!  What a room!

We weren't in as much of a rush on Friday morning, so we were able to all go to breakfast together.  The hotel had a Texas shaped waffle maker, so of course everyone wanted a waffle for breakfast.  

To start the day we took the kids up to the house we liked from the day before, and took them to the community areas.  They had a little time to play on the playground and didn't want to leave when it was time to go see the house.

Eventually we went to the house, and it was bug hunt galore!  The kids had fun with roly-polies and one of the workers even brought over a moth!  From here we went to see a few other houses, and we even toured a very similar, house that's about a half hour closer to my work, which is a pretty big advantage.  The house hunting was pretty great, and we found some good options.  Now we've just gotta think about it and decide if one of them is the right house for us.

As mentioned, we headed to Buc-ees, which was over an hour drive from where we were.  Grayson fell asleep, which was perfect because we were hoping he'd take a nap.  After Buc-ees we went to the airport and had a pretty tight timeline to get through.  Luckily we made it through security quickly, and then found out our flight was delayed 45 minutes...  Well, at least we made it on time.  The kids started getting a little crazy on the flight home, and were exhausted by the time we got to the car.

We had condensed the trip a bit because Saturday morning was a 1 mile/5k for Brooke's school.  Brooke really wanted to run it, so that's why we were on a super early and super late flight.  We were trying to get as much time to look at houses as possible.  In the end I'd say the trip was a success, though I don't think I ever want to fly late again...  Anyway, here we are together after some sleep and the 1 mile run!  I ran with Brooke and Monica was going to stay with Winry, but she took off with Brooke and I.  Winry started falling behind a little on the way back, so then Monica went with her.  In the end we all had a really great time.

And they even had a cool 5k sign up that the girls took a picture with.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning and boxing things up for showing our house, and then that evening we had our friends from Breckenridge over!  Shortly before they got here my stomach started to hurt really bad, so I was actually curled up in bed when they came, but everyone else had a great time together.  It looks like they used the old couch cushions as trampolines, so good thing I wasn't able to fit those in our bagster!  Oh, I think that might have been at the start of this week as well.  We got a bagster and I filled it with things we didn't want to take on our move, including our old couch.  Anyway, the Calles ordered pizza for dinner and it sounded like everyone had a great time.

This morning the girls were really excited for Mother's Day and gave Monica their presents right away.  The morning was a rush to get ready because no one bathed the night before, so we had to do showers for all the kids in addition to everything else we usually do Sunday morning.  Also, bathing was not optional because we'd been in Texas, and it was hot.  Grayson even had breakfast in the bath!  We were still able to make it to church on time, so that's great.  At church the girls went up to sing a Mother's Day song.

And that's been our week.  I've mostly spent today getting people ready for church, making food, and trying to keep everyone from fighting too much and giving Monica a bit of space.  Monica had some time to paint flowers, and she's supposed to be upstairs taking a nap right now, but I just heard some very not nap like sounds...

Happy Mother's Day!