Finishing Strong...

Well, summer is SCREECHING to a halt (like it or not!) and we are squeezing every last moment out of it!

Today, we spent the day at the Fort Worth Nature Center where we stayed just long enough to get hot, tired, hungry, cranky, and stung by what I'm supposing was hornets (okay, that last one was only John Wesley but it was the highlight of the hike for sure!).

After a look at some of the animals at the nature center, a couple of short hikes, and a picnic, we were on our last hike...a little jaunt to explore the island...talking about alligators (Parker was pretty sure they are nocturnal!), big fish, snakes, and other scary critters we hoped not to see. As we hiked further and further into the great wilderness, the kids got pretty far ahead of Kristy, Landry, and me. All of the sudden, we hear BLOOD CURDLING SCREAMS as the entire pack of kids is running as fast as they can back toward us! There was so much screaming and comotion, it took me a minute to process what I was seeing. As they raced closer, I could see a SWARM of some sort of bugs following closely behind!

Once they reached us, we figured out it was John Wesley who had been stung. I could see several stings on his hand and he was just wailing, flailing, and going NUTS! I tried (unsucessfully) to calm him and asked him if he had been stung anywhere else. He sobbed, "yeeeessss!" I asked, "Where?" He said, "I don't know. Everywhere, somewhere!" (Well that certainly narrows it down!)

Upon further examination, he has 8 stings on his hand, one on his upper lip, one on his leg, and one on his upper back! I believe that's a grand total of ELEVEN! He got eleven times more stings in one fowl swoop than I have had in my entire life! He's a tough little bugar and with a little icepack and some encouragement from his friends, he was smiling again in no time!





We finished the day at the pool. Jordan, Alex, Abbee, and Parker did some serious Olympic swimming while Emma, Lexie, Luke, Landry, and JW managed to get right in their way! They broke some serious records and I'm pretty sure there is a future Michael Phelps in the bunch. It was great fun until the BEAUTIFUL summer rain forced us indoors.

Tomorrow, we pack for our last summer hoorah to the mountains! I'm looking forward to sitting in the coolness and doing some serious reading and relaxing...I'm hoping my kids are down with that plan!

So, there you have it! Any last minute plans for finishing YOUR summer with a bang???