FUNtastic Weekend

Friday night, we met my sister and her family in East Texas for some Friday night lights! Had I remembered my camera, I wouldn't have needed to steal a picture off of Ryan's Facebook page from LAST YEAR! Also, if Wes would get ME an iphone too, I wouldn't need to be able to remember my camera. But, whatever. I'm not the least bit bitter!

JW has never been to a football game (I know. It's a crime against humanity.) and at some point during the first quarter I glanced down to see if he was enjoying himself. I completely caught him mimicking the moves of the CHEERLEADERS!

That boy needs a brother.

Both Ryan and Andrew had a great game, and thankfully, they won 47 to 20 so I didn't have to have any kind of cardiac infarction.

We spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out and enjoying a little country life including, but not limited to, a huge bonfire in the yard that was SO HOT you couldn't stand close enough to roast your marshmallows. Sadness. Complete and utter sadness!

The kids always enjoy seeing their cousins and the time always passes much too quickly! I hope to head back in the next couple of weeks to catch at least one more ball game before Ryan graduates.

GRADUATES? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE???!! (*sniffle*).

Maybe I'll remember my camera.

Or have an iphone.

Yeah.

Right.

Burger's Lake on Tuesday

My sister's family came to visit last week. We planned a few fun things to do while they were here! First stop: Burger's Lake!

Here are my nephews rocking the high dive...



How cute is this girl?


And this one?
Charlee, Abbee, Emma, and Lex...
Lexie, JW, and Emma...
Daylee napping in the shade...
Our two 3 year olds completely usurped this little cutie from her sand castle building throne!
Hottie Hubby... judging by his smile, this picture was taken BEFORE his high diving catastrophe!
Britt and Leigh...
JP, Sarah, Meagan...
Cutie Pie, Randee Roo...
Trampus, Charlyn, Leigh, and James...
Everywhere we went, Glory and Randee insisted on riding with LeeLee! After a FULL day of swimming and playing, my sister asked me not to let them fall asleep on the way home. I think I did a fabulous job of following orders, don't you?

Burger's Lake was clean, shady, and super fun! And the best part? Our family is SO BIG, we got the group discount!! SCORE!

Sipapu

WARNING: THIS POST IS FULL OF PICTURES AND VACATION MEMORIES...READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

It's been so crazy with all the back to school buzz, I haven't had the chance to blog about our WONDERFUL vacation to the mountains. On Saturday, August 16, at approximately 4:30 a.m., our family (along with my brothers...James and Joe...and their families, and my Mom...AKA Nani) hopped into three cars and began what would be a 12 1/2 hour journey to Sipapu Ski Resort in New Mexico. This is the first time we have all vacationed together (not counting a few weekend trips to the lake to camp). We were all CRAZY EXCITED about the trip...especially since so many of our cousins were going too! Here we are at our first rest stop...

Those of you who know me know that when given the choice between beach and mountains, I will go with the beach 100% of the time. Unfortunately, Wes is the exact opposite. So every year when deciding where to vacation, we argue between the two! When he finally convinced me to spend a week in a cabin in the mountains, THIS is what I was thinking...
Yeah...not so much! I didn't think to photograph our less than quaint "cabin" (a term that can apparently be used as a synonym for 1964 mobile home complete with original appliances, squeaking could-give-way-at-any-minute floors, and a couple of add-ons that make up a living room and a prison style bunk room)but trust me, it looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like what my sweet little imagination had dreamed up as I thought of how nice the cool mountain air was going to be in August for a Texas girl!

But, we didn't let what would become affectionately know as our "glorified tent" hinder our dreams of having the best week ever! With ten kids in tow, we couldn't help but enjoy everything that nature had to offer! These six are patiently awaiting a fishing pole to be made ready for their little hands...
These two spent hours and hours trying to catch chipmonks!
We never knew when the showers were going to hit but it rained almost every afternoon we were there! Sometimes it caught us off guard...
Glory LOVED throwing things into the lake!
Here are James and Brandon with our first day's catch...
Notice the number of spoons Glory is using...she would take one spoon and dip the soup, pour it into the second spoon, then pick up the third spoon and repeat the process...THEN she would take a bite! There wasn't much soup left in the spoon by that point!! It was too cute!
We spent a great deal of our time fishing...



These girls and Glory LOVED picking flowers...

We asked some "locals" where there was an easy hike (for the sake of the kids of course, not because we were feeling a little out of shape in the higher altitude!) and they recommended trail #7...said there was a waterfall about a mile up. What they failed to mention was that the waterfall was about a mile STRAIGHT UP! It was a tiny little path straight up the mountain with no handrail, guardrail, or escalator! We stopped with Nani occassionally but we did all finally make it all the way up to the waterfall! The kids had a blast crawling in behind it (too bad I didn't get any good pictures of that...you'll have to watch for those on Leigh's blog.Here are some pictures from the hike...



One night, our s'more making got rained out so being the forward thinkers that we are, we just had s'mores for breakfast instead!!
Here's what I learned from our week in the mountains...if you take a bunch of kids and just stick them in the middle of God's beautiful creation with nothing but their imaginations and each other, they are guaranteed to have the time of their lives! These guys never whined, complained, or argued! And, I'm not even kidding! They spent hours and hours enjoying the great outdoors.






Spending time with the people you love the most in a place that screams to the glory of God...it just doesn't get much better than that!