Summer of Fun

Well now that the summer is officially over, I have been in a reflecting mode of where the past 3 months have gone. We didn't go on a "big trip" over the summer, but we were gone almost every weekend on lots of little trips. So here are pictures from our summer of travels.

June 5-7- JD & I took a little pre-anniversary trip to Dallas for the Grand Opening of the new Texas Stadium. It was a perfect combination for us- JD is obsessed with the Dallas cowboys & I am obsessed with George Strait (who was one of the performers for the grand opening concert). So we left the kids with my parents, stayed at the Hyatt downtown, had dessert at the top of Reunion Tower (the revolving restaurant), went shopping & had brunch with my cousin & her family. Overall, it was a relaxing little getaway for just the two of us.

June 12-14- We headed down the Texas coast to Port Aransas, TX with the Tahoe loaded to the brim for the annual Hankins-Kenny family reunion. We even brought our fabulous babysitter, Sarah Jones along to help me watch the kids while JD did guy stuff. On our way down, we stopped in Victoria to have lunch with a girlfriend of mine from law school. We got to see her new house & play with her precious little girl, Penelope. It was so much fun to catch up on life post-law school. We rented a condo close to the beach so all day Saturday Sarah & I hung out on the beach with the kids. Another friend of mine from law school, Sara Giddings lives in Corpus now & she came & spent the day at the beach as well. There were very few moments that entire weekend that we weren't in swimsuits between the beach & the pool at Uncle Doug & Aunt Jenny's house.

June 24-26- Our most spontaneous event of the summer was our quick trip to Omaha to the College World Series. Our favorite team, the LSU tigers were in the championship series. On Monday night, we had several friends over to watch the game. Then Tuesday, I worked all day, had a late meeting & came home exhausted & went straight to bed. Well about 10:30 pm, JD woke me up & said hey LSU just lost so game 3 is tomorrow, want to go? Well I'm always up for a trip & Nebraska is a state I have never been to, so we searched & found flights out of Lake Charles the next morning that would put us there in plenty of time to watch the game. My parents were gracious enough to watch the kids & we had an AMAZING time. It just so happened that our anniversary was the day after the game, so stayed an extra night in Omaha to celebrate our annivesary (again). While we were in Omaha, we cheered on our tigers to a win (of course!), slept late, visited the Omaha Zoo, drove across the bridge to Iowa (another state checked off my list), drove past Warren Buffet's home, ate a yummy steak at Omaha Prime & celebrated 4 years of marriage. The past 4 years have flown by, but I love my husband more & more every day.

July 4th weekend- Well the following weekend, we packed up again & headed to our ranch house in Nacogdoches for the 4th of July weekend. There were like 12 adults & 10 kids under 5 (can't remember the exact number now). It was a fun weekend of grilling, riding four wheelers, fishing, playing cards, & spotlighting at 2 am. We have been blessed to make friends with several families from church who have kids about the same age as ours. I've mentioned our life groups before & most of the couples who went on this weekend getaway are part our life group.

July 13-17- Vacation Bible School. Our theme this year was "Riders of the Great Roundup" which was a cowboy theme. Naturally, my parents provided most of the decorations since their ranch is full of cowboy stuff. Mom & I teamed up & taught the bible story class to the 3 year olds- 1st grade. Anna Kate had so much fun at her first year of VBS to go all by herself (last year I brought her & stayed with her the whole time).

July 17-20- My cousin from Dallas came down with her 2 girls for a weekend visit. Anna Kate & Camille are only 5 days apart & Kate is 5. We had the BEST time riding horses, four wheelers, dune buggies, swimming at Uncle Larry & Aunt Fran's house with more cousins, Jackson & Caroline, & brunch at the Country Club with the whole family.

July 24-27- We realized that we had never made a trip to San Antonio since Will was born to meet JD's grandmother. So we both felt a strong urge that we really needed to make that a priority this summer. On Saturday, JD spent the morning bringing the kids to his grandmothers & great aunts homes while Paige (JD's cousin's wife) headed to the San Marcos outlets. My sweet husband told me to buy myself a purse, so home I came with 2 new Kate Spades & a Coach :) All for less than I would have spent for one full priced, retail one. They were having such great deals, that I actually got a lot of Christmas shopping out of the way. That evening we had dinner with JD's Uncle David & Aunt Danielle. The next day we visited with his Mom, then headed to Justin & Paige's house. That evening we stayed with them, had dinner with Uncle Charley & Chrissy & just watched the kids play. They have 3 kids- Addison (5), Gavin (2) & Gaege (5 months). Anna Kate & Addison played so well together & made lots of cousin memories. We stayed around an extra day to bring the kids to Sea World. We even brought Addison with us. The girls were so fun to watch bounce from one exhibit, show & ride to the next. William even LOVED the Shamu show & just stood there in awe at the whales.

Whew...well that is the highlights of our summer, pre-school starting..I'll get to post-school in a little while. JD started a project at our Sam Rayburn property right after the 4th of July weekend, so he actually worked up there 3-4 days a week for 6 weeks of the past 2 months. So needless to say our cars have a lot more miles & the piles of laundry continue to multiply, but overall we had a fun summer!

*I have pictures from most of these trips, but no time right now to post them. I'll try to add pictures when I have time.