We started summer off with a bang! The girls' last day was Thursday, but teachers had to work half a day on Friday. Once we got home, we went to Sonic with the neighbors and their kids. Then we blew up the water slide and let them play for a while.
On Saturday, we got suckered into the carnival set up in the mall parking lot. Ava is our little daredevil, and loved every ride that was there! Elia is definitely a lot more cautious about which rides she gets on.
On Sunday we went to church and then took the girls to their end of season soccer party with a big water slide. They had a blast!
On Monday, we took the girls to Cici's pizza for lunch. Then we went bowling and checked out the new International Farmer's Market.
Once we got home, the ice cream man came, and how can you resist the ice cream man on a hot summer day?
The girls played with sidewalk chalk while Kevin tried to clean my grooming job on Miley.
On Tuesday, we loaded up the van and took a little 2 day trip to Little Rock. Our first stop was the water park there. The girls had a BLAST! They are like little fish in the water!
Once we had enough of the water and sun, we checked into our hotel.
Then we ate dinner and walked around a local mall.
On Wednesday, we went to the Discovery Museum in Little Rock. It was a pretty fun place!
Here is Ava pulling her own weight:
Elia building a maze with a ball:
Ava laying on a bed of nails:
Elia making shadows:
The girls doing a newscast:
This shows how much blood is in Elia's body:
And this is the amount of blood in Kevin's body:
Kevin and Elia building a skeleton:
Ava showing the length of our large intestines: (YUCK!)
Kevin and the girls building a building to be tested in a pretend earthquake:
Elia playing with a huge thing: (not real sure what to call it)
The coolest thing was the tornado exhibit! You could go into a little pretend workshop and there would be a pretend tornado that came through. The girls were too afraid to go in it so Kevin and I went in. I have to admit. I was pretty scared myself and pray that we never have to experience anything like that! Here are some pictures outside of the exhibit:
Whew! That's a lot for just one week! We still have 8 weeks to go! We love our summers!!!
The last week of school was a busy one. It felt like we had something going on every day during the school day and every night after school. Ava's awards program was during the day on Monday. Thankfully, our principal gets someone to cover our classes so we can see our own kids' programs. Ava received honor roll, citizenship, and the award for the most AR points for her class.
Elia received an award for honor roll and citizenship. I sure am proud of my girls and all their hard work!
Kevin also had his FFA awards program that same week.
Of course, Ava was all over "daddy's FFA boys" as Ava calls them.
Here are a few pictures from the program:
Of course, Ava passed out on the way home. I love how she was sound asleep but holding on to the balloons.
We also had Elia's try-outs for competitive soccer the last week of school. I only took this one picture because I was a nervous wreck watching all the coaches walk around with clip boards. She made the team and we are so excited to see how she does this soccer season!
Of course, I have to leave you with a picture of our other sweet girl, Miley. Here is a picture of her one morning when I was getting ready for school. She was worn out from our busy week.
Let the summer begin!!! 9 weeks of staying up late, sleeping in, going to the pool, playing in the cove, and having fun!!!
We went to our niece, Kaitlin's, high school graduation this weekend. It brought up a lot of emotions for me about how life goes by in the blink of an eye! Kaitlin was just one when Kevin and I got married. I remember her just getting over the chicken pox when she was at our wedding. Here is a picture of Kaitlin with her mom and dad at our wedding.
Here is Kaitlin at her graduation with her mom and dad. She graduated as saludatorian, and got a full scholarship to Clemson. We are so proud of you Kaitlin!
As I sat there and watched Kaitlin walk across the stage at her graduation, it occurred to me that we will be attending my girls' graduation before we know it. I realized that it has been 9 years since Elia was born. We have the same number of years, 9, before Elia is the one walking across that stage. Of course, Ava will be right behind her! The first 9 years have literally flown by! This weekend was a good wake up call to me to hold my girls and give them my all every chance I can because they will be grown and off to college before I can blink!
Here is a recap of our weekend in Nashville:
The girls LOVE to take a trip. It doesn't matter where we are going. They just love to climb in the car, put the DVD player in, and go! While they did sleep a little on the way to Nashville, they also acted silly along the way.
Once we got to Nashville, we went to a restaurant with the family. Kaitlin opened her graduation gifts.
Then Kaitlin went home to get ready while we went to the Opry Mills mall. Our first stop was the Lego store. Elia was heaven! That girl loves legos! Unfortunately, she only had $20 of her allowance and that won't buy much in the Lego Store.
Ava used her allowance at Build-A-Bear!
Then we shopped a little more.
The girls rode the tea cups! I almost got sick just watching them! They loved it!
Then we went to the graduation.
After the graduation, we waited for Kaitlin to come back out so we could snap some Kodak moments. We took these of the girls while we waited:
Here is a picture of Kevin and his two brothers:
And Kaitlin with the girls:
We drove back to Arlington the same night and got in about midnight. Around 4 am this morning, Ava woke me up with a stomach ache only to be followed by a serious amount of throwing up. We were supposed to go to Faith Arlington's new member lunch. However, we didn't think we should take Ava and make others sick so we stayed home. Poor Ava fell asleep on the sofa outside on the back patio. She slept for a little over an hour. Then I woke her up and discovered she was running almost 102 fever. Poor thing!
She has her 1st grade awards program tomorrow so we are praying she will get better soon. I could complain that she needs my constant attention right now but I will remember that I want to soak up every moment, even the ones when she is sick because there will come a time in the very near future when she may get sick but she will be many miles away from home without her mom to comfort her! While at the graduation, I was talking to Elizabeth, Kaitlin's mom. She said to me "I have a feeling she will never come back home." What she meant was that she knows Kaitlin will come home on weekends and summers but she will never live at home on a regular basis. She is all grown up now and ready to start her life on her own. Love those babies as hard and as long as you can!!!!!!! They really do grow up in the blink of an eye!!!!!!
