What'd you do this summer?

I worried my kids didn't get to do enough fun stuff this summer - so it made me think, what the heck did we do these last two months? Once I thought about it... we've had a lot happen over the last two months... even if Shamu was never involved.

Here's a few highlights from 

our summer adventures.

Bought our first house.

painted, painted, carpeted, and painted our new house

(thanks Mom, Rob and Becks... and Ali and Cole for babysitting)

My Mom came to visit and bought be a camera so I can take pictures again :)

We moved for the 11th time in our nearly 14 years of marriage - ugh.

Got to replace a dishwasher and garbage disposal - yay for foreclosures!

 

Cut off over a foot of hair.

 Braces and Girls Camp for the first time.

Lots of Dress-ups

Friends

 Ali turned 12 and is now in Young Women's!

Killed on bird on the way to the temple.  Yuck.

(Don't worry Mutti and Papa... it all came off your car)

and LOTS of Swimming!

Although our summer didn't have more than a 30 mile radius - it was definitely an eventful one!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Graduation Smaguation

She passed Kindergarten!!!
(Not sure why she was worried)

Yup.  Macy is the Kindergardener... not Jane

Hot Dog picnic on the school's lush lawns...

Macy, Her Teacher and a creepy...I mean cute, little girl in the back.

WAY TO GO, MACY!!!

13 years in the making...

Mike and I had our doubts if we would pull off buying a house before Ali graduated high school (kind of a sad statement now that I say it out loud). But we pulled it off!!  That "we" was used generously... there was LOTS of divine intervention.

We had given up on pursuing buying a home for a few more years when this house was sat in our laps. Just around the corner for our current rental. Foreclosure, $100 down, enough square footage, enough bedrooms, enough baths... right school, right neighborhood, still close to kids friends... sprinklers for lawn (my favorite) :)

First impression when we walked in the house was "what's that smell?" followed by, "we aren't really going to consider buying this, are we?" But the more I've gotten to know the house, the more potential I see in it.

Here's the before pics.... have to put on your imagination caps to see the potential.. it's there, I promise.

Going to spend a few weeks sprucing it up before we move in. 

But we are THRILLED.

Closing next week.  Moving in the end of June.

Easter Hunt 2012

Pflugerville Ward Easter Egg Hunt 2012

Bunnies

Smile!

Eggs!

 

Chick Cupcakes for the Cake Walk

I mustache you a question.

This was a valentine from Cole. A little late getting it on here, but I love it.

I mustache you a question...

Will you be my valentine?

Wildflowers? In Austin?

When we moved here people raved about the wildflowers.  Just wait til spring, they'd say. All the bluebells and wildflowers, it's beautiful! Then spring came, and some tiny 6 inch bluebells began to sprout here and there in random fields. Giving the color pop that dandelions do on a weedy lawn.

I wasn't impressed.

I thought to myself, are these Texans so starved for beautiful landscape that they really think these are something special? I settled on that. Texans are a little dillusioned, after all (did I just make up a word?).

Then this winter came. Wet and wonderful, unlike last year. And with that moisture came a very different spring.  Bluebells and the miles and miles of beautiful yellow wildflowers lining the free way and every open field in sight.

Okay.  I get it. It is pretty.

Seeing Green

Our family has a yearly tradition of eating an all green meal on St. Patty's day. This year we roped Becky and Rob's family into joining us.

Becky made a delicious lasagna with noodles dyed green. We had green dinner rolls, green salad with green goddess ranch dressing and mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Mike was a little chicken eating seconds of the green lasagna (even though he loved it). He decided in years to come we're just doing green pancakes (maybe I'll sneak in green eggs too) :)

These aren't our dinner, but look a bit like what we ate :)

What did you do for spring break?

We're not very exciting. We're the first to admit it. But our poor kids seem to pay the price after any break. "What did you do this summer?" is frequently met with "Uh. Nothing."

In an attempt to give them a tad more exciting answer we took them to a local ice cream factory for a tour. The tour was free and we got to try their delicious ice cream at the end! Yum!

                                          

Here they're loading up some of their Sweet Cream Ice Cream (vanilla without vanilla in it)
The ice cream is almost like a silky, thick whip cream when it comes out.

Found out that ice cream has a little bit of seaweed in it to keep the ingredients from separating.

Freezers to harden the ice cream a bit.
They make up to 800 gallons a day. Not bad for a little company.
Their best seller is their Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream. The have over 300 flavors
including a maple bacon, and jalapeno ice cream.

Girls on the Amy Cow

Nothing like riding a blue cow by a busy street.

They had a fun playground outside their shop.
Macy was loving this spinning sit.