Back at School

Blake
Kuentz Elementary School
2nd Grade - Mrs. Snyder
The word Blake used to describe the first day, "Awesome!"  He said his favorite part of the first day was recess because he had fun on the swings.  The teacher was great and awesome.  Everything was awesome.

Julia
Kuentz Elementary Schol
4th Grade - Mrs. Rodriguez
Her favorite part was playing a clapping game, but she says it was also difficult.  They also played a game to learn everyone's name.  She said, "I feel like this school year is so special.  It is a better first day than any other first day."

Brayden
7th Grade - Jefferson Middle School
Brayden describing his first day said, "Everything was awesome.  At first there were no friends in my class. I made friends with 6th graders on the bus.  I like gym because I have a lot of my friends in there.  Half of the class are my friends.  So far I like this school year way better, it is going to be way awesomer.  All the 8th grade people left, so it is way better."

Kylee
9th Grade - O'Connor High School
Kylee describing her first day said, "It was good.  My geography teacher has a british accent.  He calls everyone a lassie and little nippers." She says she has 1 or 2 friends in each of her classes.  Kylee forgot to make arrangements for lunch with friends.  She says she couldn't find anyone at first, "I didn't eat lunch because I didn't want to lose JoJo again.  I went with her and her friend to the library and I checked out some books.  I saw Stephanie in the library.  Don't like the teacher in science.  I liked geometry because I have 2 friends in there.  If you don't have your friends in your class you won't see them because there are too many people."

Thin Air School Celebration

Gabi introduced us to Thin Air trampoline park last summer.  They have a Monday night special allowing whole family admission for a lot cheaper than paying by the person, especially if there are seven people in your family.  We had wanted to go as a family some time in the summer, but it never worked out.  So, since Matt took the first day of school off we decided to go for family home evening that night.  It was a good family activity.  The older kids spent most of their time doing the "American Ninja Warrior" obstacle course and jumping into the foam pits.  Asher had fun jumping on the trampolines.

Asher

Blake

Julia

Brayden

Kylee

Matt

Asher's 2nd Birthday

Asher's birthday was on a Sunday.  He slept in, so we all went into his room and sang happy birthday to him.  He was excited.  We had a cinnamon roll breakfast.  After breakfast Asher opened up his gifts. He was so excited with every gift he opened.  It was soo cute to see his facial expressions.  He had to hand off any little bit of wrapping paper he pulled off the present to Blake or Brayden to throw away.  They started arguing about who would get the next piece to throw away.  Asher has started to look forward to bedtime reading time, so we got him some more books.  I loved watching Blake sit next to Asher and read the books to him.  Everyone was excited about the tumble train that Kylee gave Asher.  They all participated in putting it together and had fun watching it roll around the living room.   That evening for Sunday dinner we had the Herreras and Moores over to help us celebrate his birthday.  Kylee decorated the sock monkey cake since Matt was busy with Sunday calling commitments. 

He still loves his blanket(s) and holds a corner to his nose to sooth himself

"He bite you" - books with pictures of animals, stuffed animals and anything that has a mouth

He loves to be outside and gets upset if he sees his siblings outside but can't join them

He is a great sleeper, usually sleeps until about 8 am

He loves to do his reading time before bed

He still loves all kinds of fruit and probably is the staple of his diet

He wants to go upstairs and play when the kids get home from school

When we get in the car he will ask me, "where going?"  He will ask over and over even after I answer

He loves to watch the cats in the backyard

He asks where everyone is when we are home alone

He likes to repeat what we say.  If we ask him a question he will just say the last thing we said.  

He asks "What's this?" for everything he doesn't know the name for. 

He gets super red and sweaty when he spends anytime outside, even for a short time.  He runs hot.  

Blake pods

Our children feel a little neglected because they don't have their own electronic devices, so they have to build their own out of legos.  Brayden claims that they did these a long time ago with Kylee.  He found it and decided to fix it, then they started making a lot of them.  They started making different editions, number 6 or 7, or XL.  They will pretend play and push the "buttons".

Frio River - Neal's Day Trip

We had really enjoyed our previous experiences river tubing as a family, so when the Caraways told us about their favorite place to go we decided we should check it out.  We headed out to Neal's Lodges on the Frio River on a Monday morning.  We got out the door later than planned and didn't arrive until around 11 AM.  We were able to reserve campsite #3  for the day, which had a little spring water creek running through it into the river.  The spring water was extra cold and the site was nice and shaded which was perfect for the hot Texas summer.   Matt brought a lot of ice creams in a cooler with dry ice as well.

We brought food, but left the box with bread and chips on our kitchen counter.  Fortunately Matt was able to buy some at a little convenience store at the check in office.   Matt tried to give Asher a different popsicle than the rest of us, but he wanted the good stuff.

The weather was perfect and there were not a lot of people there.  The kids had fun on a rope swing next to our camp site, jumping off of rocks, and going down a giant water slide into the river.  Blake was too light and had to scoot himself along at the bottom of the slide.  Asher enjoyed throwing rocks, which Matt would pick up from the bottom of the river and hold for him to throw.  Matt set up his hammock, but didn't really get to use it.  Asher didn't want to take a nap in it, but later fell asleep as Matt took him for a walk.  We set him on an inner tube to sleep.

Julia had a rough day.  She didn't really have the rope swing technique down and dragged herself on the ground trying to swing into the river.  She got a big scrape across her leg and bum.  Later she lost one of her Keen river shoes in an area with a muddy river floor, and then hurt her knee.

We ended up staying until about 7 and then ate dinner at Rudy's on the way home.  The kids were tired when we got home close to 10 PM.  

volleyball

One of the volleyball games we went to we saw Julia's Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Lehr.  She was a great teacher and I was the Mom that would come in and help her with making copies for the class.

We wanted to do volleyball in a previous season, but did not have luck with coaches.  The person we were assigned was not very nice to the girls.  She kept threatening to make them run if they let the ball fall on the ground.  We went to go to the sports director and got them changed to a different team, but they didn't want us on the team.  That new coach called cynthia and told her.  So, we didn't do that season and got a refund to go towards another season.  We ended up doing the late summer season with a coach that cynthia had before that was really nice.  She turned out to be the mother of Julia's friend Ainsley from school.  She was great.  Julia is a little afraid of the ball.  She admitted to me that she closes her eyes when she is hitting the ball.  That explains why she will barely miss it. She enjoys doing it with Natalia.

senior nationals

We were excited to hear that Senior Nationals were going to be at our High School Natatorium right by our house.  Cynthia and I decided to go and take Kylee, Brayden, and Tatiana with us.  It was fun to go because there were some bigger names that were attending the meet, like Michael Phelps.  He had been out of the sport for a bit and he was making his comeback that year.  We only saw a few events because the meet was split up into several days.  We saw the womens 100 meter Breaststroke, mens 100 meter Butterfly, womens 50 meter Freestyle, mens 50 meter Freestyle, womens 400 meter IM, and a womens relay.  The exciting event that everyone wanted to watch was the mens 100 Meter Butterfly that Michael Phelps was in.  He did really well, he was pretty close to his best time and got first place.  A lot of the people watching the meet were only there to see him swim.  As soon as he finished about half of the people seated in the stands left.  That made it nicer for us because we could get some better seats.