Monthly Archives: June 2018

Family fun weekend!

Life has been pulling our family in different directions lately. Tom travels almost every week to either Chicago or Atlanta for a few days (however, he did just spend 10 days in India as well).  A week ago, I was chosen for jury duty which will last about 2 weeks.  The kids have spent their mornings at home but their afternoons are full of swim team and gymnastics.  Of course, now that I am gone everyday for jury duty, they have spent a lot of time at my parents’ house or at playdates.  Because of the busy-ness of our lives, we decided that we need a weekend that was solely committed to our family being together.  We were in desperate need of some quality family time.

We had our usual Friday night “movie night” at home.  We decided to watch Sherlock Gnomes together but it was such a terrible movie, and Tom and I were so tired, that the kids watched the movie while Tom and I slept through most of it.  (Tom sleeps through most movies so it wasn’t quite uncommon. haha.)

Saturday, however, was a great day!  We slept in and then went to see the 10:00am showing of Incredibles 2.  It was such a cute movie!!  We loved the original Incredibles movie and kind of feel like it is what our family would be like should we be super heroes.  When Wilson was little we always called him “Dash”.  He looked like Dash, moved like Dash and even had a shirt with a picture of Dash/the name “Dash” on the shirt.  Incredibles 2 did not disappoint!  Go see it!

In the afternoon, we went to my parents’ house to visit with Grandmama and my Aunt Rebecca who was in town visiting from Colorado.  I don’t get to see Rebecca very often and so it is always a pleasure to see her, catch up and laugh a little together.  I was named after her and I have always felt that I am a bit like her in some ways – we love other cultures, traveling, taking care of others, and of course, we both love the mountains of Colorado.  It was a wonderful visit and I am so glad that she came to see us.

Sunday afternoon was probably the best day out of the whole weekend.  After church, we ate lunch together and then spent the entire afternoon outside by the pool.  The kids’ favorite game is when Tom runs around in circles in the pool and creates a “whirlpool”.  The kids can hardly stand in place when the whirlpool gets moving.  It is very fun and they all laugh the entire time.  I rarely get into the pool, but that day, I had to!  They were having too much fun for me to miss out on it.  While the whirlpool was swirling, we played tag in the pool.  It was such fun!  We swam together and laughed together for hours.  I even jumped into the pool in order to catch a football that Tom was throwing to us. I caught not only the ball, but also got about a gallon of water up my nose.  Ouch!  That was the end of that game for me.  I can’t believe that I can now use the term, “I am too old to be doing that!” (when did 45 get “too old”?)

Our pool is small, but it is still better than no pool at all! I am so thankful for our time together this past weekend.  We needed some family bonding time and we made it happen. I am very grateful

Annual beach trip

This year we had our eighth family beach trip. I am amazed that we have gone to the beach together that many times. It is a trip that we all look forward to every year and this year was no different. The only thing that was different about this year’s trip was that Doug’s new wife, Erin, and her two kids joined us. They were such a great addition to our week and are a great addition to our family! The kids all played so well together, and so did the adults.

Each couple usually gets one date night at some point during the week, and this year we decided to all go out together…twice. :). We had such a fun time together playing pool, having a few drinks and laughing almost non-stop. (I wish I had taken at least one picture).

One new thing that we did was go to the Pirates Voyage show. The show has a giant pirate ship in it and the pirates do some amazing acrobatics throughout the show. The kids said that they liked it better than the Medievil Times because there was more audience participation, and they were right. Tom, Erin, Doug and I were asked to go on stage to compete in a bucket filling race. The kids were shocked to see us up there which made it even more fun.

The rest of the week was filled with fishing, swimming in the pool, boogie boarding, beer drinking, and Banana-gram playing. What more could you want!?!? Another successful beach trip.