San Antonio Stay

The weekend after Kaylee and Ashlyn's birthdays we took a little trip to San Antonio. We've been there several times before, but always to the same destination - Six Flags. I was interested in seeing a little more of the city, so this time Russ took Friday off work so we could do Six Flags AND actually see San Antonio. 

We left home Friday morning and drove the 3 hours to San Antonio. We've never been inside the water park at Six Flags and we wanted to check it out, but it doesn't open until after lunch, so we had time to hit a few rides first. 

Here's Brenna keeping hydrated and looking cool at the same time.

 Ready for the water park!

Ready for the hotel!

Down time at the hotel.

We visited the Alamo first.

Kaylee has been wanting to go since she learned about Texas history in 4th Grade.

It was very hot and humid that day (Texas in the summer, who knew?), so not all our faces were happy and smiling by the time we wrapped up our visit to the Alamo.

Luckily, our next and final stop was the Riverwalk.

Everything you read about visiting San Antonio says "The Riverwalk" is a must see. But it's hard to understand just what it is and how great it is unless you've been there. 

It is a network of pedestrian streets along a riverbank, but it's all a level below the traditional street. There are riverboat tours, ducks, trees and flowers, restaurants, and shops. 

Visiting the Riverwalk was a real highlight of the trip. 

Kaylee's 11th Birthday

Donut date with Dad.

We ate dinner at Kaylee and Ashlyn's favorite restaurant that night. They were each allowed to order the steak burrito from the adult menu. And then the servers surprised them with birthday dessert, complete with complimentary smearing of whipped cream on their noses.

Present Time

Kaylee requested a swimming pool cake. I have to say that I LOVE the way it turned out!

Kaylee had two really fun gifts this year - the first was the news that her cousin Bekah will be coming to visit for a week in July, and the second . . . 

Happy Birthday to Kaylee! She's such an ideal eldest child - obedient and responsible and good at interacting with her younger sisters. We sure love her.

Ashlyn's 9th Birthday

Traditional morning donut date with Dad.

Present Time

Brenna gave her some earrings.

McKell and Ashlyn share a love of Hershey bars, so she gave her the biggest one we could find
(which Ashlyn ate in less than 24 hours).

And Kaylee gave her the "National Treasure" movie.

Harry Potter Birthday Cake

We LOVE this crazy girl.

It was definitely a Harry Potter kind of year for this kid!

Graduation Time

The end of the school year brought 5th Grade Graduation for Kaylee and Kindergarten Graduation for Brenna. It's exciting to see the girls growing up, but a little bit sad at the same time.

The pictures below are of Kaylee on the day of her Kindergarten Graduation, and her 5th Grade Graduation.

Pics with the fam. Brenna was there, but she declined to pose. The 3 girls in the picture look pretty adorable though.

Each of the graduates got to say a few words of thanks, or a favorite memory from elementary school.

The following morning was Kinder Graduation time!

Here's one of the songs the kids performed:

(Sorry the video is so shaky; I'm pretty sure McKell was climbing all over me.)

https://youtu.be/iZK9ufFuh38

Inclement Weather

I think it's mostly immediate family members who read this blog, and all of you have heard our tornado tales already, so I won't recount all the details here. 

Around noon on Thursday, May 26th a tornado came through Bryan, wreaking havoc in the neighborhood adjacent to ours. The day was also filled with rain, lots and lots and lots of rain. As a result of the tornado we lost power for about 12 hours (though some went several days before their power was restored), and the rain resulted in crazy flooding in our area.

I just have a few pictures, which don't give a very accurate picture of what the situation was really like, but here you go anyway:

All the access roads leading to our neighborhood were either flooded out, or blocked by police because of tornado damage, so Russ ended up walking about a mile in the pouring rain to get home. He was trudging through a few feet of water at one point.

 The next two pictures were taken of roughly the same spot. The first was Thursday evening, the second was Saturday morning. It was unbelievable how entire fields were completely submerged.

Gymnastics Mini Olympics

Here are Ashlyn's routines from this year's Mini Olympics:

Balance Beam

I was kind of far away for this one, and someone walked in front of me 

at the best part of the routine, which was her awesome dismount.

Floor Routine

"Vault"

She's in the background.

Bars

Mounting the bar is something she's really struggled with this year, 

so I was super proud of her for nailing it.

Ashlyn was also selected to participate in a gymnastics showcase at the school talent show last month. So here's part of that performance:

https://youtu.be/AdphRBKDYe0

Mother's Day

The Friday before Mother's Day I got to spend time at school with Brenna while the kindergarten students treated their Moms to muffins and manicures.

On Mother's Day morning I got breakfast in bed!

The girls all gave me sweet notes and cards, Russ gave me a rice cooker, and Kaylee gave me a jar filled with 237 reasons why she loves me (enough to read one paper every day for the rest of 2016!)

We had salmon (my favorite dinner) that night, and Kaylee and Ashlyn prepared banana pudding for dessert. Another great Mother's Day for me. :)

Recital Time

Here are the videos from Kaylee's latest piano recital:

The last one was too large to upload to Blogger, so here's the YouTube link:

https://youtu.be/yUqm0HEDf8Y

Kaylee did a great job, as always, and earned a ribbon for getting Superior ratings at the spring Solo Festival and a gold medal for scoring high on the fall Theory Test.