The Karate Kid

Macy took karate again this summer and loved it once again. She recently tested for her yellow belt and got it! It was a big deal and Ben and I were so proud of her. All five of us went to watch her test and she did great! She is taking classes this fall (in addition to soccer) so it keeps her pretty busy. But so far she is enjoying it and not complaining about having to go to class after a busy day at school. In fact, she already has two stripes on her yellow belt which means she may be testing for her next color belt soon! Way to go Macy!

Other Things We Did This Summer

We did some traveling this summer (see previous post) but we also had some fun at home. Here are some things we did:

Swim. Aubrey LOVED the water. She had absolutely no fear which made for some interesting trips to the pool!

The girls went to summer camp at Heritage on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every Thursday they took a field trip. Here they are at the Fort Worth zoo. 

Macy finally lost her first tooth!

Roughriders baseball game with friends.

 One day while Ben and Ava were playing golf, Macy decided to raid our closet and play dress up. It was pretty funny.

Hanging out with mom while the big girls play.

At a friend's petting zoo birthday party:

The Ramers came for their annual summer visit and we went to the Dallas World Aquarium. 

 Checking out the sharks!! 

Such a fun and busy summer! Can't believe it went by so fast! 

First Day of First Grade

I am working hard (if blogging counts as hard work) to catch up on all of the blogging that I didn't do this summer.  But first things first.... first grade!!!

Ava and Macy are at a brand new school this year. Hosp Elementary. It is in our neighborhood and we get to walk to and from school which the girls LOVE! It is such a nice way to start the day. It gets them moving before school and Aubrey gets to go on a little morning stroll. It is great. After school isn't quite as fun because it is HOT but hopefully around mid October we will enjoy the after school stroll a little more. And when it gets to be 30 degrees in January, carpool here we come! : )


Meet the teacher night:

Ava and Mrs. Webb. 

Macy and Mrs. Landphair. 

When Ben was about to take their picture he said, "Macy, no silly faces." And Mrs. Landphair said, "Let's both do one silly face!" And she won me over right there. : )

Breakfast before school. 

Discussing the day ahead. With Aubrey about to topple over a chair in the background. 

A couple of years ago I started the tradition of having them hold up a sign on the first day of school that says what they want to be when they grow up. Well, this year I forgot so we did it a few days late. 

Veterinarian (I should have stuck with "vet" b/c I think I spelled it wrong on her sign).

Scientist that studies animals. (I see a theme!)

Silly faces. And once again Aubrey climbing on something in the background. 

Summer Travels

Ben travels quite a bit for work. Although we would love to have him at home all the time, there are a few perks to his frequent business trips. He racks up hotel points and frequent flier miles which means family vacations are more affordable and sometimes we even get to tag along! Here is a rundown of some traveling that we did this summer. 

On June 5th, Ben and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. We actually didn't do much celebrating on that day but we went to Mexico several days later which was such a treat. We went to Punta Mita and LOVED it. It was beautiful and relaxing and perfect. A big THANK YOU to ALL of our family for helping out with the kids while we were gone for a full week. When you have 3 kids and you leave the country for 7 days, it really does take the whole extended family to keep things running smoothly. Here are a few pics of our trip.

The view from the lobby of our hotel. Paradise!

The view from our hotel room.

We saw beautiful sunsets every single night. 

Checking out the golf course. 

We came back to our room one night to find this. : )

Punta de Mita is a fishing village so every restaurant had delicious and fresh seafood. At this restaurant, if you ordered the catch of the day, these boys would bring around a pole with fish hanging off of it and let you pick the fish that you wanted. We didn't do it but some people next to us did. 

This was a boat/restaurant right on the beach that was part of our resort. We ate lunch there every day. The food was simple but some of the most delicious food I have ever eaten. I would give anything for one of their shrimp tacos right now! 

Every St. Regis hosts a champagne ritual on Friday nights. They typically do this little ceremony where they use swords to pop the cork to the champagne but on this particular night the hotel manager popped the cork by hitting with a golf club!

Our last meal was at this quaint little restaurant in town. They didn't have a menu but asked us a few questions about what type of food we liked, how hungry we were, etc and then prepared us a meal without us knowing what we were getting. Luckily it was all delicious! The above picture was 4 lobster tails but in the middle was this enormous lobster head (just for decoration and photo ops!). 

They made us our very own romantic dessert because we told them we were celebrating our anniversary. 

I went to Northwest Arkansas for my annual girls weekend with my college friends. I look forward to this weekend all year long. It is so fun to spend time with my best friends! Ben held down the fort while I was gone. Ava ended up getting really sick and had a 104.8 fever! It scared both of us to death but luckily it was on Friday afternoon so he was able to take her to the pediatrician. It ended up being a virus and she was kind of puny all weekend but was better by the time I got home on Sunday. Ben handled it all like a pro and I think the girls really enjoyed their down time with their daddy that weekend.

Finally, we took the girls to New York City over the 4th of July weekend. Ben had to be in New York for work the week of the 7th so we decided to tag along for a long weekend before he had to work. Our original plan was to take Aubrey with us, but the more I thought about it, I decided that NYC would be REALLY hard with a toddler. Mom came to take care of her while the rest of us hit the Big Apple. We left the morning of the 4th and got to NYC that afternoon. We stayed in Times Square so we walked around there and went to the giant Toys R Us that is there. We also rode the Subway to Little Italy and had a delicious Italian dinner.

When you travel with Ben, you travel in style. The picture above and below were taken in the Admirals lounge while waiting on our flight. These girls don't know how good they have it! 

Ava was a little scared of the super tall (3 stories high) ferris wheel at Toys R Us. 

Macy wouldn't even get on it. 

Just a little windy. : )

We spent all of Saturday in Central Park. We went to the zoo and the amusement park. The girls LOVED climbing all of the really tall rocks throughout the park. We also hit Dylan's Candy Bar that afternoon which is a candy store that is 3 stories tall and has every kind of candy that you could ever imagine. Heaven for Ava and Macy! That night we went to dinner and then went to Bryant park to chill out and enjoy the scenery and beautiful weather.

Resting on the rocks. 

Sunday we rode the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. We took the stairs to the pedestal. Ava kept asking to go all the way to her crown but we felt like the pedestal was high enough.  : )  We also went to the 911 memorial and the new Freedom Tower. After lunch the girls were begging to go back to Central Park to climb rocks. We decided we should take them hiking on our next vacation! That night we went to a "fancy" dinner. No restaurants in NYC have kids menus or plastic cups so they thought that every restaurant was "fancy." ha ha!

In the museum there was a life size replica of the Statue of Liberty's foot. Her big toenail is bigger than Ava's head!

Monday morning Ben had to go to work and the girls and I had a few hours to kill before our flight so we headed down to Times Square to see if we could catch the last 20 minutes of Good Morning America. We ended up walking up right when Robin Roberts was finishing up a segment outside. We didn't get an autograph or a picture with her but we were SUPER close to her. We spent a little more time at Bryant park and then because I was too nervous to venture out in the city by myself with the girls, we went to a movie in the theater attached to our hotel. We went to see Malificent and now whenever anyone asks the girls what they did in New York they say, "We saw Malificent!" Really? THAT is what you remember? After all of the other things we did?!?!

It was such a great trip! The girls behaved themselves and really enjoyed it. We didn't over schedule ourselves but still did lots of great things! We can't wait to go back!