Slipped Away...

School preparation always starts way too early!  This was such a fun summer, I am sad to see it go.  We packed in a lot though!  The last few weeks were spent pretty quietly at home.  Love.

Crafting

Science experiments!

Toe Painting

Quirkle

On our last day home together, we ventured out to the Dallas zoo.  We left at 8:30 and were home by 12.  We were VERY sweaty.  Later on we got all dressed up (just like last year) and went out to eat fancy cupcakes.  A good, bittersweet day.

My fave pic of the day!

Some guy gave us free tickets to the Carousel.
They were so excited!

Adult Time- ATL

Megan arranged for babysitters to come over 2 times while all the adults were in town.  We went out to dinner on Friday night and then to Sweet Water Brewery and The Vortex on Saturday.  So fun to be with my sisters too!  We missed Colleen and Ryan of course!

Bro in Laws

Book Ends.  Chris photo bombs.

*can't fix my wonky pictures... sorry!

Pool, Zoo and Baseball- ATL

Megan has a neighborhood pool just down the street, so we went quite a few times.  The pool has a lot of strict rules, the most important one that you cant be alone under the age of 18.  Almost every time we went, we had the whole pool to ourselves.  We usually packed lunch or even dinner and stayed quite a while.

This is where Elia got her nickname "Elia Franch"

One day we went to the Atlanta zoo!  This was the first day they wore their camp shirts.  Too cute!  It was a very hot day, so off to the pool once we got back.

Missing: Brendan was with mom and dad at the ATL aquarium

One night we went and saw the minor league team play.  Very kid friendly!

Tailgate first

Such a good walker!

Deep Conversations

Cousin Love at its very best!

Cousin Camp- ATL

With school quickly approaching, I am finding less time to look through pictures and create videos and lists like I did for our AZ trip.
 We have put more miles on our beautiful minivan since March than the average family does in a year!  I am so blessed to have 2 months off a year where it is possible for us as a family to do such fun things and see family etc.
We were home for a week in Dallas for 6 days and then we re-packed the car and drove to Atlanta.  Chris flew back to Dallas to work all week and then flew back to Atlanta to help me drive back to Dallas.
Megan and I had been scheming since our visit to ATL last year to come out and do some cousin camp.  I found a lot of stuff on pinterest and sort of themed the week "Dr. Seuss."
We read Green Eggs and Ham, and then made "green eggs and ham" using dyed green pudding and Nilla wafers.  Huge hit with the littles.

We read Red Fish Blue Fish and did a graphing project with rainbow goldfish.

We read The Lorax and did some sweet and condensed milk painting.  Very fun for the kiddos, but the painted papers stuck to themselves and got a little smelly by the next day.

Sorry this Bday card never got to you Uncle Ryan.  It was too sticky and smelly!

Aunt Shanny's genius Shark-Nado picture.

Another thing we did was put white roses in different colored food dye (I couldn't find carnations) and after 3 days, 3 roses were dead, 1 was very light pink and 1 was very light green.  Sort of a flop.  Don't always believe pins from pinterest!  This is a lie!

We did Christmas in July and read The Grinch that day. 

We skyped Grandma and she read them some Christmas stories.

We read Fox in Socks as well but I had no pictures for that.  It was nice to put a little structure in the cousin's mornings.  We re-read a lot of Dr. Seuss at night too.  What a fun week!

Top 10 of our Trip- #10

I didn't have a physical #10 to write about.  Being with family is always so great.  These Rowles are so fun to get together!  Miss everyone already!

A few hours before we all packed up and left.

Top 10 of our Trip- # 9

9. Extreme Flagstaff
Ziplines, rope crawls, and swinging from tree to tree is what this place was all about.  I sat this one out too, and the cousins had lots of fun cheering on their grandpa, uncles, and aunts!

Love this one of Aunt Becky!

Gabby watching Aunt Sarah

They hadn't seen each other in like, 15 minutes.  What a reunion.

Top 10 of our Trip- # 8

8. Bearizona
This place was just like Fossil Rim, but with carnivorous animals as well.  A baby white buffalo had been born that morning, so that was really fun to watch all the big buffalo help the little guy walk on wobbly legs.  Bearizona was also a huge hit with the kiddos.  Afterwards, there was a bird show where we got some great pictures.

New baby!

Love this action shot!

This is a great video of a bear taking a bath and then walking right past our car!

Top 10 of our Trip- #7

7. Brother and Uncle Bonding
It just seems that there is not enough testosterone in our house.  Not that Chris is lacking ANY; but a mom, 2 girls and a female dog lead to a lot more My Little Pony, dress up, and tea parties than crazy boy stuff that I know Chris craves sometimes. He had been looking forward to doing an overnight trip with his brothers and Vince like last year.  Instead of an overnight, they decided to do an all day creek swim/walk.  With the dogs too.  First time that Daria went swimming, and Chris said she held her own pretty well next to Vince and Mikey's dogs.
Elia also flirted and played with her uncles all trip.  We have even had to call them on the phone so she could say hi since we got back.  Gianna, and of course Phoebe and Gabby, always enjoy their uncles too.

They found tiny frogs on their creek walk.

Elia told Danny he is her favorite, in front of Patrick who has put in a  LOT of time in Dallas.
He took it in stride though.

Here we are waiting to get into Salsa Brava, which is a DDD restaurant.