More summer fun!

So this summer as I said before we spent a LOT of time up in San Antonio with Idas family.  One of the weekends I headed up there to help her clan and organize and she helped me make my first quilt.  It was fun and hard and I love how it turned out.  

 You can't really see it very well but the stitching is a big star shape.  We called it a Kapow (like the old comics when they would punch someone) The main band on the side is a superhero cartoon print so we tried to go along with that. 

 You can see it a little better on the back.  Tolsons cousin Rory has a quilt made out of the same fabrics so now they have twin quilts.  It was fun to make and he loves it. 

 In other news we have been spending a lot of time building legos at our house.  The afternoons are so hot that we spend a lot of time inside.  ( now don't go thinking I am a good mom and don't let my kids watch TV when its so hot outside, I do) We just love to play with legos.  Tolson got a set that builds 6 different automobiles so we have been doing that a lot. 

 He also loves to get very creative with them and build new "inventions" he calls them. 

And really how an you resist this cute face!  

Brekenridge Park and the Sunken Gardens

This was our trip to the Japanese Sunken Gardens.  This was a quary that they turned into a beautiful garden.  There were lots of trails and ponds and plants and lots of huge koi fish to look at.

 Ahhhh look how cute we are!  We really enjoyed walking around in such a beautiful place. 

Adalee and her favorite Delaney.  Such beautiful girls!

 The boys love Dalaney too!  (whats not to love really!)  This was riding on the train around brekenridge park. 

We tried for several minutes to get a good family shot and this is the best we got.  Not too bad!  

Zoo Trip

So we spent a lot of time up in San Antonio this summer and one of the trips we went to the zoo there. It was hot but there is a lot of shade so we had fun anyway!

Tolson and Rory riding the Lions!

 
Making funny faces on the Hippos!
 
 Hot and tired and riding a very small Elephant!

Adalee playing the the otters!

We all had a great time!  It is a lot bigger then our Tucson zoo but was well worth the day!!!! 

Picture Time!

OK I know I have been telling you all about our fun outings this summer but I just uploaded all my pictures from the camera (all 89 of them) and thought I would catch you up with pictures too!  So to start I am going to share with you our Canyon Lake trip.  You heard all about it and now you will get to see the fun!

 Adalee had lots of fun with her cousin Brannick.  Driving the pontoon boat was pretty safe (especially with the engine off)  She thought she was big stuff!

 The little boys likes hanging their feet off the back while we were just hanging out in the water. 

 I am not a big fan of large bodies of water but once I got out on the tube I had a blast!  I even managed to stay on so I didn't have to get in the water!!! 

 Tolson didn't want to go but decided that if his dad was with him it would be ok.  We went really slow and he thought it was very fun! 

 Tolson and his two cousins Evan and Rory.  We sure do miss them!

Adalee driving again!  We all had such a great time and managed to not get too Sunburned.  I am so glad we got to be close to the Ewings for a few months. 

Our fun visitor

I hope you all arn't getting bored with these journaling type posts but this is how I keep track of what we are doing and the fun adventures we are having here in Laredo.  I will try to do better at my picture updates too!  I hope you had as much fun as we did this week....

Ok so we started off this week (well actually ended last week) with driving to San Antonio on Friday to pick up Rory. Ida and I made it to the Temple for a quick initiatory session and had a good time trying to help get things ready for her Garage sale on Sat. Sat morning Tolson Rory Adalee and I headed out. Rory said in the car "this is going to be the best car ride ever" (I am not sure that the car ride lived up to his expectations but we made it home) We got home in time to have dinner gets baths done and head for bed. Sunday the kids enjoyed church and we had a quiet relaxing afternoon playing with legos and watching our kids favorite Sunday movie The Happiest Millionaire. Monday it was cloudy and not too hot so we headed out to the big playground in our apartments. The kids had fun pretending it was their fort and sending the monster trucks down the 3story slides. tuesday we went to the pool for Playgroup and Rory thought that it was the best pool ever. They splashed a swam for several hours enjoying a break from the heat. The afternoon was spent relaxing and playing Wii. Wednesday we went to the mall to see the kids summer movie Dolphin Tale and play at the play place inside the mall. The kids loved the movie and Rory gave his mom and dad a play by play on the phone after so I think he liked it too. It was cute! After the kids played at the play place for a while we rode the double decker merry-go-round and then headed home. After lunch and a nap for Adalee we went to Chick-fil-a for dinner and play time. While we were there it started to blow and rain but the kids thought it was great. When we left it was still raining and the boys started running and dancing in the rain. We went the the store and when we got out it had stopped. They were sad it stopped but still got to jump in some puddles. Thursday we went to the pool again enjoying it as much as we could and then in the afternoon the boys went with uncle Jason to Lowes to buy a saw. They had to have their "Manly Time" and had fun doing it. Friday we went to our friends the Browns so I could work on a project for Primary while the kids played. Then friday night we had a little pizza party. They each made their own pizza and we watched a movie and had a living room picinic complete with popcorn and cookies. Saturday we went to the church for our District Pioneer day celebration. They had breakfast, a parade for the kids and then games outside. It was very hot but at the end some of us had a water fight so it cooled us down a bit. I think that was the boys favorite part. Then we played wii had dinner and did hair cuts. The boys like having pretty much the same hair cut but Rory wasn't so sure he wanted it as short as Tolsons. They have had a great time and I hope they remember it for a long time. I am so glad that we lived close for these past few months and that these two little boys could get to know each other better. I am also so glad for the time I have been able to spend with Ida! She is an amazing woman and such an example to me! I am going to miss her but I am so glad I have been able to spend so much time with her over the last 5 months.

This next week is going to seem kind of boring without Rory here! I don't think I can compete with having a cousin stay with us! I hope you guys are having a good week too! I would love to hear whats going on with you all! (hint hint)

I love you all! - Wendy (and family)

Ramblings of a Hot Mama!

Ok so really you all can blame Ida for this being bi-monthly because I keep going to her house and when I do it throws me off for a few days. So...

Week before last we went to the Ewings for a few days to help them sort through rooms and get things ready to pack. Ida also helped me sew my first quilt. She had left over fabric from Rory's quilt so we made a matching one for Tolson. It was so much fun and we got a lot done too. We did our normal things monday (recover from Sunday, clean up a bit and grocery shopping) then tuesday we had playgroup at the pool again where I discovered that my beings asked to help with girls camp means that I am the District Camp director (more on that later) and Wed Tolson had preschool. Adalee and I packed us up and we left straight from preschool to head to San Antonio. The drive really is not too bad and we can get to Ida's house in about 2 1/2 hours. The kids do great and we are there in no time. We had a great time!

We came home on Saturday afternoon in just enough time to get the kids bathed and into bed. Sunday morning was church where this month I am teaching the song Nephi's courage to the kids. They are having fun with it and I have been trying to work on the piano music for it so that I can play with them (we don't have anyone in our branch that plays, well we do have one senior sister that plays during sacrament meeting but is not available for primary) anyway its fun trying to teach them while using a CD but we get by. Anyway after Church the primary presidency went to go deliver some paperwork for our kids parents to fill out and to give them some information on changes we are making to our primary. We got to go to some interesting parts of town and we were glad that one of us speaks fluent spanish. What an adventure! at one of the houses I could have tripped and fallen into mexico if I wasn't careful.  It was a bit scary being three white, nicely dressed sisters driving a big SUV down to some of these areas but we survived and got most of the families visited.

This week we again recovered from our trip as well as trying to get ready for our trip this next week (be prepared you probably wont hear from me) nothing too exciting. Pool again for playgroup. We probably have about 10 families coming and the kids have such a great time! We also had a branch fathers day potluck thing on friday at the ranch of a member. It is fun to get to know more of the people in our branch. Saturday Jason had a daddy day with Tolson (which is becoming a tradition here) and Adalee and I went out together too! We had a fun day ending at the pool and daddy going to bed early (he started midnights again for the next week). Besides having blond hair and blue eyes people would think my kids are natives because they are soooo dark skinned.  One of these days I will take a picture of them and post it on here so you can see just how dark they really are!!!

Today I got to conduct the primary kids singing in sacrament meeting "My Dad"! I have not been the one teaching them this song and have not even been in the room much while they practice ( I am out begging for subs to help us) so it was a little scary trying to conduct the 10 kids that showed up to sing. They did great although I am not sure you could hear anything but me singing. Oh well it is done and now I can say I have done that!

So on the camp note, a month or two ago when we were speaking in church I mentioned something about camp in my talk and afterwards the district YW president came up to me in the hall and asked if I would be willing to help out with camp. She said it was not an official calling but was wondering it I would be willing. I of course said sure and we left it at that. Well, this week at playgroup we were talking again and she said we need to start thinking about themes for camp. Our camp is in March over spring break since we can't go past the checkpoint and its too hot to do it down here in the summer. Anyway she told me that she is so excited to have me as the District Camp Director!!! I guess after helping with a stake camp of over 200 people, 50 should be no big deal right? Well at least I have 9 months to work on this!!!! Wish me luck though!

We do love it here and are glad for the experiences we are having. I am exited to be going "home" next week to Az and to be with my sisters! What a nice cool break that will be. I hope you all are doing well and that you are having a great summer!

Until next time (whenever that may be),

Love, Wendy

Another weekend Trip!

This week(s) at the Kemptons....

Soo I guess I should just call this a semi regular posting as I have not been great about getting it done every week. Last weekend we went to Ida's and had a wonderful time so that thru me off for my sunday afternoon of compiling this letter. Two weeks ago Jason worked midnight shift for almost 11 days in a row and then he got three days off and went back to day shift. During the three days off we headed up to Ida's house to add to her chaos and hopefully distract her from it for a while too. We got there thursday night, put the kids to bed and went our for pie. Friday we got up and headed to the zoo. Rory stayed home from school to go with us and we had a great time. We had to take a break in the middle to go deliver meals on wheels with Ida (which was fun) and then went back to the zoo for a few more hours. What a great zoo. I posted a bunch of pictures from our trip on facebook and will probably put them on here too if you want to see them. We sort of skipped lunch so on the way home we stopped a Freddy's. It was GOOD! We had frozen custard sundaes and french fries. We will have to go there again for sure! Friday night we made a quick dinner and then went to the temple. Geoffrey couldn't find his recommend so unfortunately he didn't get to come but we went and had a great time anyway! With Jason being gone for 5 months and then moving and everything we hadn't been in a while so it was nice to go (and to have free babysitters). Saturday we got up and headed to Canyon Lake. It was a great cloudy day for the most part and we rented two boats. A little speed boat and a pontoon boat. We didn't ski but got a big tube to ride on behind the boat and we all had a good time. After returning the boats we let the little ones play on the beach for a bit and the moms sitting on the sand got a bit too much sun. We all had a great time and the kids slept very well that night. Ida, Jason and I of course made a trip to our favorite FroYo place and enjoyed some yummy frozen treats. Sunday we went to church and then after lunch headed out to the Japanese Sunken Gardens. They were built in an old query and had some huge koi fish. We walked around for a bit and then road the train around Brakenridge park. It was a great Sunday afternoon and a wonderful weekend.

After having a weekend like that its hard to remember then little fun things we do during the week. We have started having play group here at our awesome splash pool every week and this week since school got out we started a potluck lunch there too! What fun. I am really loving meeting so many nice people here and having friends for my kids. I still miss seeing Michelle almost everyday and having my close girlfriends back in Tucson (you know who you are) but I am still enjoying our new home. I went to a girls night out on Friday which was very fun but still not the same!  I am sure it will eventually feel like home here but for now I am missing Tucson.

In other news our TV died this week. We bought an old Wii from a friend and had just bought wii sports when it died. Not having a TV is not that big of a deal but when its 105 outside every afternoon its harder without one. So we went TV hunting this weekend but decided we will just take Ida's extra one she offered us and wait to buy a new one until later. We also got some MORE fish. We didn't get gold fish this time and have been treating our tank for the ick that the other fish had. We got some cool zebra dannios and hope they will live longer this time. We are not naming them (since we can't tell them apart and they are too fast to see well) so we wont get too attached in case they die too. (we don't have a great track record). But they are fun and I hope we can get some more cool fish soon.

We love you all and miss you! I am so glad we are close to the Ewing's for a short time and am secretly glad their assignment is only 2 years so they can come back soon. I am VERY excited to see my sisters soon and those I will get to visit while stopping in Tucson. I hope you are all doing well and not melting like we are!~ Thank heavens for the pools here!

Until next time (whenever that may be) - Wendy