8/31 - We had to get up early. We bought tickets for the Lego Fest. We agreed to meet Dowdy's at the train station for 8:03am train. Who's idea was this. We made it with one minute to spare.
Landon and Mike sat together, and Kasey and Matt sat together. They were looking at the map and talking which was fun. We got down to the convention center about 8:45am. We walked around the find the entrance and we got there just at they were opening up.
We went in and got some pictures with the big lego characters they had - Lego movie, Star wars, the hulk. Always cool to see. They first went to area with all one size green legos. All the kids started building. We encouraged them to keep looking around. Kasey went to the Friends section and built a beach house with many windows. She had fun. We then went to look around. Got a picture with Lego cinderella, and did a little building with Disney stuff.
Landon was building a car to race (one of his favorites), he build something in Chima which is a new favorite, he played in Star Wars area and he built a guy in heros. They both go to build a square in nations section where it was put inside outline of the USA. There were several sections and a store and book area. It wasn't huge but kids had fun. I think Kasey got a little bored at the end. Landon would have stayed there all day building if we let him :)
Afterwards we headed back to the train. We stopped with the Dowdy's at Trinity Hall for some lunch and a few beers. We all had a good time.
We got home. Kids watched a little TV while Greg and I took nap. Then kids got ready to go to Grammy's house. They packed and got ready. I took them over while Greg took a little nap.
We weren't sure if we were going out, but we did. We walked around Downtown McKinney for a while and ended up at the Mellow Mushroom for some pizza and drinks. Then we headed to Solis' house to visit and have some wine with friends. We didn't stay out late, but it was a nice evening.
8/30 - We could all have slept in but of course Kasey was up at 6:18am. Ugh.
Boys went to soccer practice at 9 and Kasey and I went up to the park to walk patch and play on the playground. Luckily Mattie Grace was there so Kasey had fun while I walked Patch.
After showers we went to Elkes. Kasey wasn't feeling great but ate pretty good lunch. After lunch I got a few hours to do shoe shopping. Patch had chewed up another pair of shoes so I went shopping.:)
That afternoon Greg went with the boys to Jerry World to tailgate and see OK State play Florida State. Kids and I went to get pizza, dessert making stuff and watched movies at home. Kasey watched Second Hand Lion which I love, and Landon and I watched the Avengers which was good.
8/27 - Kasey showed us how they learned to draw humans - not stick figures. She said it was also exciting that they got numbers on their cubbies. Funny how much more she shares :)
Kasey is playing with friends in her class Mallory and Mia.
8/26 - Both kids had good days again at school. Landon had soccer practice in heat. Kasey said they were talking about what math is and that she was the only one that knew that it was about math.
8/25 - First Day of school. Kasey was up putting her shoes on before Landon was even up. They were both excited. First day Greg and I both walked the kids in. We took Kasey to her class. Got a quick picture and let her go. She was excited and up for fun so we were ok. Then we took Landon to his class. He went straight in and put his stuff up. We had to ask for a hug. They both did great and had a good day at school. They were really excited. Landon really likes his teacher Ms Swan and likes his class.
Kasey got blue which is really good behavior. She said a few kids were yellow for not listening. Kasey said at Recess she was playing the bell on playground and getting a bunch of people to play drums while she played bell. She said it was awesome.
8/24 - Last day of summer. Greg set his alarm so we could start getting up early. i asked him why the alarm was on. We slowly got up. Kids watched some TV, cleaned up some. Greg walked the do while Kasey and I showered. Then we headed to Bonnie Ruth for some brunch. So yummy!
After brunch we walked around a little bit and let the kids play at the park. They played the xylophone and drums and ran around some. We were about to leave and there was a fire truck behind our car so we walked around some more. kids walked down to see the ducks and tried finding the baby ducks.
We headed home to rest for a little while. Kids were a bit whiny. Landon did some reading and kasey wrote her lower case abcs. Both took some pushing. Kasey likes to do things on her own time, and Landon hasn't found another book series he likes.
Then we headed to the pool with friends to spend the afternoon. We had fun playing, talking with adults and spending some time outside on our last day of summer. Then we went home to shower, and then went for quick dinner at Torchy Tacos. Then we came home for movie night. Kids and I watched National Treasure 2. We got kids in bed and set their alarms for the first day of school.
i can't believe Landon will be in 3rd grade and Kasey is starting Kindergarten.
8/23 - Today was our first day starting to get back into sports. Landon had morning soccer practice. The boys were at practice and Kasey rode her bike to the park and Kasey rode her bike. She rode around quite a bit and I wore Patch out walking around the park. We headed home after practice. Everyone showered and we went to Elkes for lunch which is always yummy. We then came home and relaxed for a few hours. Kids watched one of their shows and played some xbox. Greg and I relaxed in the bedroom reading and looking online.
Then it was time for baseball. Landon had his first game of the season for baseball. This is kid pitch (modified so coach/Greg pitches if kid pitches 4 balls) so the game really changes a lot. Landon played 2 innings of catcher which is tough in the heat, he sat out 2 innings and played left field 1 inning. He only batted twice. He got a good hit off coach pitch and scored first time. He struck out the 2nd time. When he was playing left field he ended up missing a pop fly, but then got an out at 2nd to end the inning.
After baseball we headed home for showers and headed to dinner with Doug and Steiners. The kids are so funny together. After dinner the 3 of them went to look at desserts. Dave and Tracy brought some Ouzo that was made at home from their extended Greek family in California. We shared a few shots with the owner. He said next time we come in to give him 2 days and he wanted to share a special dessert with us. We had fun. Boys talking about a few boys trips. Tracy and I talked a little about kids going back to school. Fun time with friends.
8/22 - Kasey used to like sugar cookies and her favorite color was pink. Now she likes blue which Landon says the only reason she likes blue is because of Frozen. Now she likes chocolate chip cookies. Funny to see how things change.
Landon really likes fajitas a lot. He seems to not like a lot of other food, but he usually ends up eating pretty good. Landon is pretty good about trying new things at least once which is good.
8/21 - Tonight was meet the teacher night. We first went to Ms Savitch's class where Kasey was going to be. She has a friend from her soccer team Ovni in her class but doesn't really have any other friends. She was excited to see her classroom, find her cubby, she got to meet a few of the boys in her class.
Then we went to Landon's class. He has Ms Swan. The seating was interesting. Landon between Carter and Boone. Dylan Christensen was across from him, Micah Gadd down a few seats, and a few other girls. Will be interesting how quickly that changes.
We headed to the AIM room to get sheet and drop supplies. We got to say hi to Ms Szeryk. We showed Kasey around the school. She got to say hi to Ms Benton (her friend Davis') mom, the music and art teacher.
After that we headed out to grab some dinner. We went to Mi Cocina
8/20 -
Kasey has 3 songs she really likes right now
1. Cool Kids - Echosmith
2. Really Don't Care - Demi Lovato
3. I will Never Let you down - Rita Ora
8/16 - We had a busy day. Started off with Kindergarten Ice Cream social that I had planned (which was the same time as Landon's baseball practice). Invited all families of kindergarteners for some ice cream, meet each other and see what the PTA is up to. My guess is that we had 30-40 families there which was a pretty good turn out. It was fun to see friends and meet new friends.
After that we went to Elkes for lunch. We often go there Saturdays but with all our travel we probably haven't been since before Greg went to World Cup. They had Greg's coaches badges since last time we were there.
We were going to do some shopping that afternoon, but ended up going to the pool with friends which was a lot of fun. It was the day we get teacher letters so at one point Greg and Jason went to look for letters and grab and adult beverage for us to enjoy at the pool. We had fun.
We came home and all showered. Then we went to Splitsville for some dinner and bowling. I didn't bowl very well. Kids were funny. Landon would sit on the floor 1/2 the time after he bowled. Kasey would run and throw the ball. They have good music there so Kasey was doing some dancing. Fun family day!
8/11 - We had to get up, get ready, breakfast and get out of our room by 8:30am. We got off the boat pretty easily. We had our luggage so didn't take long at all. We started heading north not long after 9. I was originally going to work on the way back , but I was tired so I slept instead. Gramps had gotten up about 3:30am so he was tired too.
We made it home. Greg and kids were out shopping so I took a little 30 minute nap.
We ended up going to the pool for a little while and relaxing which was fun.
8/10 - I finally got to sleep in til about 9am. It was our last day on the boat. We got up and got ready. Went to dining room for breakfast, and then went to look at which pictures to buy. After that we went to find everyone. We found Debby who had been looking for us. They were doing a grove fundraiser for St Jude. We paid our $10, got tshirts. Then all 7 (without Nina) headed to the Love and Marriage game. Always funny seeing questions asked for newlyweds, few years married and other couple was married 44 years.
After that I went to do country line dancing taught by one of the dancers on the ship (Greg). I had done one earlier that was learning now to do thriller dance - which was fun. The country line dance was fun as well.
We did some relaxing that afternoon, got ready for dinner and headed to casino area to listen to some music and try out the tasting bar (most days had little snack before dinner).
There was a band playing good music - overall the music on the ship was great. We had our last dinner which was great as usual. This time the staff asked us to get up and dance with them. Nina, Ayla and I danced the chicken dance and macarena which was fun. Somehow before dinner we couldn't get mojito because multiple bars were out of mint leaves. We joked that we had had to many which is why they were out :) At dinner they had mint leaves. So I had wine, a mojito since we couldn't get them anywhere else, and a port.
After dinner most everyone went to their cabins for a bit before the show. Debby, mom and I walked around and sat near casino to listen to music and watch one of the photographers take pictures of ladies and families.
We all met at the theater for the big show. It was like a broadway show about New Orleans. Ayla wanted to sit up front so we all did. One of the new entertainment guys Keanu was sitting right next to us. He helped us take pictures of all of us, and even got in one of them. A few things were a little borderline for kids, but overall it was a good show. After the show we went back to our rooms for a few minutes. It ended up being just Nina and I going out. We got a drink at Alchemy and then tried to find a seat for the comedy show but didn't have any luck so we went to the piano bar to enjoy some music. After that we went to the dance club for a little bit. We had a drink and watched everyone dance. We didn't want to stay up to late so about 1:30 we headed upstairs for some pizza. It was earlier than we usually go up there. There was a really hot guy with his girlfriend up there. We had to help them get pizza and had a few drinks. Then Keanu came up so Nina and I talked with him for a little while. We ended up going to bed early about 3 - early for this trip.
Overall we had a great time. I feel like I got to act like a 20something year old, and I think we all had a great time.
8/9 - It was Cozumel day. We were meeting at the pool with a slide at 9am. Little early when you were out til 4am. Mom stayed on the boat, but the 7 of us were going to Paradise beach. We grabbed breakfast, and tried to head off the boat. I understood incorrectly where to go. I found Chris and asked him for directions where to get off the boat - he was up til 4 as well but he had to start working at 7am. We found our way off the boat and headed to taxis. We had to walk through many shops to get there.
We found a van to take us to Paradise Island. When we got there it was basically pay $3 up front and they asked you to buy $10 each in food/drink.
We got a few drinks, put on some sunscreen and got in the pool. Great huge pool. We were one of the only ones there early. We relaxed in the pool. Debby and I got a bucket of beer, other adults got mixed drinks. It started to rain a bit, so we went under cover and had a bit to eat. We had free wifi so we were able to text and I tried calling Greg which didn't work great. We had a great time relaxing. Brittany, Lindsey and Ayla went to the beach for a bit and got on trampoline and tried one of the big slides.
We had to be back to boat at 3:30 leaving at 4pm. We headed back early afternoon so we could do some shopping before going back on board. We all found something to buy of course :)
We got back and it was almost time to get ready for dinner. We watched people on dock for little while. Got dressed for dinner, and headed to Casino bar for a drink. We had a good dinner again. After first night the wait staff was singing to us, 2nd night I think they got up on the stations in middle of dining room and danced for us. They did a little something every night.
There wasn't much going on that night. No big show, no comedy. After dinner we ended up at the Alchemy bar. Debby and I wanted a Manhattan. Nina and mom ended up getting chipolte pineapple martini which was pretty good.
We did several things that night. Went to the piano bar for drink and listen to guy at piano. Grammy got him to play a few Elvis songs. We had fun singing along. I think we went to the dance club for a little while after that. Debby and mom decided they were going to go get pizza. Nina, Cheri and I stayed at dance floor for a while. Then we decided to go up there as well. Mom and Debby were still up there. We had a few drinks, some pizza before going to bed. Nina, Cheri and I decided to go exploring. We found the kids area and tried to hollihoop, Nina was riding on kids scooter thing. Then we went to play some basketball. We weren't very good that late :) After that we headed to bed.
8/8 - Even staying out of course I woke up at 7:30am, what's up with that. I took a much needed shower, then rested some til 9ish. Mom and I went to the dining room for breakfast. I had huevos rancheros which is always yummy. They had good bread, juice, mom liked the coffee. Majority of people on the cruise were from Texas which is always fun.
We headed to the pool after that. Everyone else was already there. Debby was reading, Brittany, Lindsey, Nina and Ayla were in the pool and Cheri was reading and sunbathing. We sat with Debby in the shade for a while. Then we got a bigger table when it was time for lunch. On board they have Guys burgers which are really good. Mom, Debby and I got them with yummy fries like they have at Snuffers.
I went walking around the ship some, looked at pictures, looked in shops, listened to some trivia. Before dinner Cheri, Debby and I went to a trivia thing. Guess who was leading it - Ginger. He commented when Cheri and Debby got there. When I got there he yawned so I asked if he was tired or something. He said he had a late night. Then mom walked in. He tells everyone that he had shots with Grandma last night. Made mom smile.That night for dinner we all got to sit together. It was formal night so we all got dressed and took a picture with all of us. Then we headed to dinner. It was lobster night. We had lobster and shrimp.
After dinner we decided to do comedy again - at least to see the lady. We learned from the night before we needed to get there early. We grabbed a drink and walked to a club playing latin music. There were several ladies in there dressed like old ladies. They pulled Nina and I in dancing. They were there celebrating their friend's 50th birthday and wanted to make her feel better by dressing like old ladies. They had on wigs, old purses, hose to their knees, sweaters, one lady had toilet paper in her shoe and her dress tucked in her underwear with toilet paper. Needless to say they were fun group.
Then we went to get seats for comedy - I think we changed tables like 5 times. We had some drinks and enjoyed the adult comedy. After that Debby, Cheri decided to go to bed. Mom, Nina and I went to listen to some Motown, and then mom headed to bed as well. Nina and I decided to stay up. Several of the staff were out that night because a few of them were celebrating birthdays. We went to the dance club for a while, great people watching, did some dancing. Then about 2ish we headed to pizza place again. After a while Chris, Ginger and some other guys came up there. Ginger was leaving the ship the next day so we bought him a few shots. Interesting discussions. We told Ginger goodbye and went to bed again close to 4am.
I told Nina on the way out, we should just jump in the pool in our dresses. Sounded good. It was netted off so we didn't.
We got to our floor and Nina said there was a really cute guy on the end we were on - she said he was behind the door for employees only. We tried looking through the door - there was like 1/4 inch to look through. We couldn't see anything but we could hear people in there and tried to see them. There might also been some movement of door decor, but I didn't see anything :)
8/7 - We got up early to go on girls cruise. Mom, Nina, Cheri, Debby and I were all going on short 4 day cruise. Aunt Mary was going but had some health issues and needed to stay home. We were sad and missed her. We were making good time so we headed to Conroe to meet up with everyone else. I logged in to send emails and we headed to the marina. We took a picture and headed to Galveston. It rained some on the way down. Traffic wasn't great either. It was late when we got on. The lines were long, and I complained that I'm not used to traveling where I have no status :) We were going on Carnival which mom and I weren't to sure about, but we were excited to be with everyone. We finally got on and decided to go get some lunch. Guess who we saw. Brittany, Lindsey and Ayla surprised us. None of us knew they were coming. We tried to go get all of us together for dinner but they were getting ready for emergency practice so we couldn't find anyone. I went down to put my credit card on my room card. Mom got our luggage in room and the boat took off.
It was time for the emergency drill. We had to go down stairs 2 flights. Mom had a little trouble, but was making her way. They told us we could sit in dining room instead of going outside for drill. That was nice to sit and not be in the heat.
That night at dinner we talked to Maitradee to try and get all of us together. We ended up sitting that night with the 5 of us at a booth with me on the end. We could see the water out the windows out the back of the boat. We had a great dinner, some good wine. Several of us had molten chocolate cake which was great.
That night they had 1 show at 7:30pm so we headed to the show. It was dancers and singers from the ship, but was fun. We decided to go to comedy after that. The guy who did introduction was a cute guy from Australian named Chris. He made funny jokes and introduced the comedians. There was a lady who was hilarious talking about her 4 kids and how life is. The 2nd comedian was a guy. He was ok, but we liked the lady better.
After the comedy clubs we went to the dance club for a little while. Got a few drinks. Nina, Debby and I did some dancing. Then somehow we ended up at the Casino bar. We were all 5 sitting at the bar. We decided to do a shot. Note that mom said earlier in the day she wasn't doing shots. I suggested she do buttery nipple which she liked - who doesn't. Then somehow we ended up doing multiple blow jobs (the shot). We were laughing, the bar tending was taking our picture and we were discussing whether or not you should use your hand (when taking the shot). After that it was almost 2am and we decided we needed some food. Only place open was the pizza place on Lido deck by the pool. Guess who else was up there - Chris from the Comedy thing. We got some pizza and sat at the bar where Benjamin was bar tender. Chris was there with his roommate Ginger who also worked in Entertainment group as well. We all started talking and Ginger decided to buy us a shot. There was some confusion that only 4 of us wanted a shot, but mom ended up wanting one as well. So Ginger says, Grandma wants one too. Ok, he got one more. We had Chris and Ginger's favorite shot - Woo Woo. We then bought him a fire ball. Debby and mom went to bed and Nina, Cheri and I went with Ginger to the front of the boat to see stars and moon. Staying up til 4am became a norm for Nina and I.
8/6 - After being back at work for 2 days it was time to go back on vacation :) One of my colleagues drove me to work. Then at lunch I told the guys I had to finish a meeting and I would meet them at lunch. I went to leave and couldn't find my keys because I didn't have keys or a car. I ended up taking train to Plano - of course buying ticket I missed the train and got to stand in heat. Anyway Greg and kids picked me up in Plano and we headed to Grammy and Gramps for tacos. They left me there because we were leaving early the next morning to drive to Galveston.
I stayed up late working trying to get things done.
8/4 – Time to head home. We got up and all got ready. Kids watched TV for little while then played for a little while. Matt was driving us to airport then going to work so we left early. If traffic gets bad there aren’t always alternate routes to take so we wanted to make sure everyone had plenty of time.
We got to the airport in plenty of time. Got checked in, had pizza one last time, did a little shopping for New York Souvenirs and then headed to the gate. No free Wi-Fi so everyone was playing on electronics disconnected.
We’ve had a great trip. Landon’s favorite things were visiting Pennsylvania and visiting friends. Kasey’s favorite thing was seeing friends. We got to see a different part of the country, experience New York some, and see friends we haven’t seen in a while.
8/3
We were going to head out to beach area, but it rained in the morning and was actually a bit cool. Lisa made French toast, eggs and bacon for breakfast. The kids played for a while and we headed out about lunch time. We went to Lyman’s Orchard. They had a big store and deli so we got sanchwiches and stuff for lunch. It was great day so we ate outside. After that we headed to sunflower maze that the kids were really excited about. Kasey asked Greg to go in with her then the 4 kids took off with maps I’m not sure they used. The sunflowers were tall so we couldn’t see kids much. We could see Greg’s head every once in a while. They were pretty excited when they got out.
After the maze we went to pick your own places in the Orchard. We started with Blueberries. We had several buckets and started picking blueberries. Kids had fun finding good ones and putting them in the buckets. We ended up with about 3 ½ lbs of blueberries between all of us. The fresh blueberries are really good.
Next we headed to pick your own peaches and nectarines. We only picked peaches. Kids had to climb in trees some of be lifted up to get some good ones. They weren’t quite ripe, but will be there soon.
After that we went back to the store for a bit to have some fudge and go potty before heading back to the house.
When we got back the kids kept playing outside. It was a great day. Greg and I had some wine and I went on patio to read some and enjoy the weather.
Lisa and Matt made salad, kabobs and baked potatoes for all of us. This time the adults got to eat outside and kids ate inside J. Dinner was great. Landon and Patrick were exchanging Baseball stickers for the books they keep with player stickers each season. Kids played some more and then took showers.
After their showers all 8 of us played Texas Hold’em. It was fun to see how kids would play. Kasey, Patrick and Katelyn played with parents. Greg helped Landon some but he played his own hand. We had fun.
Then it was time for kids to get to bed. The adults then got cheesecake – yum. We stayed up talking a while about vacations and kids. It was fun.
8/2 – Greg and I slept in some and of course kids got up pretty early. Matt and Lisa went for a run very early and the dogs let us know when they left.
We ended up having a pretty relaxing day. It was raining in the morning so we didn’t head out like we had originally planned. Kids were getting a little stir crazy in the afternoon so Matt and Lisa took all 4 kids to play putt putt. They had a great time. Landon won and was excited about that. Greg and I relaxed and went for a walk while they were gone.
After they got back we got ready to go out to dinner. We headed to Milford, Connecticut for some sea food. It was a nice little restaurant and food was good. We all had some Calamari and Matt, Greg and I split some oysters with horseradish and caviar on them which was really good. Greg and I split stuffed lobster and scallop risotto.
After dinner we headed to little area by our cars. It had a really small sand beach area and several rocks for the kids to climb on. They had fun running around, throwing things and climbing on the rocks. We got some cute pictures of them.
We headed back to the house for some yummy cheesecake that Lisa had made. It had Oreo crust, cheesecake and chocolate top. It was amazing.
After that it was time to get kids in bed.
8/1 – We got up little early so we could go to Top of The Rock in NBC building to see the city. We got there about 8:20am which was great because there weren’t to many people there. We got tickets and headed upstairs. It was neat to see the city from so far up. We could see Times Square, Football Stadiums in New Jersey, Statue of liberty, World Trade Center building, Empire state building, Chrysler building, our hotel, Central Park and many others. We got to see stuff from several levels, then we headed back down after we got picture of all of us.
We headed back to hotel to pack and get final shower. We got ready and took a Taxi to Grand Central Station. Kasey was really tired and whining all morning. It was cool to see center area like was in Madagascar. We looked through the shops a little, headed down for a little Mediterranean food. I got a tea from Starbucks then we headed to our train.
There were several dogs on our train which Kasey loved. Kids and Greg played on ipads. I wrote blog and read some. Nice to relax a little before seeing Allens.
We got there and Lisa, Patrick and Katelyn picked us up from the train station in Stratford. It was about 20 minutes from their house. We went back to their house and the kids took off right away to go play. We didn’t see them until dinner time. We hung out and chatted and kids played all kinds of things. They went outside some.
Lisa made a great dinner for all of us. Kids ate dinner outside and we sat inside at the table.
After dinner we got kids showered and ready for bed. Landon slept on Patrick’s top bunk and Kasey slept in Katelyns room on her trundle.