Camping at Palmetto State Park

Several months ago, Derek had planned a little road trip for us this summer to visit three nearby National Parks--Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, and Guadalupe Mountains. But as with everything else, COVID-19 altered our plans. Not all of the National Parks had fully reopened as of yet, and we are currently only allowed to travel 150 miles from base. So we made lemons out of lemonade & Derek found a nearby state park open with campsites available! It was HOT, but FUN!

It was only about a 75ish minute drive from our house--Hadley was busy on our way there "making videos" on her caboodle for her students & Brady was all smiles!

 

Our campsite had a lot of loose/fine dirt/sand, and of course this made for hours of fun...and lots of dirty children! We were all covered in sweat & dirt the entirety of this trip! :)

If you look closely in the picture below, you'll see a dragonfly resting on Hadley's fingertips! Shelby and Hadley probably spent a good hour in the river with the dragonflies continually landing on them. I've never seen anything like it--they had the best time!

Those are fireflies in Hadley's water bottle in the picture below. Our kids have never gotten to experience fireflies before, but they were everywhere at this park! They had the BEST time running around and squealing at dusk as all of the lightning bugs were emerging!

After breakfast on our second & final morning of our camping excursion, we decided to go fishing & then hike some of the trails before finishing packing up and heading home. "Check out" time was by noon.

Mother Nature had other plans for us though. ;) Just as we were wrapping up our fishing time, we started to hear rumbles of thunder..so we high tailed it back to our campsite. Thankfully we {read: Derek} had done the majority of our packing up earlier that morning while the kids ate breakfast, but we still had a good bit to do as the sky suddenly opened up! It was quite the adventure loading up our car in the pouring rain!

{Brady fast asleep on our drive home}

We had the BEST time, but of course it was SO good to come home! Nothing like camping in 100 degree temps to make you appreciate the AC, your bed, and the ability to prepare/eat a meal without swatting a million flies. ;)  But we're already talking about next camping trip..we're thinking the fall sounds nice next time around! :)

Hadley's Belated Birthday Celebration

Since Hadley's birthday fell at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown, we celebrated entirely at home on the day of her birthday...and Hadley seriously had the best day! But once San Antonio started opening up a bit, we decided to finally let her do the other birthday-ish things we didn't get to do back in March. First up on the agenda was a family dinner at Chili's! Tortilla chips, Kraft Mac N Cheese, & the Molten Lava dessert?! This girl was PUMPED!

We took advantage of Derek coming home early one afternoon, and Hadley and I sneaked out during Brady's nap to go to Barnes & Noble to pick out a new birthday book {something I have done with the girls for each of their birthdays}, Claire's {she had a gift card from Grammy & Grampy burning a hole in her pocket!}, and to get a birthday treat at Scooped! It was the perfect afternoon!

Claire's was the only place on our agenda that a mask was mandatory. This was our very first experience wearing a mask in public. Hadley was eager to put it on at first, but by the time we came out of Claire's she was more than ready to take it off--and I was, too! I certainly gained a new respect for all of the people working long hours that are required to wear masks.

The picture below is my favorite! She looked so grown up with her purse over her shoulder, Claire's shopping bag in hand, and her nose in a new book.

In the picture above, Hadley is sporting her new clip-on earrings from Claire's. It was such a special afternoon with my seven year-old! Hadley Mae, you are a joy to celebrate!

Spring Reading

The first "official" day of summer is nearly upon us, and I realized I never posted our Spring reads...but better late than never! One of my biggest complaints throughout this whole pandemic has been lack of access to our library. It finally opened this week {hallelujah!} for curbside pick-up/drop-off only. During the two month shut-down we took advantage of Overdrive a couple of times--we let the kids listen to audiobooks on our long drives to state parks, and I read one e-book via Overdrive...but we are physical book people in our house. Thankfully, the kids have scored big at some of our Little Free Libraries! But we are very, very happy to have our library back albeit in a limited capacity.

Without further ado, here's what we read this Spring...

I really enjoyed all six of these!!! American Royals was such a fun read, and I can't wait for the sequel to release!! I love all of Kelly Rimmer's books, and Undone was no exception. I read Balanced & Barefoot for a Book Talk at Brady's school {held via Zoom}, and I absolutely loved it! I think it's a must-read for all parents & educators...really for everyone. I was hesitant to read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone as memoirs typically fall flat for me, but I seriously LOVED this book & found myself telling Derek about so many parts of it as I was reading. I highly recommend it! When I went to visit my friend Angela back in February, she mentioned The Enchanted Hour to me--I loved it! This was another one where I kept stopping to read aloud excerpts to Derek. And last but not least, A Woman is No Man--I think I found this one via Jenna Bush Hager's Book Club. All six books were winners this time around!

And next up are a few of the books I've read aloud to the kids lately--all of these books were courtesy of Little Free Libraries. Pippi Longstocking, Frindle, and Ribsy were all from the Marvelously Made LFL, but Hadley randomly stumbled upon a copy of Little House on the Prairie from another local LFL...and it was seriously the MOST PERFECT read-aloud during this crazy season. I read it aloud to the kids during the thick of our "shelter-in-place," and it was such a timely read for us. Even Brady was completely into it! The kids watched the Little House on the Prairie movie for Movie Night after we finished the book, and they loved the movie too! During a time when so many people were mourning the events and things they were missing out on, the Ingalls reminded us {mostly me!} that we really weren't wanting for anything. What a simple but full life they had!

All three kids REALLY enjoyed all four of these books! And all of these books were actually new to me--I had started Little House on the Prairie when I was little but never finished it. While we always love re-reading our favorites, it's also exciting to discover new books together when we all just want to read one more page or one more chapter because we're all so eager to see what will happen next! Reading aloud to my kids is one of my very favorite parts of being a mom, which is probably why I enjoyed The Enchanted Hour so much. ;) Thanks again for the recommendation, Angela! :)

Life Lately

When I went to upload our last day of school pictures on the previous post, I realized I had a whole slew of pictures that never made their way to the blog. I rarely posted during our "Shelter in Place"/Distance Learning season because I felt like I didn't really much to say and/or we weren't doing anything, but I guess I documented more along the way than just pictures of assignments to upload for Google Classroom. ;)  Boy, am I glad to be done with that!!

So here's a little peek into our regular ole days at home since the end of April. Our days have been filled with making homemade bubbles, lots of picnic lunches in the backyard, swimming, and time spent outside! I know I've said this before, but what a blessing it was for this pandemic to occur during such beautiful springtime weather.

The girls played non-stop with their baby dolls for about a week or so. They created lullabies, feeding and nap schedules, and the list goes on. They have had so much more time to just play and be, and what a beautiful thing it has been to witness. They have since moved on from the baby dolls and are full blown into Barbies again. Their imaginations are alive & well!

This girl has always been our earliest riser, but I had to go in and wake her up one morning so she wouldn't be late for her Google Meet. Can't remember the last time I got a picture of a sleeping Shelby!!

The picture below was taken to document their feat! About twice a week or so, the kids bike a little over 2 miles while I run. This was our first attempt at lengthening our route to a little over 3 miles, which included conquering the big hill in our neighborhood. This picture was taken at the top of that hill!

And this weekend, we celebrated Dada's birthday & ventured out to Guadalupe River State Park for a hike! The kids did five miles, and boy was it hot!! The river was their reward at the half-way mark. :)  And Cold Stone on the way home didn't hurt either!