Donuts with dudes and tennis lessons

Max had some exciting stuff in October. He invited Harvey to his preschool for "donuts with dudes" and I got to tag along as Harvey's chaperone haha. Max was very excited to show us the "alphabots" he plays with at school every day.

Then it was time for donuts! Harvey was obviously thrilled haha.

Love my little dudes!

The other exciting thing was that Max started an 8-week session of tennis lessons at the gym! It was great and I'm secretly hoping this is the start of a life-long sport for Max. He's a natural!

And he had some pretty cute spectators.

4th of July

This is always one of my favorite holidays! We were originally planning to go to the beach, but the weather had other plans. We met the Juergens crew at Harris County Smokehouse for breakfast. I'm not sure if the rain makes us want to eat there or if eating there makes it rain, but those two things seem to happen together a lot! Kind of funny. Luckily they have these funny animal chairs to keep the kids occupied even when they've had enough of sitting still in a restaurant.

We went to Gigi and Poppy's to wait out the rain. We watched the hot dog eating contest and had a lively round of Nertz while the babies napped. The weather cleared up in the late afternoon so we got to play some tennis! Tyler and I played doubles with AJ and Brittany and had a blast. We need to make that happen again soon.

Then of course the kids each got to hit around a bit.

At one point some people nearby started doing some fireworks (why do people do them during the day?? I'll never know) which made Millie and Harvey nervous. Gigi was so good to snuggle with them in the heat while we played. Millie said at one point, "It's fireworking!" which made us all laugh. Also, Max said that fireworks sound like the air tooting! They are hilarious.

We worked up a good sweat and wanted to hop in the pool but the water was pretty cold after all that rain, so the kids were the only brave ones who got in the water. Gigi and Poppy blew up a new pool toy which was quickly named Ella. They had so much fun on that thing.

As they swam, Tyler was mini-golfing nearby with Poppy and Mitchell and the rest of us were watching the Macy's firework show on TV outside. It was such a nice evening.

It finally got dark and the real "fireworking" began, which was the kids' cue to snuggle up on Gigi's bed to watch a movie and spy on the fireworks out the window occasionally. They still don't like the noise.

The picture below was from the Sunday before, feeling patriotic in our red, white, and blue. We are grateful to live in this blessed land!

Weekend adventures

I took these ragamuffins to the store to pick up a prescription. They didn't have shoes because we thought it'd be a quick drive-thru but the line was crazy long. For the record, I did carry them inside, but they're hefty so I bagged it and let them walk out. They thought it was pretty cool. 

They also got to play in the sprinklers and then Dad showed them how to wrap towels around your waist. 

A beautiful Saturday morning at the temple (solo)!

And then a really fun tennis date. Thanks to Gigi for keeping the kids and letting us use the neighborhood courts! Tyler whooped me 6-1, 6-4. I'm thinking about secretly taking tennis lessons so I can dish it back to him next time.

That afternoon we headed to my parents' for dinner and swimming. The Webbs were in town for Sarah's mission homecoming talk the next day and Tim and Lauren came also. By the time we got to the pool it was starting to sprinkle a little, but we figured it'd pass so we got in anyway. Then the thunder started and the rain got harder, and then a lot harder. We decided we'd probably better go and as we were starting to get out, the heavens opened and thunder boomed SO loudly right above us. We sure hustled then! By the time we made it home all our towels were soaked, as were we. A few went in to find and then lay some dry towels down on the floor so we could come in and dry off. It was quite the adventure!

And of course by the time we were heading home the storm was over. We enjoyed a beautiful rainbow on the drive.

The next day was Sarah's homecoming talk. She did great! We enjoyed dinner and visiting with family that afternoon. We even got to see my cousin Whitney and her husband Derek. It's great to live close and be able to go to these fun family things!

Dude Ranch 2017, day 3

Some morning snuggles.

Tyler and I went to breakfast ready to play tennis! After taking Millie to the kids activities and leaving Harvey with Gigi, we headed to the courts.

Max refused to go to the kids activities so he tagged along with us. He had his first little tennis lesson and waited semi-patiently while Tyler and I played two sets.

If our sad lack of skill didn't show it'd been 2 years since we last played tennis, Tyler's hands might! His grip was rubbing off. Pretty funny.

Tyler beat me 6-1 in the first set, and I won 6-4 in the second. We never did go back to finish the match! Hopefully it's not another 2 years before we play again.

Tyler went back to watch Millie ride Gypsy again while I took a shower.

Then Kurt took Heidi, McKenna, Shayna, and I into downtown Bandera! We had fun walking through their shops and trying on their Western wear. We also enjoyed a scoop of Blue Bell and had so much fun.

Back to the big house for lunch! Everyone wanted a turn with Harvey and he did well as long as I wasn't in sight.

Nana and Botz, the ones who started this fun tradition!

This ceiling fan was awesome, except for its name, which is a bad word I will not be repeating here. Funny memory though.

We spent the afternoon at the water park again!

Harvey napped on my shoulder (kind of a theme of the trip. He was such a trooper but this might explain the major sleep issues we have now??) for a couple hours while everyone else swam around us. I loved it.

We had dinner and wanted to get the kids to bed semi-early since they were exhausted and it was showing, but Max was having a hard time falling asleep and wanted to see the trick roper show with me. Fun to have a little one-on-one time with this cute boy, and the roper was amazing!

Clay Court Championships date

Tyler and I got to go on a fun date last week to the Men's Clay Court Championships! One of the only things I've put on my bucket list is to play on every type of tennis court. I've played on grass and hard courts and clay is all I've got left! I'd never seen professional tennis in person before so I was super excited. It was such a fun date and I'm pretty sure we're going to go again next year! Harvey was a perfect little stowaway. Millie and Max played with Monka but I forgot to bring milk for Harvey so he came along with us. He was for sure the only baby there (babies don't tend to follow tennis etiquette) and we got some looks, but he never cried! We left when he started to get restless because we were nervous that he would start crying.

It was such a fun night out!