Ice Skating

Aaron and Kaori found a Groupon for ice skating lessons that included open skate ice time. The skate rental was included for the kids taking the lessons and cheap for those of us along for the ride. So I was able to join the kids in ice skating a few times. Annmarie even signed up for the lessons. She enjoyed the ice skating during open skate but refused to participate in the lessons. Every time she would dissolve into tears even though just ten minutes prior to the lessons she would happily skating out on the ice. Jonah enjoyed the skating but wasn't signed up for the lessons.  If we do it again, I'd probably sign him up instead.  That was a bad judgment call on my part.  And the kids did the lessons with Aaron's kids.  Eliza invited her friend Anna to skate once as well.

Six Flags

Travis and Eliza both earned Six Flags passes by reading a lot this school year, so I splurged and bought tickets for Westley and Caleb as well as me so we could all go together. Even though it was really hot, and the tickets were only good for July and August, we had a good day. We went on rides, we had some funnel cake and ice cream, and we just had fun. It was fun to run into someone we knew from our ward too.

Fort Building, Bowling, and Police Camp

Another thing I did this summer, that I have done in the past, is put up a list of things the kids have to do before they can play and do electronics. One of those things was creative play for at least an hour. I gave the kids a list of ideas of things they could do for creative/free play. One idea on the list was fort building.

 I also got the Kids Bowl Free passes this summer. It wasn't really free because I had to pay a $5 service fee for each pass and I bought a pass for Corey and I to use, plus you have to rent the shoes and, unlike Utah, where the shoes were only a couple bucks, here they are about $5/pair, so it ends up getting quite pricey. My plan was to go at least once a week, but we never had enough money, so we ended up only going bowling two times total all summer.

I also signed up some of the kids for some police camps. Sachse city offered a police camp for elementary age kids that was entirely free. The junior high police camp offered through Westley's school was also free, plus the cost of the T-shirts. Travis and Eliza went all week, just from 8-12 every morning and they did it with their cousin Maggie. Westley's was from 8-5 every day for the whole week and involved intense training and activity. He was not very happy about going, although he was happy about the idea when I first told him about it and we signed him up, but I think he gained a lot from the experience and will look back on it fondly.

And the picture of me in this post is because I got all dressed up to go somewhere and wanted to snap a picture of how I looked because anytime I actually look good, I like to document it as proof that I can clean up well if I want to.

Family Reunion Pictures

We hired a photographer from our ward to do family reunion pictures.  They turned out pretty well.  I was pleased with how they looked.

My parents currently have 26 grandchildren split between six families with a 27th being born later this month.  They are quite blessed.

Fowles Family Reunion 2016

We had our Fowles family reunion this summer here in Texas.  Andrea was kind enough to fly her kids down for the event.  She got remarried on the first day of our reunion, so she was unable to attend, but we loved being able to see our Fowles cousins from Utah and now Montana. 

We had family pictures, did a day of games and fun with food, had some great meetings together, and just had a good time.  I didn't take a lot of pictures.  Matthew came and stayed with Travis for the duration of the reunion and they had fun spending time together. 

For the family shirts, Eve picked out baseball shirts, assigning each family a color.  The grandkids all got a number on the front designating what number they are in the order of grandkids and Eve put a logo on the back with the state of Texas.  They were fun shirts and the pictures turned out well.  I will try to include some in a later post.