Weekend Camping :)

As you know, we tend to be light packers..... what you are about to see (**hanging head in shame**) is for a weekend adventure......

Yes we have to have our coffee....  new coffee pot for new boat!  yay!!  Start the day out right!

Our American Girl dolls travel in style complete with their own chairs.

And the real deal.....  um......  does it help to say that this was not only weekend gear but also moving back onto the boat with all the tools/supplies necessary?..... and when I opened the back hatch fully stuff fell out at us.... LOL

um yea.... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway on to the good parts - here is a brief tour of the boat.

So we moved in!!  yay!!!  Our Abbie was a HAPPY dog!!!!  look at that first picture.... her tongue - hilarious!!  who knew, right!!!

can you say HAPPY DOG!!

Sniffing the wind.

The little dog had SO much fun - I had so much fun watching her.  She was relaxed, enjoying the every moment.  Like a little kid - she was ready to drop in the saddle but couldn't so she kept falling asleep with her head up and it kept bobbing down on her.  HA!  The sign of a great time, wouldn't you say?  Especially considering the last time we brought her on the boat - it scarred me for life because I had to hold a barf bag.... UGH, she was so nervous about the whole experience it made her physically sick and it took 8 years to attempt it again...HA!  It was a smashing success.   Phew!

We had such a nice time!!!  It was HOT out but we made it through.

Mikayla's new favorite place to sit are in the captain's chairs...they ROCK!!  Totally my favorite place to sit too!!  We are sailing in Kemah until the final terms of our agreement are met then we will take her back down to Galveston.

One of my favorite houses in the channel - yes please!!

Ahhhhhh it's SO nice to have our new boat.  It makes SOOOO many things SOOOOO much easier because I don't have to take the whole boat apart to make sleeping quarters, they are just already there.  It's awesome!  like REALLY awesome.

Mikayla only brought her two dolls with her to play with - she didn't bring anything to do and she still had a great time, it's her thing!!!!  Ahhhhh we will totally be down there doing this a LOT more often now, especially because Abbie made it so much easier too... phew!  First of many adventures!!!!

Here is Abbie on the way home.....I think she slept for about two complete days to recover from her outing  - now she's not enjoying our normal routine anymore... and who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.....(she is 11 afterall)

Happy July 4th!!

Happy July 4th!!! We had an amazing time celebrating with my in-laws.  Beautiful decor, great weather (we were able to be outside the whole time without melting) and amazing food!

The group of kiddies!  I love seeing them all together.  I'm super sad to see Nat go to college only because she will be greatly missed!!

They all love to swim and play, here's my gal swimming towards me...

 

I LOVE the picture below!!  How fun, right!!

Then afterwards, the girls were watching Taylor Swift on tv but then got to telling secrets....

Smores anyone??  Tami found the biggest marshmallows you have ever seen.... seriously they were like the size of the palm of your hand!!!  HUGE!  and oh so yummy!

Next was some sparkler action.

Then....OHHHH these were soooooo cool - my dad brought the kids some floating lanterns - we did feel a bit like we were in the Tangled movie but really - they were pretty darn awesome (once we overcame our fear of lighting the neighborhood on fire)!!!

I suspect some people thought they were UFOs of some sort  HA!  We were able to watch them until the candles burned out, they were really neat!

Then, the time came.... it was time for the fireworks!!!!  However, the kids didn't watch them at all.  The girls were practicing tumbling and doing cartwheels and somersaults and Jonathan was busy being "shot" by all the booms.... he was throwing himself all over the place with every boom - it was hilarious!!!!  I really enjoyed watching them have so much fun!

Picture below, Mikayla after cartwheel.....fireworks in the background LOL. 

Always some time for cousin wrestling!!! 

We had such a GREAT time!  Probably the best time ever!!!!

50 for 50.....say what???

We have a LOT of big birthdays in our families this year...and a lot of them have "5s" in them.

We have 2 turning 50, 1 turning 55, 3 turning 75 plus 2 - 15 year anniversary's (potential lotto numbers?)

So last week we celebrated 2 of the 50s and 1 of the 75s. 

For one of the 50s Mikayla, and I had to do a lot of secret planning.....

and we came up with the 50 for 50 plan..... (granted I could only do this for one of the birthdays...you'll see why).....

what that officially means is that for Michael, he was turning 50 - he got a gift for each year of life...meaning 50 gifts....

we had so much fun buying, planning, counting, re counting, planning, buying some more, counting, recounting, wrapping and phew.... it all came together....  shockingly - the basket below held 49 of the gifts.... wow!!!

Mikayla decorated with penny's on the table too.... 

When we showed Michael and told him what we did... his reaction was priceless.... "you WHAT..... you got me 50 presents.....?"  he was so shocked and so sweet about it (he was maybe hoping for three presents), it made me so happy to see him so surprised and excited and well, like a little boy about his birthday!!

We also made him a cake, well the cake was officially for him and for my dad (one of the 75s) because we just can't eat two cakes in as many days....

Here is the cake below.   Mikayla was 100% in charge of decorating it. 

We chose to put 5 candles on it to represent some of the 5s going on...and well we didn't want to burn the house down with 125 candles...hello inventory of candles!

We went to Carrabbas for dinner, it's Michael's all time favorite restaurant!  He dressed for the occasion LOL!  He is sporting some fashionable girls sunglasses.......

We came home after the dinner and had cake and ice cream.  Now, the cake....

the neat thing about this cake is that it was a pinata cake....

Singing!  (to Michael and Dad)

Time to blow out the candles (notice the best helper ever is very involved!)  (makes me so happy!!)

Then SURPRISE!!!  Pinata cake - you cut it open and it's filled with candies!! Can you say holy.amazing.cake!

Then present time!!!!  I didn't catch too many of gifty reactions because we were all "in the moment" he was exhausted by the time he opened everything up!  It.was.awesome!! 

His gifts ranged from a pack of gum (I was desperate for ideas by then) to cookies, to socks, to guitar supplies, to shirts, gift cards, belt, shoes, Nerf guns...LOL.... you name it - it was probably in there.

but his biggest gift by far....was.... number 50

the new.....

WOW!!!  what a great birthday - it was as much planning as it was watching him take it all in. 

Hopefully it was memorable, I know Mikayla will always remember when her Dad turned 50!!