Serene Sunday
Our church offers three (actually four) services these days. A Saturday night service, two Sunday morning services and most recently a Sunday afternoon Spanish service. Terry teaches in the 11:00am service and now also teaches in the Spanish service. He loves teaching the kids and has great fun - but it makes for a long day for him.
I decided to attend the 9:00am service today and then take our four younger kids, and a neighburhood kid, Amanda, to the
San Antonio Zoo. My in-laws kindly bought us the family membership as a Christmas gift last year, and we generally make good use of it. Today was the perfect day to go - the crowds were down, the weather was fine, 93 was the high, but there was no or little humidity. The animals were out in full force, and the kids were filled with energy. San Antonio Zoo is very pretty, with many points of interesting architecture, and is surrounded by a park, with the
Witte Museum and the
Japanese Tea Gardens nearby.
The kids did have a good time - we go so often these days that they know exactly when a new animal is on exhibit, and if something is out of place!
Garrick and Teagan
Carson
Amanda and Hayley
Labels: Amanda, Carson, Garrick, Hayley Teagan, Japanese Tea Garde, Witte, Zoo
School Days or is that Daze?
By now most of the nation's school kids have started school. Our kids actually started back on August 25th, the week before Labor Day. I think the Texas school system is slowly working towards starting after Labor Day and ending the school year closer to the middle of June, rather than the beginning of June. Perhaps one reason they like to end the year a little earlier is the heat - our summer here starts in April and ends in November, with the hottest months between May and August. If they extend school through June, the cooling bill must be astronomical - especially when one looks at the June we just experienced.
Anyway, the kids started school. This year I had to spend big bucks to kit the kids - not so much in school supplies, but in clothes. Teagan has grown 8 inches since last year and now is only 1.5 inches shorter than me. I noticed most of her clothes were too short, so we held an impromptu fashion show a month ago and at the end of it she had two pairs of jeans, one shirt, and two t-shirts that fit her! Hayley inherited many of her clothes as a result. Garrick was in the same boat - he'd outgrown all of his pants, and quite a few of his shirts. Unfortunately, unlike the girls who can share many of the same things, Garrick and Carson are built completely differently. Garrick is in Slim, Carson in Regular. So we hied ourselves off to Ross, WalMart, Kohls and Marshalls, and $700 later all four kids were outfitted. I have never spent that much in one season on clothes! It was insane - but they needed everything from underwear out. I haven't even got around to the shoes yet - I know that is coming though. Teagan and I are wearing the same size shoe (for now) which is fun for both of us. I teased her and told her that if she grew any more, I wanted her shoes.
So, here are the first day of school photos - Garrick has peanut butter on his cheek, and the mark between his eyes was a spider bite that was just subsiding.
Garrick and Carson
Teagan and Hayley
Labels: Carson, clothes, first day, Garrick, Hayley Teagan, Kohls, Marshalls, Photo, Ross, school, WalMart
