And so it begins...

Today is the official first day of summer vacation.

We decided to go to the Cedar Park Farmer's Market. Hubby has been craving one of the cherry danishes from Sweetish Hill Bakery. We load everyone up and head over there.

It was hot, not unbearable but none the less hot. We weren't there 20 minutes and Child #3 suddenly doesn't feel well. Like "spit yuckies" feel bad. So I quickly steered him out of the middle of the food vendors over the one of the grassy medians of the parking lot behind the vendor tents. I held him kind of hanging in my arms over some grass in case he actually had to throw up. Thankfully he never really did only gagged slightly and moaned a lot.

Yeah. Sick child on the first day of summer vacation.

Needless to say we headed straight home again. We thought he might be dehydrated after all the running around outside he did yesterday.

At least Hubby was able to snag the last cherry danish before they sold out.

Once home the boy layed down on the couch. Everyone else was outside playing when Child #1 noticed that he looked hot. He spiked a 101.8 fever. Lovely. He proceeded to crash and sleep on the couch for the next couple of hours. He never did throw up but did have to visit the bathroom several times for "other reasons". Poor buddy.

He seems to be recovering with lots of rest and light eating. He went straight to bed without the slightest complaint.

We ended up missing Hubby's best friends promotion celebration party but alas can't take a sick child out. Here's to hoping no one else gets sick.

Last Day of School...

Hubby got home about mid morning right before it was time to take Child #4 to Pre-K. She didn't hear him come in so when I called her downstairs she squealed on the middle of the stairs and launched herself into his arms. Yep, she was happy Daddy was home.

After taking Child #4 and a friend to school, Hubby and I went to lunch. Then it was time to hit the End of the School Year class parties. Four of them. This year and next year are the only years where all four kids will be at the same school at the same time. Next year they will be in for the same hours since Child #4 will be in full day Kindergarten (she better get Ms C!!!).

All four parties were outside for part of it. In that lovely Texas heat! Thankfully it was only up to 94 degrees while we were outside. Seriously were they trying to give us heat stroke? Could have been worse, it hit 100 degrees two days earlier. The older three were surprised to see Hubby since they didn't know he was going to be home so early on Friday and he doesn't usually get to come to the school parties.

It's official. The 2010-2011 school year is now OVER!! It's summer vacation.

Child #1 is very happy! She doesn't have to wake up early in the mornings.

Child #2 is also happy because he doesn't have to wake up early or do "reading" anymore. Little does he realize he will still be doing reading this summer.

Child #3 is conflicted. He LOVES school so much. He loves his teacher, he loves his classmates and his special friend, and he loves learning. But he is happy about not having to wake up early.

Honestly who are they kidding?? Okay so I'm not waking them up at 7am, they are all awake by 8am anyways. Okay Child #1 will sleep in later if the boys don't wake her up.

Child #4 is indifferent in that classic Child #4 way.

Report cards came home and were awesome all around.
Child #1 ended up with straight A's for the year. She was quite proud of how well she was able to bring her grades up from the B's of last quarter.
Child #2 was able to show marked improvement all around and his teacher was so impressed with how much progress he made in reading & writing.
Child #3 maxed out in just about everything just like we knew he would... my little brainiac. Child #4 improved her oral language from 6 yr 4 months to 10 years 2 months! Which means she has the vocabulary of a 4 grader! She's not even 5 yrs yet! We definitely saw that learning spike in her speech... she's always been a talker once she decided she wanted to talk but its increase exponentially this year. Seriously get her alone and she will overwhelm you with her constant stream of verbal conscientiousness. She'll make your ears start to hurt and your head spin.

Sadly we will be missing Child #1's teacher Mrs. F. next year. Between the budget cuts and the soon arrival of her first child she won't be returning to Jollyville next year. So wrong that we lose those amazing young and vibrant teachers to the budget just because they were the most recent hires. I'm hoping that in a few years she'll be back...

So now its time for sleeping in (HA!), loose schedules, lazy & carefree days, fun in the sprinklers, and lots of trying to not kill each other days.

The Summer Adventure and Quiet Vacation...

Well, its hard to believe but the house is quiet because the four hooligans have just headed out to spend the next couple of weeks... yes WEEKS! with their grandmother Mawmaw and family in Houston. They are basically gone for the rest the month of July. They should be back the last weekend in July unless plans change.

They are going to the Zoo and down to the beach in Galveston for a weekend. Who knows what other fun and exciting things they will do! They always have a good time. I do miss the amazing museums in Houston... Childrens... Natural History... Fine Art...

Hubby and I are going to try to go out to dinner to some places we just can't do as a family either because it isn't as kid-friendly as we'd like or is too expensive for a family of 6. We might try to maybe see a movie or so. Of course Hubby has to go out of town for a week in there for work.

I already miss them and they've only been gone a few hours... its gonna be a long couple of weeks.

Very quiet but long...

Enjoying the beach

Well, we were talking about going camping with the kids before the weather turned really hot... yeah like it isn't already hot here... but we are talking the scorching oppressive heat that is a Texas summer day. So going to Pedernales Falls State park was gonna be the choice of camping location when I heard the morning guys on the radio talking about camping on the beach at Port Aransas. Hmm camping on the beach, the kids would sooo love that. I remember camping on Pismo Beach CA when I was a child, it was awesome and an experience I wish my kids could have. Soooo in light of recent events in the Gulf with the British Petroleum oil drilling platform exploding and continuing to pump millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico maybe its a good idea to hit the beach sooner rather than later when the oil sludge starts washing up on the sand. I've never been to Port A before so it would be an adventure for me too.

All week the weather forecast kept saying scattered thunderstorms for the weekend. Great camping in the rain isn't fun and at the beach really isn't fun. So we kept watching and hoping that it wouldn't rain. Game plan was to load up and leave Friday morning-ish and stay until Sunday afternoon. Its a four hour drive from Austin. Friday the day went out every direction but how we planned. So we thought we'll leave late afternoon and get there Friday night setup camp and go to bed. As the day progressed we decided we'll sleep at home and get up really early (by 5 am) and head out to get to the beach by mid morning. Yeah that worked... 5 am and its a massive storm outside, thunder, lightning and a gully wash of rain. Good thing we threw a tarp over everything loaded on the roof rack of the truck or it would have been a really unpleasant experience with a wet tent. Needless to say both Hubby and I rolled over and went back to sleep until the storm was over a few hours later. A friend of Hubby's was also at Port A with his family (staying in a condo) and he texted message that it was storming really bad there right about the time we had been planning on arriving to the beach. Sooo because of the Hunter Family tradition of getting a late start on a trip totally worked in our favor. If we'd gotten down to Port A on Friday we'd have been in the rainstorm in a tent with 4 freaked out kids aka we'd have been sitting in the Land Cruiser watching everything get soaked. Or if we had gotten up at 5am and headed out we would have been in the middle of that storm... don't know if the kids would ever want to go camping with us again... don't know if I'd ever want to go camping again. LOL!

So we finally got on the road and heading to Port A late Saturday morning. We did a leisure drive down and stopped at a local Farmer's Market on the way and picked up some peaches and a watermelon.

Hubby decided that he wanted to camp as far away from other people as possible... so instead of camping at Mustang Island State Park where there are shelters and electrical plugins and BATHROOMS... he decides we need to truly camp further down the coast at Padre Island National Seashore... about 4 miles down the beach away from any civilization. seriously?!?! So we didn't even get to have one of those semi-sheltered picnic tables. We were on the empty beach. Yeah got to teach the kids how to make a "cat hole" because there weren't any bathroom facilities.



It was early evening once we picked a spot. The kids went down to play "near" the water on the beach while Hubby and I unloaded and set up the tents. At one point I looked up and with the sun low in the sky and looking over the seaweed dune line between us and the kids I could see them jumping and hopping along the sand all carefree and joyous. It was that perfect Kodak home movie moment... of course the camera was in the truck at the time and the kids all wanted to pose once Hubby got the camera and tried to catch them unaware.

It was beautiful to see though.

After we got the tent set up and a fire going we enjoyed hot dogs and then later of course s'mores. I think that is really the reason the kids love to camp. LOL!

Kids also got to chase a little sand crab around for a few minutes. Especially once it vacated the tent.

Kids went to bed while Hubby and I enjoyed the evening and the stars. We even got to see a little sand mouse scurry around in the darkness.

Sleep wasn't the greatest because we couldn't use the air mattress, the pump that uses the car plug didn't get packed... so it was sleeping on a thin pad... not that great, I'm an air mattress camper now.

A good time was had by all though we made a few discoveries on items to always take with us camping... a good sun cover being one of them.

Everyone got burnt except for Child #2 who kept reapplying sunscreen every couple of minutes... he had a distinct bluish cast from the Avon "disappearing blue" sunscreen. Guess he learned from last year's camping trip to Pedernales Falls where he got blistered on his back & arms. Very bad mommy for not noticing that he'd taken his rash top off and was out of the water/shade most of the time!! Boy doesn't take his rash top off now.

Hubby and Child #1 got it the worst on their backs... definitely two crispy critters.

Summer Dinner of Champions

Once in a while I like to make dinner a totally fun event. So as we approach the end of summer vacation dinner tonight was:

Fresh Fruit
Ice Cream
and...

S'Mores.

I think the kids were in total heaven. They practically bounced up the stairs to bed... total sugar high. And quickly crashed. Aaaah blissful quiet.