Field Trip with 44 children aged 4-5 years old...

Yep, its that time again. The Pre-K annual field trip to Crowe's Nest Farm in Elgin TX. I went with Child #3's class last year.

A 45 minute bus ride with 44 kids and about 10 adults. Woohoo!

The kids have a blast. Between the tractor hayride, seeing Emu, Bison, Longhorns & Cows, Sheep, Goats, Llama, Peacocks and lots of Chickens & Turkey... they had a lot of fun. Then there was also the snakes, spiders, and creepy crawlies... honestly could have done without those but at least they were all in cages or tanks and not "free-range".

It was overcast for most of the day which wasn't too bad. It kept the heat down some and it didn't rain on us. Though we desperately need the rain... just not for those 4 hours.

Dental and Lacrosse

Thankfully those two things only have in common the same day and the same child. Child #2 had a rescheduled dental appointment this afternoon with a removal of a molar. He had a bad cavity that quickly went south. The tooth was too badly damaged for the dentist to save it so he pulled it.

Child #2 was amazing. He was calm and didn't make hardly a sound during the entire procedure. I was so proud of what a little man he was through it all. He felt great within a couple of hours, enough to go to the Lacrosse dinner.

Which beings me to the second half of the title... Tonight was the Lacrosse Team end of the season dinner. It was held at Waterloo up in Avery Ranch. They have a huge outdoor covered patio and a big field and playscape for the kids to run around and play on. A good time was had by all... even though the kitchen seemed to have been overwhelmed and took forever for our food to come out. The cake that one of the mom's provided was amazing. It was half chocolate and half yellow cake. The yellow cake was incredible and the Lacrosse design was fabulous.

Hubby might be coaching the 1st & 2nd grade team next year. The current coach is moving up to the next level 3rd & 4th grade because his son will be in 3rd next year. Looks like about half the team will be move to the next level next year, many are 2nd graders right now.

Cinco De Mayo!!

That means we eat Tex-Mex tonight. Tacos, nachos and guacamole!!

Its the little things in life.

The skullplate... its so important.

Last fall a very close family friend C was hit by a pickup truck and badly hurt. Thankfully he's made an almost full recovery, he still has a few brain injury issues (it takes up to 2 years for a brain to heal from trauma) but otherwise physically has fully recovered from it.

Except his skull. While he was in the sedation coma they temporarily removed a large portion of his skull (from midline down to his brow) to allow for the brain swelling then put it back a week later when the swelling was down. Unfortunately his body has decided that the skull piece isn't part of him and has "consumed" it. Over 90% of it has been "absorbed" back into his body. Needless to say very scary. He's been on "house arrest" for the past 8 weeks unable to go and do anything physical but school while wearing a helmet. Doctors say he'll never get to play contact sports again... he'll never get to play his beloved football again. Not something a 10 year old boy wants to hear at all.

So C is going in for surgery today to place a plate into his skull (hopeful that might also encourage regrowth of the skull pieces) to protect that amazing precious brain of his.

This last round of hospital drama has been hard for the mom since her best friend & neighbor who was her rock (heck was a rock to all of us) through last time passed away from breast cancer in Feb. It hasn't been the same without Michelle's amazing humorous presence to keep us all so positive and laughing.

Just trying to keep lots of positive thoughts and prayers for them right now...

Dental Emergency for Child #2

So Child #2 started to complain during the trip to the beach last weekend that his mouth hurt. Well come to discover he's got an abscessed tooth. It didn't get ugly until the other day when I had to pull him out of school to go to the ER and get antibiotics when his gum started to swell.

After getting the antibiotics and an appointment at the end of the week to see the dentist. We find out we are going to have to pull the abscessed tooth. It is too badly damaged to save it. Yuck. The dentist wants Child #2 to be on the antibiotics for at least a week before doing the extraction.

Fun times ahead.

Annual Beach trip to Padre Island

So Hubby decided we needed to try to do our beach camping trip earlier this year before the heat of the summer started to roll in like last year.

We decided to go camping Easter weekend because the kids would be out of school on the Good Friday. Last year we were driving back from Utah Easter weekend, doesn't seem like its already been a year.

So we planned to have everything packed up and ready to go when the kids go out of school Thursday afternoon. Yeah, right. Best laid plans so didn't happen. At least Hubby did put up the tent and clean it really good the weekend before. Unlike when we went camping at Pedernales a month after last year's beach trip to Padre Island and the tent was still covered in sand. Yeah that was pretty miserable with everything coated in sand. Yuck.

So at least we didn't have that issue. All in all it really only took us about 4 hours to get everything organized, packed and loaded. But it was still waaaaaay later than we'd planned to leave.

Hubby found out there is NAS (Naval Air Station) billeting down near Corpus Christi, so we'd already arranged to sleep there Thursday night. We'd just planned to get there by 10 pm... instead of leaving the house around 10 pm. Four+ hours later we arrived at the "hotel". It was really nice sleeping on fairly comfortable and clean sheets.

Camping was fun... but also miserable. It was soooo windy. Everything became coated in sand. Not just "sandy" like caked in sand. It was horrible sleeping in what felt like a layer of sand in the air mattress bed... which ended up with a big ole hole in it the second night and lost all it air.

We took Roger the puppy with us. We made an interesting discovery, He didn't handle car trips very well. He didn't bark... he just yacked. Often. Thankfully he was in a pet carrier the whole time. He also didn't enjoy the beach very much. He was most pathetic about being in the sand. Don't think we'll be taking him on the next beach camping trip.

The kids had a great time. Played in the water, made lots of sand castles, looked for seashells, and found a few Man-O-War jellyfish. No one got seriously burnt this year. Child#1 had a few red spots that have already turned to tan. I only got slightly burnt on my back/shoulders during the two hours we packed up camp. Not bad since I didn't remember to put sunscreen on. Nothing like last year!

I think we've decided that while it seems all wonderful to camp on the beach... we'd really like to maybe stay at the NAS again and come to the beach for the day... going back to hot showers and clean (sand free) beds... maybe sleeping on the beach for one night with the last night definitely at the NAS before heading for home. I think if Hubby and I could have figured out how to quickly pack up the camp that second night we would have and just driven home that night... that's how miserable we both were feeling.

Honestly I think I'm more of a park camper and not a beach camper. Perferably in moderate weather. LOL!

Hanging out with the family... laying in the grass at the Austin Farmer's Market at the Triangle.

The sun was shining, the brick oven pizzeria was making wonderful (though expensive for the size) pizza. The kiddos were running around enjoying the weather and the grassy area... and eventually the fountains. I of course totally forgot to pack some towels... they were all soaked to the skin once it was time to learn.

We really need to do this more often. Especially before the blistering heat comes on.