Last Day with Shelley and Sophie

Shelley and I met back in the Fall of 2006 when our girls started their first year of preschool together. The girls were 2 and became fast friends. While in preschool our 2 year old class, 3 year old class, and 4 year old class pretty much stayed the same and we had playdates once or twice a month. Not your regular playdates - super fun, field trip worthy playdates. Preschool was a BLAST for the kids and the moms!
Little Miss and Sophie have played together for years and Shelley and I have been best friends for all of those years too!
Shelley's husband got a promotion and now they are moving to West Virginia and we are very sad!!!
Today we got the girls (and ourselves) together for one last afternoon before they head out. While we're sad they are leaving - we're excited that we now have a place to crash should we ever head out to West Virginia :)

Sea World 2011

Fabulous trip to San Antonio this weekend to visit my high school besties and take the kids to Sea World.

Day #1 - We decided that it was Water park day today. The kids had never been down a water slide and it took some convincing but once they tried it they loved it! We also spent a lot of time in the wave pool. For lunch we took in the show at the cafeteria and then dried off for some animal fun. We took in the beluga whale show, the Shamu One Ocean show, the Codfish Cafe show and then hit up the roller coaster and merry go round before calling it a night.





Day #2 - Sea World Day - Lots of fun at Sea World today but our favourite activity by far was feeding the dolphins!




High School Best Friends reunite - Amy, Becky, and I were best friends in high school (Go Dragons!) We got together and chatted about high school and various other random things until around 2am. We are in frequent contact but it's great that we are close enough to be able to actually see each other frequently!








Now these pictures are hilarious! Amy found an old picture of when we were dating our husbands :) The picture on the left is from 1998 or 1999 and we took the picture on the right this past weekend - July 2011. LOVE IT!!

BBQ at Mom and Dad's

Mom and Dad are in Alaska so Lara and I decided that we should put their new pool to use! We invited our friends, Greg and Melanie, and their kids and headed up to parent's house for some fun in the sun. Got there around 2:30pm and the kids hit the pool. We grilled up some food around 5:30pm and then back into the pool! Lara and Ryan left around 7:45pm. We left at 9:30pm! The kids were so worn out. Super fun BBQ though!

Pinkalicious

Pinkalicious came to Southlake today!

The kids and I (along with a couple of our friends) went to see Pinkalicious - a play put on by a local acting company.

After the play (which was fabulous) we headed over to one of our favourite Grapevine parks - the Spider Park. We had a picnic lunch and ran off some energy with our tennis friends.

AHS Weekend in San Antonio

What a crazy weekend it's been!

This past weekend my best friends from high school and I decided to have a mini Alconbury High School reunion in San Antonio.

Originally it was supposed to be a reunion for me and my three best friends from high school. But it turned out that we were planning our little reunion when some of the other classes were planning a big 20 year reunion down on the river walk.


Here are Tara, Becky, me, and Amy in front of a British telephone booth :)

Soooo.... I flew in Friday morning and arrived in SA at 9:50am. Amy and her two fabulous kiddos picked me up from the airport and we went back to her house so that she could pack because we were staying at Becky's house for the weekend. Amy packed up and then we dropped her son of with Beau and then we headed to Habaneros for one of their FABULOUS Cheesy Bean Burritos. I have been craving one since the last time we were there. After lunch Amy (along with her 6 month old daughter) and I went to TJ Maxx to do a bit of shopping. Her husband came to pick up her daughter while we were shopping and then we went to pick up Tara from Makeisha's apartment.


We got Tara and then headed to Becky's house to move in for the weekend!


Once settled in at Becky's it was full steam ahead for our crazy weekend! Amy had brought snacks that each of us had introduced to her. She brought Frito Bean dip and Fritos because Becky introduced those to her, Rotel, Velveta, and chips for Tara and Butter Noodles for me :) We chatted a bit about "old times" and then decided we weren't THAT old and should go out to dinner!

We all got dressed for the evening and headed over to happy hour at a restaurant/bar that one of Amy's friends was singing at. Super fun night! Her girlfriend was great and we all had a good time catching up.


On Saturday we got up around 10am, hung around Becky's house for a while and then all got dressed for the day. We headed over to The Shops at La Cantera for a little shopping. We decided to eat lunch at the Food Court first and then shop. After lunch the first shop we hit was Sephora and we were there for 3 hours! Tara, Becky, and I all got our eyes done by Stefanie (who was fabulous) so that we could look great for that night. Then we hit the semi annual sale at Victoria's Secret. After shopping we went back to Becky's because Tara was going to the AHS Reunion dinner at the Holiday Inn La Tropicana with Makeisha.



After Tara left for the dinner we all sat around and looked at old picture albums and laughed about our high school days. Then we got ready for the night. Before we left for the hotel we took some pictures in Becky's kitchen.


When we got to the hotel we hooked up with the rest of the AHS group, got into taxis, and headed over to the Riverwalk. We ended up at Mad Dogs British Pub and stayed there most of the night. There was drinking, dancing, taking shots, more dancing and a ton of picture taking. Then we walked back to the hotel (Becky and Amy walked back barefoot because their shoes were hurting their feet). After hanging out at the hotel pool for a while (that's where the real reunion people were having their get together) we left to go back to Becky's house.


On our way out of downtown SA we ended up passing a Lulu's Cafe and decided to stop and try one of their ridiculously large cinnamon rolls. While there we ran into Monica who came over to have his picture taken with us. It was a crazy night and definitely one that we will never forget!

















We've decided to continue the tradition and try to get together once every year or two - next BFF reunion - Atlanta! See you girls in 2011!!

The "Group Dinner" Tradition

The "Group Dinner" Tradition - where to begin??

Our group of friends has been having "Group Dinner" for about 10 years now. I believe the tradition started in the Spring of 2000. I was teaching 7th grade science at a local middle school and the art teacher there, Lori, had decided to take a group of middle school students on an art appreciation/learning trip to Paris. She had opened the trip up to teachers as well. My English teacher friend, Krista, and I decided that we wanted to go along. I didn't know Lori and Krista extremely well - we were just work friends at that point.

The Paris trip was a blast - lots of walking, talking, and getting to know each other. We all came back with fabulous calf muscles from all of the walking! Once we got home from that trip, we decided that it would be fun to get together once a month for a group dinner to hang out, talk, drink, etc. During that time none of us had any kids and we were able to get together once a month for dinner. Lori and her husband Kevin, Krista and her husband Derek, and Ryan and I were the founding "members" along with another couple who went to Paris with us. We've rotated through a couple of different couples and over the last 6-8 years the core group has been Kevin and Lori, Krista and Derek, me and Ryan, and another teacher from the school, Sheri and her husband Patrick.

Once we all started having kids it got a lot more difficult to get together every month so now we get together every 3 months or so. Sometimes we go out to dinner, sometimes we have dinner at someone's house (we all bring something - kind of potluckish) and sometimes we even go out afterwards to a wine bar (actually I think we've only done that once :) ) or watch a movie at someone's house (while my husband sleeps peacefully on the floor - it's a running joke in the group that if it's after 10:00pm - my husband will be asleep. On the floor - at the table at the restaurant - wherever!).

Recently I started thinking how much fun it would have been if we had taken pictures at each of our Group Dinners. Ten years worth of dinner pictures and after dinner pictures would be awfully entertaining :) So I'm going to try to get as much info and as many photos from our past Group Dinners and post them here. I'm also going to start documenting our many Group Dinner adventures from here on out!

I'm going to go searching for all of our past Group Dinner details and photos.... Update to follow!

U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Today the kids and I along with one of Little Miss's friends and her mom went to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

I have been wanting to take a "field trip" to the BEP for some time but I wanted to take both of the kids. So since Little Miss is in school full-time I had to wait until there was a non-federal holiday to be able to go.

What a great outing!

On the way there I made a "worksheet" for the kids (I'm such a teacher!) that had four large circles and a large rectangle on it. We then gave each kid a quarter, dime, nickel, penny, and a dollar bill. Each child was supposed to draw each coin onto the circle and the dollar bill into the rectangle.

Here's what we ended up with :) I think if they'd had more time (they did these in the car on the way to the BEP) that they might have turned out pretty good!

You are not allowed to take any electronic equipment into the building so we left all of our stuff in the car, went through security, and then boarded the bus that takes you into the main building. We were the Red Tour group. Since our tour didn't start right away we went around the downstairs and learned about security features of the new notes, how to recover money that has been damaged, and how notes were made originally. We also saw the many different versions of notes through the years.

Then we set off on the tour. We got to see millions of dollars being printed, sorted, cut, stacked, and inspected. I believe that they said that they make around $267 million dollars every day and this year they will be making $151 billion for the Federal Reserve. After the tour we went and watched the educational video. It was really interesting. We learned that the engraved plates that are used to imprint the bills are hand engraved. An engraver must complete a 10 year engraver apprenticeship in order to actually engrave the plates and they do it all by hand ~ it was amazing to see.

Finally we toured the upstairs. The two most interesting displays for me were the note magnifier and the damaged note section. The note magnifier let us zoom in super close (that's the scientific term) to each bill and see the amazing security features added to each note including miniscule writing on different parts of each note. The damaged note section told how there are people at the Federal Reserve that are pretty much "forensic money" detectives. They can take severely damaged money and figure out the denominations of the bills. There was a story of a man that had been saving money his whole life by putting it behind his furnace in the basement. When he died his wife took the money only to find that it had "melted" together into solid bricks of money. She sent it to the Reserve and they examined the money and were able to determine that the value of the money that she had sent in was somewhere near $325,000 and they sent her a check for that amount.

Obviously I had a great time today. It was a little over the kids heads but they had fun just the same!

Here are the only pictures that we were able to take at the Bureau today :)

Camping at Twin Coves Park

Another year, another camping trip with friends!

We decided to camp at Twin Coves Park again this year. Our "normal" camping group ~ us and Kevin and Lori and two of their kids M and J came along with another family ~Sheri and Patrick and their kids Big H and Little H. Ryan and I went out to Twin Coves in advance and picked out campsite #38 for this trip. It was big enough for 3 tents and had enough room still for all 12 of us.

We came out Saturday late afternoon after Little Miss's gymnastics meet. We set up tent around 5 pm. Kevin and Lori were already there, then we showed up, and lastly Sheri and Patrick. We got all our camp sites set up, the food/drinks/supplies in place, and put our chairs around the campfire. The kids were fascinated by the fire and started putting sticks in the fire and "writing" in the air with the tips. Somehow Little Miss ended up touching the end of her stick and burned the tip of her right index finger. Luckily Patrick and Sheri brought along a first aid kit and had all the necessary burn ointment and dressings but she was pretty upset for a while.

Ryan and I decided to head down to the lake before dinner. Most of the kids decided to join us and we walked down to the lake, threw some rocks in the water, and toured the campgrounds. When we got back to the campsite it was time for dinner. We had cheeseburgers and hotdogs for dinner followed by our favourite camping treat, S'mores! After S'mores we handed out the glow sticks and by then it was around 10 pm and definitely time for the kiddos to go to bed!

We woke up around 7 am this morning and had breakfast burritos, bagels, and cheese cubes for breakfast (I actually had a soda and queso - very healthy). After breakfast was cleaned up we all decided to take a hike. We hiked for about an hour down a trail by our campsite (in a van down by the river! ha ha ha ). It was really pretty and the kids had fun picking up campfire wood and just being in nature! By the end of the hike, Little Man had decided he'd had enough and sat down and cried until I finally picked him up to carry him the rest of the way.

Once back at the campsite we had lunch and then Lori got out the Jiffy Pop that she'd brought. We thought we'd see if it would work on a campfire. Note to all, the popping goes well on the campfire but the popcorn does not taste good! Once we appeased the kids (who didn't get to eat the smoke flavoured popcorn) with the last of the S'mores it was time to head out. Kevin and Ryan took down the tents while Lori and I cleaned up the site. Then we all packed up and headed home.