August 30 - Happy Birthday Julia

Age: 14

Grade: 9

Favorite Class: Human Geography and ELA

Least Favorite Class: geometry 

Current Activities: Clear Lake Swim team, Aquastar swimming, Girl Scouts, Cultural Club

Current Style: girly!

Current Interests: hair, makeup, shopping, music, binge watching shows on Netflix

Favorite Foods: spaghetti and meatballs, dumplings, cheesecake (not quite a food but you LOVE parmesan cheese) 

Best Friends: Reese, Kennedy, Kendall, Jill

Dream College: Columbia

Dream Job: Geologist or Archeologist

Place you really want to travel: Japan, Jamaica

Fun Fact: you have completely transformed in the last year. Our little sporty spice is now taller than me and full on girly. Your favorite color is even pink! You care about clothes and want to be stylish. I never would have imagined this huge shift.  The first week of HS you took 1h to 1.5h getting ready (hair and makeup must be perfect). You are still a neat freak and your room is always impeccable. 

Mom Brag: you pick up Jillian from school almost every day. Such a great big sister!! 

August 22 - It's a Sculpture

Some of you might recall that Jillian loved to sneak toys into her preschool (we used to have to pat her down like a little criminal). A few days before school she had "prepacked" for school and I reminded her that she cannot bring toys to school and started to go through her bag. As I'm pulling out a small toy she says, without missing a beat:

"Mom, that isn't a toy. It's my sculpture. You see mom, it's my Harry Potter sculpture and definitely allowed because it's a sculpture (spoken while nodding her head) and not a toy." 

Ladies and gentleman..the "sculpture":

August 16 - Three Kids, Three Schools

And just like that, summer is over. This year all of the kids are in new schools. Today was the first day of school for kinder, 6th and 9th grade students in the district. It's considered a 'transition day' so they can get a lay of the land and figure out where their classes are. Tomorrow is the first day for everyone else. 

Julia started 9th grade at Clear Lake High School. The day started with a pep rally, truncated class schedule (20min per class), lunch and then team building breakouts. She had a great day!

Luke started 6th grade at Westbrook Intermediate. His day was more traditional although he did have a 6th grade social for the last hour. He has friends in all of his classes and successfully caught the bus (he takes a bus from Westbrook to our zoned middle school, and then I pick him up there). He said the cafeteria food was "AMAZING" and he has a test on Friday already in one class. 

Jillian started kindergarten with Ms. Bach (same teacher Julia & Luke had) at North Pointe Elementary and had a great day. She also has new bragging rights as she's the only walker being picked up by her big sister at the doors (Julia picks her up while I'm getting Luke). 

High Schooler!

Middle Schooler!

Elementary School (our 10th year LOL)

August 8 - Natural Bridge Caverns

bye Canyon Lake

Our last day! Instead of heading home directly from Canyon Lake, we made a detour to Natural Bridge Caverns just north of San Antonio. Natural Bridge Caverns was discovered in 1960 by a few college students. We took a tour that goes 180 feet below the surface and saw some amazing rock formations  including stalagmites, stalactites, flowstones, chandeliers and soda straws. It was truly spectacular! Afterwards, we had lunch and the kids did a maze. Julia made it out quickly and had to go back in to help Jillian and Luke. It was a fun morning before our drive back. Summer vacation 2022 was definitely a success! 

Natural Bridge Caverns

August 4 - Jet Skiing

We spent our last full day of vacation back on the lake, jet skiing! JD rented a jet ski for a few hours and rotated taking the kids out. I stayed back with the other kids. A family reserved a boat and never showed up to take it out so the deck hands let us hang out on the boat while we were waiting. Unsurprisingly, all of the kids loved the jet ski! Tubing is still their #1 but this was a close 2nd. 

We drove to downtown Gruene that evening and had dinner at a cool restaurant called The Gristmille, right on the river. After some delicious food (even Luke liked it and he's my pickiest eater) we walked around the town and found a really cute, general store. We bought a few souvenirs We spent the rest of the day playing board games and relaxing. Great day!

Back at the Lake

Gruene Fun

August 3 - Schlitterbahn East

Day 3-back at Schlitterbahn! This time around, we went to Schlitterbahn East, the newer water park. In retrospect, we should have done this park on Monday with our 'blast passes' because this park had bigger rides but that's okay, we made the best of it. We arrived 'on-time' and immediately went to the big water coaster, The Master Blaster. We waited about 1.5 hours and it was worth the wait-it was awesome! Julia and Luke spent most of the day on their own doing rides while JD and I were with Jillian. There was an amazing pirate play area complete with water hose, nets and decent sized slides. She could have spent all day there! They had an amazing lazy river that went all around the park and it was so peaceful and beautifully landscaped. I could have floated on that all day! Another great day on vacation!

Schlitterbahn East fun

In case you were wondering...yes, it was a hot day

August 2 - Tubing on Canyon Lake

Vacation day 2! We rented a boat on Canyon Lake and took the kids tubing for the first time. They absolutely LOVED it and said it was more fun than Schlitterbahn. Fabulous day on the lake! We have three little daredevils on our hands, they loved the speed of the tube!

We packed a cooler and ate lunch in the middle of the lake (which in Jillian's case was a bag of Doritos and Oreos because she decided she no longer eats peanut butter and jelly) and it was so nice to just relax on the water. Fantastic day!!

Lake hair, don't care

August 1 - Schlitterbahn New Braunfels

View of Canyon Lake

Our initial plan this summer was to fly to Boston, do all the tourist things there, and then drive to New York to visit where I grew up. Unfortunately, I waited too long to get the plane tickets and by the time we were ready to pull the trigger, airfare was insane. So we shifted gears and decided to do a Texas hill country vacation. We rented a house on Canyon Lake, which is situated in the hill country halfway between Austin and San Antonio. It was only a 3.5h drive from our house and the only road trip we've taken in years where I didn't have to pack a huge snack bag for the drive! We arrived at the house around dinner time and the kids loved the big back deck, complete with speakers and lights for the evening. The sunset was gorgeous and we saw a lot of deer walking around. 

unhappy Luke

Vacation Day 1
For our first full day, we decided to go to Schlitterbahn New Braunfels, which is America's #1 water park. There is a Schlitterbahn Galveston that we go to every year but we were excited to check out the flagship park. The New Braunfels location has 2 water parks and we decided to do the 'old' park the first day. I thought the park opened at 10am and we got there around 9.30am...

9.30am: "Wow, we are one of the only cars in the parking lot, this is awesome!" - all of us

9.32am: "Are you sure you checked the opening time correctly?" JD to me

9.32am: "Yes! 10am, I'm positive." - me

9.35am: "We recommend you wait here with us so you aren't in the sun. They will open the gates around 10.30am." The only other family there who is standing under a tree across from the entrance 

.....and I have some very unhappy kids on my hands when they realized we had to wait an hour for opening. Whoops!

Once the park opened, we got a locker and found a spot for our towels and cooler. The park was absolutely gorgeous with mature oak trees throughout. JD and the big kids had 'blast passes' to help squeeze in as many rides as possible while Jillian and I were together for the day. The park had several river/rapid rides (one was actually pretty strong and Julia lost her sunglasses on the rapids) and some older style racing tube/slide rides. There was also a really large pool that Jillian loved that we played in. Several of their rides usually deposit people into the Comal River but the water level was so low, everyone was diverted off the rides at earlier points. The main downside of the day was that the concrete was rocket hot and at one point, I was carrying Jillian across a section and felt like a layer of my feet burned off. JD experienced the same thing and it was quite painful! Overall, we had a fabulous day and everyone slept well that night!

Waiting for the park to open

Schlitterbahn Fun