First day of 7th Grade!

Still cannot wrap my mind around how this happened, but Claire started 7th grade today. It makes me so sad that my baby is quickly turning into a beautiful young, independent lady. On the other hand, it makes me so excited to continue watching God's path for her unfold as she grows more into the woman He had planned for her to be! I will always treasure every single moment Claire wants to spend with me and I pray daily that God gives me the patience, grace, understanding, and guidance to help Claire be the very best she can be. This is going to be a great year!

It is tradition to get at least one crazy or silly picture every year!

 

Houston Interactive Aquarium

Our last family day before school beings. Jeff and I both had off work today so we took Claire to the new Houston Interactive Aquarium! It was pretty cool and we got to pet and feed some pretty awesome animals!

Claire liked to pet the giant rabbits...

and she loved feeding the ground squirrels!

This was just a cool picture...an octopus is such a strange looking creature!

We ended up being in many of the right places at the right time. Claire was allowed to finish feeding the camel it's bottle!

Jeff got to feed the Emu.

Claire liked hanging with the goats for a while...

and she had fun feeding dried seaweed to the fish. They liked to snatch it out of her fingers!

We had fun feeding the parakeets...Claire chose to not do this activity.

Jeff and Claire went inside with the ring-tailed lemurs to learn about them and pet them!

Claire and I got to experience having a Kinkajou...related to the racoon, they are nocturnal and they sure are curious little buggers. They quickly found my ponytail and tried chewing it! We learned that their long tails are all muscle and their tails are strong enough to support their entire body weight! It sure felt weird having them crawl all over us!

Claire got to go in and pet the kangaroos.

 This was my favorite part...Claire and I spent some time with the black and white ruffed lemurs.

They were so soft and fun to pet! Their paws are super soft with long fingers! They sure do make some loud noises though!

It was a wonderful way to spend our last family day together before the chaos of school begins!

Our trip to MN part four

We spent two mornings at the park and the kids had fun making an obstacle course to complete.

These two girls spent lots of time being silly and trying to wrestle each other!

The kids had fun tubing behind the pontoon and jet ski...Claire preferred the pontoon because it didn't make as big of waves!

After lots of time on the lake, we got to spend time indoors playing Telestrations and cards! So fun that the kids are all old enough now to join in on the games.

Such a wonderful trip with so many great memories! I loved getting to spend so much time with my niece and nephews as well as my siblings and my amazing mother! So thankful for this vacation!

 

Our trip to MN part three- A maze'n Farmyard

Coming to A maze'n Farmyard has been a yearly tradition with Grandpa Larry since the kids were little. We have continued this tradition yearly since he has been gone and the kids still love it! We ended up spending almost 4 hours here! Thank you Grandma Rachel for a day of wonderful memories!