First week of 8th grade!

Claire started first grade and her last year in Hamilton Middle School on August 22. She wasn't super excited to go back since her summer went by way too fast with 3 weeks of keyboarding class, a week of camp, and 2.5 weeks with family in MN. However, I am happy to report that this first week has gone better than she thought it would! Looking forward to what God is going to do in her life this year!

As always, I had to get a few silly photos (can't break tradition)!

 

Claire and Abigail...challenge fun!

These two girls found some challenges they wanted to try...we started with the tortilla challenge. You fill your mouth with water and then slap each other across the face with tortillas to see who laughs first....hmm, wonder why this is something they found interesting?!

Then they wanted to put paint on the Twister board and play Twister. This became a huge mess as you can imagine!

The final challenge was a taste test with weird and gross drinks. They didn't seem to like many of the drinks they tasted and I kept reminding them that they were the ones who wanted to do this!

 

Visit from Owen, Ellie, Florian, and Sam: Thursday

 We got to have some visitors for 4 days last week. Florian, a guy who did study abroad from Germany while in high school with my nephew Owen, was visiting the States and wanted to come to see Texas. So, Owen, Florian, their friend Sam, and Ellie came to visit. It was a jam packed 4 days but we had a lot of fun! They arrived on Thursday and we went right from the airport to the Nasa Space Center.

We got to see a real astronaut in training!

When we got home, everyone did some evening/night swimming before going to bed.

Florian brought us an inflatable pretzel for the pool so we had to get all three guys on it for a photo op!

Visit from Owen, Ellie, Florian, and Sam: Friday

On Friday we got up early and headed to Matagorda Beach (about 2.5 hours from our house). Despite some stormy weather off and on, everyone had a great time. The skimmer board was the big hit of the day! All three boys left with bloody knees but they had a blast!

That evening, Ellie wanted to do a pixie stick challenge...she wasn't able to stomach all of them but she did a great job! Owen and the guys all did a death nut challenge which proved to be too much for all 4 of them. Of the 5 heat levels, they all stopped at level 3!

We took Florian to the store to get some different beers to try. 

Then back to some more night swimming for everyone!

Finally, we ended the day playing "pass to your neighbor"

 

Visit from Owen, Ellie, Florian, and Sam: Saturday

Saturday we headed to San Antonio. We made the necessary stop at Buc-ee's. I am pretty certain the guys were not impressed!

Then we went to the San Antonio Riverwalk and did the boat tour

We ate at Bubba Gumps along the Riverwalk...

and made a quick stop at the Alamo.

Off to the Natural Bridge Caverns next...this was really cool to see!

Our last stop for the day was at the Tejas Rodeo. The guys wanted a "true Texan experience". Doesn't get much more Texan than a live rodeo, some mechanical bull riding, and some BBQ!