Finally, Claire's 10th birthday party celebration!

We were finally able to have Claire's birthday party. This year she wanted to go roller skating and do a sleepover. Everyone had a blast!

 Jeff had fun teaching two of the girls how to skate and by the end of our 2 hour time slot, one of the girls was skating without hanging onto anything!

 Addison V, Allison, Averi, Addisyn M, Claire, Karsen, and Addison H.

 Claire was lucky to have her cousin Ellie here to celebrate with her!

 As if skating isn't tiring enough, we then hit the pool for some free swim and some pool games!

 Claire wanted a taco bar for her birthday dinner and the girls all seemed to enjoy the meal.

 The first water game was Freeze Your Brain. We asked each girl a question about Claire. If they answered correctly, they got to dump a cup of ice water on Claire. If they were incorrect, Claire got to dump the water on them! They all loved the anticipation of this game!

 Claire especially loved to dump water onto her cousin Ellie! Brr! Thankfully Ellie was a great sport about it!

 The next game we played put the girls into two teams. They had to pour water over their head into the next persons cup without turning around or looking back. The final person in line then turns around to dump the water into the bowl and the first team to fill their bowl wins. The girls seemed to enjoy this game and the competition!

 The final game we played consisted of ping pong balls, each with a letter of the alphabet on it. We put the girls in teams of two and on Go, they had to go in one at a time to find a letter they needed to spell a specific word. This was so much fun and we mixed up the teams many times and played many different ways. The girls played this for an hour at least! Easy, cheap entertainment and so fun to watch!

 One would think by 10pm these kids would be exhausted! Think again! They stayed up until 1am giggling and talking! So fun!

 Claire and her two besties, Karsen and Addisyn, got to spend a few extra hours together after the other girls left. I love having these girls together! They have been friends since Kindergarten and their friendships are so special! What beautiful weekend! God is so good!

American Chinese Program through 2nd Baptist

We were blessed to host two boys from China again this year through our church. We had so much fun learning about their culture and teaching them about America! This is the first time we met the boys, Jason who is 13 and Jay who is 11.

 We had fun teaching them the card game called Spoons and they taught us a Chinese card game too!

 Jay said he likes to bake but doesn't get a chance to so we brought him into our kitchen and put him to work making cookies!

 The boys loved the pool and spent most every evening in it with Claire! She loved having other kids to be goofy with!

 We wanted the boys to try some Tex Mex so we took them to my favorite place, Gringos! 

I think all of the kids like the ice cream the best!

 Jay was super pumped to get a ride around the neighborhood with Jeff on his motorcycle! That was when I saw Jay smile the most!

 We spent one afternoon at Itz playing video games and bowling.

 Another fun pool day!

 The boys offered to cook Hot Pot and Chinese BBQ for us one night. It was quite a process but very entertaining!

 Since the spices are so strong when making hot pot, Jason recommended we eat outside and then wash our clothes to get the smell out! Cheers to Hot Pot and Chinese BBQ!

Last Vacation Bible School

Bittersweet VBS for Mom. This was the last time Claire gets to go to vacation bible school through church. She has so much fun at them and learns so much so I am a little sad this is over. However, once she gets into 8th grade, she can volunteer to help at VBS so she can still be in the fun!

Claire and her best friend Karsen had a great time!

 The decorations at 2nd Baptist are amazing! What a fun experience!

Fun weekend with MeMaw and PawPaw!

We got to go to Tyler last weekend and visit some of our favorite people! As always, we spend lots of time playing games with MeMaw and PawPaw and they are always up to learning new games!

This trip Claire chose to bring the game of Life and Mancala

 Then Claire moved on to teaching MeMaw and PawPaw how to make slime...

                                        

PawPaw was pretty disgusted with how sticky it was at first.

 MeMaw was not a big fan of the first batch either!

 Out of the 4 slimes Claire made, they enjoyed playing with 2 of them, I guess 50% isn't too bad!

 The final activity was spraying shaving cream onto a pan and being creative.

 Claire used food coloring to create her name in the cream.

 When she finished, she went all in and combined all the colors. 

 It was fun to watch her be creative with simple supplies and MeMaw and PawPaw enjoyed it as well, even though it made a bit of a mess! So grateful to have these wonderful people in our lives for the past 11 and a half years!

Happy Birthday America!

We had a wonderful 4th of July! We were able to get come cute pictures at church last Sunday

 Then on July 3rd, we went to the Dynamo soccer game and through Gulf Swimming we got to go out on the field and hold the flag for the start of the game!

 Claire's good friend Addie Hicks and her family joined us for the game and we had a great time!

 After the game, they did a beautiful fireworks display timed to music. A great way to start the holiday celebrations!

 Then for the 4th of July, we kept busy with swim practice and shopping while Jeff was at work. When he got home, we swam for a while, grilled, and played games. It was a wonderful day!