So we really didn't do a whole lot the last month of our summer break. We might have done more if Jason wasn't always working or if we had some extra money, but what can you do? I'd love to have been able to visit Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim more, go camping, go to an Astros game and just spend some time with Jason. Alas - Jason had to work the night shift for two weeks, so he was no fun (because he was either at the hospital working through the night or here sleeping during the day). I hate the night shift!! Apparently he didn't have as horrible a time as I did because he and his colleague decided to make their 2 weeks of night float an interesting experience (or at least appear that way). Each night, they took a couple of pictures with Jason's iPhone and then Jason would then proceed to make a story about each night's pictures (turning it into a poster). So they had one poster for each night and Jason made sure to hang up all of their posters on a bulletin board in the residents' room just to make the other residents jealous of all the fun they had. Yep! That's my hubcap!
The girls and I had a chance to meet up with some friends of ours a couple of times - once at our favorite playground by the commissary and another time for tea at Mad-hatter's. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience - because we had all of our kids (my three and her three), but it was still fun!
Our final two weeks, Jason was back to his normal schedule, but we didn't have any money to do anything. Dang blast it! We always seem to use up our savings whenever we go to Virginia, so there wasn't a whole lot we could do!! We had no money to buy a tent or supplies, so we couldn't go camping. We couldn't go to Houston to take in a baseball game because we had no money for gas, tickets and a hotel. We actually could have made it to Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's house Labor Day weekend, but Jason's brother Mike already had plans to come down and visit us and a friend of his. Although we didn't get to do all that we'd like to have done - we still had fun doing the usual: driving around wasting gas (which gives Jason and I chance to talk while the kids are all strapped in and watching a movie on the DVD player, spending time with Mike when he came to town and enjoying an interesting evening of BBQ and karaoke with the next door neighbors for Labor Day!
I also spent a few days reading a book called Scheduling for Christian Home-Schooling Families that my wonderful friend Laura recommended to me! Thanks Laura-poo!! Then I spent the last couple of weeks trying to come up with the perfect schedule for us to use on the weekdays. It's coming along great! I definitely won't be scheduling our weekends though - that would be a bit much! I'd rather just keep the weekends open for adventures!!
This is how I was greeted at the hospital when the girls and I stopped by for a visit - by a very bald Jason. He and his colleague decided that it would be fun to shave each others heads with surgical clippers. It must have been a slow night at the hospital. Yikes!! ;)
At the commissary shopping for the Resident BBQ we hosted.
Jason and Caleb (my two bald boys) at our new favorite breakfast place - The Egg and I.
Jason and our little cutie-poo Caleb
Me and Kristin
Kristin and her friend Carol on their way to our tea party at Mad-hatter's
Kristin and Carol are ready for their tea!
Kristin and Nora
We also went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Jason being done with the night shift. He only has two more 1-week rotation of the night shift for the rest of the year! Hooray!
Katie and Kristin at the Cheesecake Factory
Later that night, Jason and I went out for our 2nd bowling date. Much to my amazement (and Jason's demise), I actually beat him!!! Woohoo!!!! It's the first time I've ever gotten over 120!!! Jason usually gets a much higher score, but unfortunately for him he lost the plug in his bowling ball and it threw off his game! But I still count that as a valid win for me - in my book! A couple paydays from now, Jason is going to buy me my own bowling ball, so I can work on bettering my bowling score (and start throwing more consistently)! Hooray! And I'm getting my own shoes too! Yay! No more rental shoe cooties for me!! ;)
145 to 142!! Woot woot! ;) Oh - and Jacob was Jason's new name for the day (I'm not sure what his thing is about not putting his own name on the board)... ;)
Caleb - a little over 6 months old
Aw! He's so cute!! :)
Out on our Bass Pro Shop excursion -
He's all dressed in his camo gear and reading to find some camping/hunting supplies! ;)
Cute little Kristin is always up for a photo op! ;)
About a week before we started school, my Mom decided (out of the blue) that I HAD to take the kids to Build-a-Bear and have each of the kids pick out their own bear, an outfit and shoes. There was some kind of special going on, so my Momroo deposited money in our account and forced me to go! What could I do? Even with a special, Build-a-bear is pretty overpriced...I think anyways!! The girls were overjoyed...and Caleb happily smiled at the wolf I picked out for him (just before he decided to gnaw away at the price tag until it was a useless lump of mush)!! ;) It's a good thing we went without Jason because we spent about 2 hours in there!!! I almost went crazy!! But it was still fun!
Okay - I have to jump in here for a second! I do not know what is going on with this ridiculous blog entry of mine, but for some reason I can't get any more titles on the rest of the pictures I've uploaded!! And it keeps leaving a huge gap between some of the photos! What the poo?! I've tried everything and nothing seems to be working! I'm too frustrated to keep messing with this, so I'm just going to publish it as is. Sorry! Maybe I'll be able to come back to it later and fix it.
The rest of the pictures are of Jason's brother Mike in town (while he was here visiting a friend of his from college). There are pictures of us when we went to a shooting range with Mike and a colleague of Jason's from the hospital. The last few pictures are of the kids and then of the Labor Day BBQ we had with our neighbors next door - a night full of food, drinks, cackling and Jason dominating the karaoke machine... It wasn't pretty folks... ;)
Kristin, Katie and Caleb with their unstuffed animals
Kristin getting her Hello Kitty stuffed
Kristin doing the honors (for some reason Katie was too afraid to push the pedal herself to help stuff her own bear).
She happily took her stuffed bear from Kristin
Man it's a lot of hard work being the big sister!! ;) Kristin helps stuff Caleb's animal too!
He's very excited about Wolfy (the name Kristin gave Caleb's stuffed animal)!
Kristin dressing her Princess Kitty
