Sofia's Gator Games

Sofia had her first "Gator Games" at her school and her last Fun Day of Elementary School. Sofia loves her school so much and she has said numerous times that she wishes she could have just one more year at Glen Hope with Ms. Hayes and all of her classmates. I do think that 6th grade, her first year of Middle School, will be a big change but her group will mainly stay together, so it won't be completely different than it is this year. She's made a lot of creative and smart friends who are similar to her (and love dragons) and she really has found her nitch! For the Glen Hope Gator Games, the kids were asked to wear their Glen Hope class t-shirt or a Star Wars shirt, since the theme is Star Wars. Of course, Sofia chose her Star Wars shirt and when I dropped her off at school it was clear that everyone else wore their class shirts. As I drove through the drop-off line I asked Sofia if she was supposed to wear her school shirt and she said "We could do either and I wanted to wear my Star Wars shirt, so whatever." I love that the girl just doesn't care and follows the beat of her own drum.

I returned to Glen Hope at 11:30am to watch/cheer/volunteer for the Fun Day. All the kids were eating lunch - pizza, a chocolate chip cookie and Gatorade. Just what everyone needs to eat before running around on a hot and humid day! Each of the kids had a bright blue bandana to wear so it was hard to find Sofia in the sea of Glen Hope shirts and blue bandanas. I talked with Ms. Hayes, Sofia's teacher, who is clearly going to miss her class so much when they graduate in two weeks. This is her first year teaching 5th grade, which means this will be the first year that she won't be seeing her kids again next year in the halls. I love how emotional and connected she is to these great kiddos! I found Sofia sitting on the ground with Liam and another boy, eating their pizza. She looked so cute with her bandana on her head. I had her hair in a french braid so it could stay off her neck during the games, but she later took her hair out and changed up her bandana.

Finally, it was time to begin! All the kids arranged by class in the back of the school and waited for the Opening Ceremonies to start. Each class also had a "class flag" which they made to represent their group and they were all creative and clever. The Opening Ceremonies started, and Coach Maupin was a Jedi trainer and welcomed all of the young Jedi to their training seminar, where they would be tested and challenged. Just then, Darth Vader showed up to challenge all of the young Jedi and encourage them to go to the Dark Side. Coach Maupin/Jedi Trainer chased Darth Vader away and the games began! It was really a cute Opening Ceremony! I arrived fully expecting to volunteer but was thankful to find out that I could enjoy the events and just watch since the Cross Timbers PALS - 8th grader volunteers - did all the work and received volunteer hours for their work! They did a great job too!

Sofia was super excited for the "Gator Games" and for me to be there to cheer her on. The first event Ms. Hayes' class had was the "Storm Trooper Bloopers" in which their class and Mr. Boykin's split into four groups and they each competed against each other by taking turns spinning around 10 times and then trying to use a baseball hanging from a string to knock over little plastic cones. It was pretty crazy, yet most of them weren't really that bad at it. After knocking down six cones, they then had to balance and walk over a raised plank and then jump over two obstacles. It was pretty fun to watch. Unfortunately, it was pretty hot and humid out, so watching the kids compete while standing in the beating sun was draining!

After that competition, all four of the 5th grade classes competed against each other in the "Truck Pull" which was literally a Ford truck with a long rope tied to the back hitch in which each class pulled it from a stop past a line in the grass. The event was timed, and the classes competed against each other and each had three turns! It was actually pretty remarkable that a class of 21 kids could pull a full size truck across the field in 9-11 seconds! Once the kids got it rolling, the truck actually got a good amount of speed going too! It was so fun! Ms. Hayes' class got close to wining but Mr. Boykin's class ended up winning with a time of 9.23 seconds! It was amazing!

After, we headed into the gym and a little bit of air conditioning! Inside the gym were four identical structures that each had 9 spots. The kids each took a spot and used a beach ball to hit it out of the their square and into another one. If that child missed it, they were out and everyone moved a square closer to #9. The person in the 9th position was the person who served the ball. On one of her rounds, Sofia actually made it to the 9th position only to serve the ball out and across the room! Oops! It was a pretty clever and fast-paced game and fun to watch.

The group of kids then made their way back outside where they competed in the water-relay, which was basically a way for the kids to get as wet and cool as they wanted. The idea was for three groups to compete by filling a bucket with water transported by aprons which were filled with water from a kiddy pool using frisbees. It actually was a great idea, although the aprons didn't actually hold any of the water, so even though the kids tried their hardest, by the time they arrived at the bucket there was only a few drops to add. The kids didn't seem to mind and basically focused and splashing around and spraying each other. I think each kid enjoyed getting wet and cooling off. Of course, Sofia loved getting wet.

The final event was the obstacle course, which Sofia was super excited about. It involved running through tires, jumping over obstacles and then climbing through a huge inflatable structure and then crawling on a tarp which Coach Maupin sprayed each kid down. Sofia was actually 2nd in line for this event, so she was obviously super excited to do it. It was super fun to watch each kiddo compete and they all did a great job. It was just after 2pm, so I told Sofia I really needed to go and she was sad and begged me to stay. I told her I could take her home with me, but she would need to leave without doing the obstacle course again and would miss out on Kona Ice. She chose to stay at school and take the bus to CES. Thankfully, Abby's mom, Kelly offered to take her home for me!

I returned home and picked Olivia up at CES and drove home. It was great to get that extra 30 minutes at home without waiting in the back of CES for Sofia. Sofia arrived home with a huge snow cone from Bahama Buck's, since they ran out of time to buy Kona Ice. I was so thankful to Kelly for bringing Sofia home for me. Sofia had such a fun day and loved every event! She loves her blue bandana and plans to wear it every day.

Sofia is ready for the Gator Games to begin!

Selfie!

Sofia and Liam

Sofia begins the "Storm Trooper Bloopers" - spinning around 10 times!

Trying to knock off the cones with the baseball

Sofia and her class participating in the "Truck Pull"

The Water Relay

Sofia running with her apron full of water

"Pouring" her drops of water into the collection pool

Wet, crazy hair and having fun!

Sofia starts on the Obstacle Course

Sofia and some friends getting sprayed by Coach Maupin

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day came a little early when CK let me open my gift Saturday afternoon. There were several large boxes and I assumed it was something for the lake. However, when I opened it up it was a super cool Nespresso maker, glass-toped pod holder and milk frother. So exciting and such a great surprise! A week or two before Mother's Day, I told CK about visiting the Nespresso bar in the Northpark mall months ago when I went with Casey for her to return a purse. He was telling me about having it at a work conference and we were both agreeing that it is an amazing machine that makes delicious coffee. I'd seen the milk frother in action years ago when I went to a friend's house who has one. I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen! It was super exciting to have the whole system and I couldn't wait to try it out. However, it was already late afternoon and neither one of us can drink coffee and sleep well, so we decided to get it all ready and try it out in the morning.

On Mother's Day, we got up and tried out the cool new Nespresso! It was awesome and worked so quickly! The coffee is delicious too and it was such a luxury to have steamed frothy milk! It was a little sad to clean my reliable coffee maker for the last time and put it away, but I can't wait to start using my Nespresso every morning! I took Buddy for his morning walk and enjoyed my coffee on the way. We headed to Meeting, which was pretty small due to several being out of town. After, we stopped by DSW shoes to get the girls much-needed dress shoes and sandals. Sofia now wears a 7.5 woman's shoe and Olivia is between a 1 and 2, with really no half-sized shoes. The 1 is too tight and the 2 is too lose. We picked a nice pair of dress shoes and decided to put cushions in them to make them snug. Sofia also found a cute pair of olive green Birkenstock's which are really molded plastic, so they were only about $40. They fit her like a glove and she loves them!

After the great shoe purchase, we drove to Dallas to the Park City Club, for our Mother's Day brunch reservations. Along the way, we talked to the girls' Grandma and wished her a Happy Mother's Day and caught up. Due to all the rainy weather in the past few weekends, Olivia actually had a soccer game Friday at 6pm, Saturday at 11:30am and one at 1pm today, however, we asked Coach Matt if the Rockets had enough players and that we'd rather go to brunch instead. Seems odd that they would schedule it for Mother's Day. Once we arrived at the Park City Club, we were sat at a nice table and headed to their amazing buffet. The girls picked up coloring pages to draw on, and one of them was a sheet of questions about Mom. It was cute to have them fill out the answers, although they both know my real age! The food was delicious, as always, especially the shrimp and cocktail sauce! CK recently decided to cut carbs out of his diet, and I was super impressed that he kept to it! We sampled several desserts (except for CK) and just enjoyed the ambiance of the club. It is so nice and relaxing.

The kids had fun coloring and trying new foods. I think Olivia had watermelon, cucumbers and cheese. Meanwhile, Sofia tried the shrimp and lots of different foods from the buffet. Of course, they both enjoyed trying a variety of the desserts!

After we were done eating, we headed home where the girls gave me their homemade cards, which were so cute! Sofia spent a few hours working on "her gift" to me which ended up being two paintings. One was a painting of a peacock and another was a heart with "Mommy" in the center and a verse below it. It was so clever and she did a great job! Olivia made me a cute card and drawing. Olivia also game me some adorable gifts that she made at school. She gave me a "Mom" drawing, which was super cute and a decorated brown bag which had a jar of homemade lemon body scrub. I love the kid crafts that they make at school and she was so proud to give them to me!

After opening all my great gifts, I ended up taking a long nap with Olivia. It was fantastic! It felt so good to just relax and sleep. I never take naps and we ended up sleeping for well over an hour! Olivia actually continued to sleep and it was hard to get her up from our nap. That girl can sleep. It was such a fun and relaxing Mother's Day!

The girls and I at brunch

Olivia's page about me that she wrote at brunch.

Sofia's page

Olivia's handmade Mother's Day card! So sweet! I love it!

"Dear Mommy, You are the Best Mommy Ever! Out of all the Mommys I would pick you! You are caring, fun, and loving! Love, Olivia"

Sofia's sweet painting

Sofia's peacock painting!

Olivia's Mother's Day craft from school.

"She loves to listen to..... animals playing happily." Not really sure what that means!!

"She loves to go to..... Starbuck"

"She loves to eat....sweet chicken." Again, not sure what she means!

"She loves to watch....American Ninja Warrior." Yep! The three of us watch it when we remember!

"She loves to spend time....cooking." There are a few other things on my list above cooking, but that's pretty good!

"My Mom is special because she cooks dinner for us every night and I like it." So sweet!

End of Soccer Season

Today marked the end of the girls' soccer seasons! Sofia has really enjoyed playing once again for the Pink Pirates, and loves having about half of her team being from the original team six years ago. This season we had a big team with seven new players to the team. So, every game had about 5-7 girls on the bench. It was nice to have so many extras for each weekend game. Coach Jeff continues to be an awesome coach and he has really fallen into becoming a very competent and calm coach and the girls are so lucky to have him. Sofia still prefers to play defense and spends a lot of her time hanging out in the back field, talking to herself, singing, and making up stories. She is good at going toward her opponent if the ball comes toward her, although if the player is very aggressive, she becomes a little timid. She is becoming more comfortable dribbling the ball and passing it to her teammates if/when she gets possession of the ball.

Olivia loves being on the Rockets and we have another great coach in Coach Matt and Coach Doug. The girls are such a fun group and have become a solid team together. The season was a little tough in the beginning for Olivia since Matt would consistently stick her in defense since she is so fast and can run down the ball and kick it away from the goal. However, she was bored standing around waiting for the ball to come her way. I emailed Coach Matt about halfway through the season and asked if he could allow Olivia to play offense at times too. The next game, he put Olivia in as offense and she scored four goals! She loves to run around and is a solid soccer player and I want her to get better and also enjoy it.

It's been a great season for both teams, but we are also all ready to have our weekends back to ourselves! Both girls want to sign up for soccer again next season, but we'll see how it goes over the summer. I do love both team's soccer families and I enjoy the Saturdays hanging out with such fun people and watching the girls play soccer and have fun.

Sofia playing defense with Abbie

Olivia at the end of her game

Olivia and her friend, Poppy

Olivia's "professional" photos (taken by me)

Olivia dribbling the ball down the field (with her tongue out)

Olivia's team!

And the Rockets' great coaches!

Love this picture of Coach Doug and the team!

The "unofficial" Pink Pirates team photo

First Weekend At the Lake!

We were finally able to spend our first full weekend at the lake house! After our tenants moved out at the end of February, I made a day trip down to meet with a house painter and a flooring installer to get quotes for new carpet for the three bedrooms and painting the entire interior of the house. It was so exciting to have that all finished and have a new feel to it. We ended up going with the same wall colors already on the main walls, which is Sherman Williams Sterling (#1591) in eggshell. I actually picked out a few different samples to try, but ended up really liking the original color much better. For the bedrooms and two bathrooms, I decided on a grey color (??) which was one of the samples I brought. It really looks great and is a good compliment to the main wall colors. For carpet in the three bedrooms, we decided to go with a neutral color that includes tan, grey, and some black. It was one of the least expensive options, which we figured would be good for the lake and yet it would fit well with the wall color (and blend in any spills that may happen).

Finally for the weekend we chose to go down, it ended up being the best weather of the year! It was sunny and in the mid-80s the entire weekend and the girls actually had that Friday off from school, so we left after lunch. I had my last USTA tennis match that morning against Mira Vista Country Club, which is out in West Fort Worth. After the match, I showered, and the four of us grabbed lunch before returning to the house for our clothes and Buddy. Buddy was very uncertain about what exactly was happening, especially since he saw all of our bags being packed up! He was just excited to be going with us.

Once we arrived, around 4pm, we had to work at setting up the beds. We actually had to take the wood bunk beds apart and move them from our room upstairs to a bedroom downstairs. It was a lot of work, but came together well. We then put together our two twin beds to make a king bed upstairs, where we decided to have our bedroom. The other two twin beds went into the other guest room and we decided to wait until the next day to set them up. We were all starving, so we headed to dinner. Our first real at the lake! We used yelp to decide on Hector's which is only about a 10 minute drive from our house. It was really busy but we were able to get in to a table after only about 15 minutes. The food was good! It was all delicious and really hit the spot!

After dinner, we stopped by Walmart to stock up on food and supplies. We ended up picking out a sheet/comforter set for our bed upstairs, as well as toothbrushes and toothpaste, which I completely forgot to pack. We also bought a much-needed vacuum cleaner since the new carpet is very messy and needs at least a good vacuuming! We also had to buy dog food for Buddy, since I forgot to pack that too. After our shopping spree, we returned to the house and got the girls tucked into bed. They were SO excited and couldn't get settled for sleep. The next morning, they told us they were up until just after midnight! Sofia is used to staying up late, but I can't imagine how Olivia did it, especially on a Friday night. She is our girl who is excited to go to bed at 8pm! Needless to say, they didn't stay up that late on Saturday night!

On Saturday, I woke up first and walked Buddy down Lake Drive, which makes a perfect loop. He stayed on his leash since I know there are a lot of dogs and he loves to explore yards. After everyone was awake we made biscuits and scrambled eggs and bacon. We ended up eating outside, looking at the lake while sitting on our steps. We bought a table and chairs for our deck, but haven't put them together yet. The biscuits were from a mix, and not the homemade ones CK usually makes, but they turned out fine. Not as good as usual, of course! After breakfast, Olivia and I put the table together, which actually came together very easily and only took us about 30 minutes. Sofia wrote and drew in her journal and Buddy just hung out on the deck like he'd been to the lake house every weekend of his life! Then, the girls changed into their swimsuits and were in the lake in no time. CK headed to the hardware store to buy more supplies, including a shovel and wheelbarrow for our fire pit project. We didn't get around to digging it, but will on a future visit.

After CK returned, he and Sofia towed the non-working jet ski to the boat ramp so we could load it onto our neighbor's jet ski ramp and CK could take it in for repair. I took both girls back on the jet ski and put it back in it's cradle. After CK returned from dropping off the jet ski, we headed out for our first boat trip! I was a little nervous, since we are both totally clueless about how to operate a boat, but it went great! CK filled up the "Hot Dog" and we tested it out in the middle of the lake. Sofia loved it and I ended up riding with her when Olivia declined. Buddy actually enjoyed sitting on the boat and was very relaxed, until I was out on the Hot Dog and then he whined and cried for me. CK put on his life vest (another Walmart purchase) since we were a little afraid he might jump in! Olivia was reluctant to get on the Hot Dog, but it was also 5pm and she was hungry and tired.

We headed in and made spaghetti for dinner and got to eat our first dinner at the lake house on our new table outside! It was perfect! Our internet provider also installed our internet (but no cable) earlier on Saturday, so we were able to use our phones. The girls went to bed without a fuss at 9pm.

On Sunday, we all slept in a bit and then had donuts that CK and Olivia picked up from Snowflake Donuts. The donuts were good and really hit the spot. We then took the boat out again and had fun on the Hot Dog. Sofia and I ended up falling and it knocked the wind out of Sofia and really shook her up. She kept saying how thankful she was for having a life jacket on! Unfortunately, she never really regained her confidence and wanted CK to go slow and not to make any turns. I know she needs to fall off one more time so she understands that won't happen each time. Olivia got on the Hot dog briefly but didn't want to go over 6 mimes an hour. Then she wanted off. She'll warm up to it. We were super hungry and headed to Chili's for a burger. It was delicious and really hit the spot.

We returned to the house and organized before we closed up everything to head home. It was such a fun weekend and we are all really looking forward to spending a lot of summer at the lake this year!

The view from our back deck. So beautiful and relaxing!

Buddy surveying his domain!

Enjoying the view with a cup of coffee - the best!

Breakfast!

The girls drawing, making up stories and talking! Love it!

Buddy and the house

Tada! The finished table!!

Sofia writing in her journal

Olivia reading

Grilled cheese lunch on our table

Selfie!

The girls are ready to swim!

At the end of our dock

Buddy!

Pulling the jet ski to the boat ramp

Ready for our first boat ride!! Exciting!

Waiting to get started. CK is on the phone with the former owner asking questions before we set off

Our life vests and swimsuits after a super fun day

Our first dinner at the lake - spaghetti! It was delicious!

Our living room and Buddy has found his spot in it!

Buddy and Olivia on the boat. He was perfectly comfortable

Papa driving the boat

Sofia gets her life vest on

The Hot Dog!

Sofia and Olivia on the Hot Dog. Olivia only rode it for a few minutes. She much prefers the boat.