School's OUT for the Summa!!!!

Yay! School is offically out! Taydem only had to go to school half a day today.  Normally she would just have to ride the bus over to Lil Eagles until she's picked up like always.  But Julia asked her to spend the night with her tonight.  So not having to go to Lil Eagles + getting to spend the night with her BFF made her whole day! And I was happy for her too.  After this week, we will say goodbye to Lil Eagles (for Taydem).  Next year, she will ride the bus to our neighborhood and get out at my cousins house.  She can either stay and do her homework there and wait for one of us to get her or she can walk home.  This will save me some money (a little). A little goes a long way for me!

 

Once Trever is out of college (2 years min) and Tenlee is out of daycare (3 years), we will feel like a rich couple! haha

 

Today is my good friends birthday! We've been friends since Kindergarten....yup that's pretty much 30 years! She's always been there and will continue.  Our kids are in the same grade (but have yet to be in the same class!).  We always joke and say they may be dating one day! Love her to pieces!

This weekend is Memorial weekend and we are always on the lake. But the weather is being stupid! Right now it's showing rain on Friday and Saturday.  Boooooo.  Hoping it clears up! This woman needs some sun on her body before going to Cabo.  Or I will be a red lobster on the first day of vacation.....ahhhh....vacation.

I seriously can't wait!

 It's been awhile since Leven and I went someone together...just the two of us!

 

 

 

 

 

That's a Wrap

Taydem's LAST day at Tatum Primary comes to an end tomorrow.  I feel like we just registered her for Kindergarten.  And BAM- 3 years have gone by! She finished this year off with All A's. 

 I couldn't be more proud.

Last night they had their awards ceremony for softball/baseball! She added another trophy to her collection.  So now we focus on All-Stars.  Last week they had 3 practices!

 

We have quite a lot booked up for the month of June for Taydem.  She's getting to do several sports camps and we are going to try and take her to Six Flags or Hurrican Harbor for a day.  Since we are taking our 10th anniversary trip to Cabo, we just can't afford a big vacation this year for the family.  So we promised her next summer we will head to a beach somewhere!

Plus, this gives me one more year for Tenlee to get older!!

 

Speaking of Tenlee-her new thing is always having her hand on her face when she sleeps.  The.Sweetest.Ever!

 

I had to take her to her check up with the ENT this morning.  Her tubes are getting close to falling out so we will see him again in August. 

 

Still Catching UP

While I was gone to Wyoming, Tatum Primary put on their annual M&M Program (Movement and Music).  This is always so fun to watch.  Each grade dresses up to a certain theme (this year was Super Heros).  The PE and Music teacher picks different songs for each grade and the kids will learn a dance routine, hula hoop, tumble, etc. We are so blessed to have such wonderful teachers! They work so hard to make this program special for the kids.  And I was going to miss it this year!! (enter sad face!).  Thankful for Facetime.  My sister held her phone the entire 2nd grade program so I could watch Taydem.  Yay!!!!!! And several people took pictures of her for me. 

My mom helped get her ready and my sister ended up doing her pony tail! It takes a village. 

Thankful I have a big one!

 

We got to see Trever this past weekend.  He is finished with this spring semester but is in a dying need of a job! He still hasn't found an internship job yet and if he doesn't, then he will get a job doing something.  The boy needs to learn how to save his money.  Hopefully after our talk with him this past weekend, he will start working on this. 

Tenlee has been working hard on potty training.  I'm hoping by next month she has it down!

Mother's Day at my parents house!

Taydem got a haircut this past Friday! The before picture cracks me up.  She has a lot of hair!

 

Wyoming continued....

.....so after our excitement at Independence Rock, we got back to driving.  We finally made it to Rock Springs around 3:00 that afternoon.  Checked into our hotel, went and bought hard hats (we didn't want to pack ours in the suitcases), fueled up and headed back to the hotel to wait on the 2 other guys to get back from the field.  While we waited, I jumped on the treadmill for about 30 minutes and did a few free weights.  The guys made it back and we talked about our plan for the next morning.  Wednesday was going to be a long day.  We all knew it!

 

We started that morning at 5:30 am and rolled back into the hotel parking lot around 8:00 pm.  My day was spent and I was tired.  I had been with Paul since Sunday afternoon.  Pretty much sun up to sun down.  I needed a break from him and the others.  So I stayed in my room Wednesday night. 

I don't even spend that much time with my own husband!! lol

 

Here are a few pictures from working Wednesday and Thursday---

Prairie dogs and antelope were everywhere!

This was our lunch AND dinner on Wednesday---yummy

Of course we took breaks and these usually consisted of selfies for me or scenery shots

selfie

Thursday we finished up around 3:00 pm.  Thank goodness! We all went and had dinner together that night to celebrate how bad ass we are! We finished this job a week early.  Which was super fine by me because I was missing my babies.  Our flight left at 6:00 am Friday morning.  Landed in Denver, waited around 45 mins and then took off again for Dallas.  Once we landed in Dallas we couldn't get on I20 fast enough.  It worked out perfect, because I got back in time to pick Taydem up early from school! She was so excited and so was I!

I missed ole Lev just as much!

 

I enjoy my job and I'm glad I can do things like this.  I will never EVER see this part of the United States again! I'm also glad I have a husband who can take care of things at home while I'm away. 

 

Speaking of while I was away.......I missed the big Tatum Primary M&M Program.

I will continue on this next week....

 

Have a wonderful weekend! Leven and I have a date night planned tonight!

Work is crazy...

....BUSY!

 

I haven't written in a couple of weeks.  One of those weeks being, I was in Wyoming! Work took us up that way.  We left Sunday afternoon and didn't return until Friday around 2:00.  This is a long time to be away from kids and the husband! I missed them so much.  Thankful for Facetime. 

 

We landed in Denver on Sunday night, spent the night and then left for Cheyenne early Monday morning.  Took us about 1.5 hours to get to Cheyenne, did what we needed to do there and then drove another 2.5 hours to Casper.  We checked in to our hotel and then headed to do our research at the Oil & Gas Commission.  It didn't take us as long as we thought, so we had a few hours to explore.  And why not! It's Wyoming.  We asked the hotel where we could find a cool hiking trail near by.  They sent us to the perfect place.  Now, in my mind I'm thinking walking trails like the ones here in East Texas.  Uh...negative.  This hike was up the side of a mountain.  Devin does not like heights. I was scared to death.  Paul on the other hand was like a kid in a candy store.  My heart was beating out of my chest the entire time.  We got up to the top (or as far as I wanted to go) and clouds started rolling in.  So back down we hurried! We made it to the bottom and it started raining and snowing! CRAZY! I was wearing shorts.  CRAZY!

 And of course I took tons of pics!

The skies looked pretty and blue, right?  .

It didn't take long at all for them to turn black and cloudy!

 

We got up early Tuesday morning and headed to Rock Springs, WY where our other two guys had already started field work.  We wanted to drive (another 4.5 hours) there so we could help.  Two more of us would make it go faster and all of us could catch a plane ride home earlier. I felt like at this point all we had done was DRIVE!! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the scenery, but still....in a car. I pretty much saw all of South Wyoming!

 

We tried to stop at Historical Markers along the way to help break up the drive and us getting bored.  Right off the highway, there sat a huge dome like rock! This was Indepence Rock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Rock_(Wyoming)

 

So cool! And this day was cold.  I think average was bout 45 degrees.  So we park the truck and start to explore, again.  We decided to walk around it.  Well about 50 yards into it, Paul starts running up the rock. WAT? I thought he was crazy.  So he says, come on, it's an easy way up.  I thought we were going to get in trouble until he says there's kids on the very top running around.  Kids? Yes, they were on a class field trip.  I just about died.  I couldn't even imagine bringing a bunch of East Texas kids here.  I would be a nervous wreck as a parent and a teacher! OMG. 

So I thought if they could run up the rock, so could I.

 

Can you imagine going up the side of this thing?

Can you find Paul??  This is when he told me to come on.  He was halfway up.  I was going to keep walking ON THE GROUND around the thing!

See the kids?? haha

At the tip top! The wind was blowing hard and cold!

If you read about the rock, settlers/pioneers would meet at this rock while on the Oregon Trail and mark that they were there.  These names were all over the rock.  Really cool place!

This doesn't look scary, but we were trying to find a way down.

This was the route we took.  I was so glad to be on ground again!

 

No lie, as soon as we hit the bottom it started snowing (see pic above).  It's like a weird snow.  Like little snow balls.  And the temp dropped fast.  We thought if it had done this 10 minutes before, we would have been screwed.  Trying to walk off that rock while the rocks were wet and slick!

Perfect timing. 

The storm lasted about 5 minutes and then went away. 

 

My trip will continue later......

Ballin'

Taydem has one more softball game left in the season (unless they decide to make up 2 of the games that got rained out).  I'm so glad she's playing this sport.  She's learning about being a good team mate, being coachable and what it feels like to compete and win! She's improved so much and can't wait to see her playing in a few years! We aren't doing gymnastics this summer because she will have a busy June and July.  The Tatum Athletics Department hosts a summer camp for all sports in June.  Two days are set aside for each: volleyball, basketball, softball, track and soccer.  She will do this from 9:00 am-11:45 am on these days.  Leven will enjoy getting her there and picking her up. And then in July, she loves going with Leven to his gym.  He opens up the gym for the girls to play vball (on their own of course) and they lift weights and workout.  Getting themselves ready for 2 a days come August. Carthage will also host a volleyball camp at their junior high so Leven will also take her to that.  And then the Tatum Lil Bumper's Program is hosting a camp at the end of June!

Busy busy bees!!

This is a picture of 3 of Leven's ex volleyball players from Pine Tree.  They are all graduating this semester and growing UP!! So crazy how fast life goes by. 

 The short one is getting married in July!

 This is my nephew Truitt! And he hit his first "out of the park" homerun this past weekend!!

Go Truitt!

My flower girls

The wedding was so beautiful on Saturday night....but the rehearsal on Friday....oh boy!

The rain came down.

 

On our way to the rehearsal on Friday night, the weather was clear.  All the rain was north of us.  The wedding coordinator was lining up the girls on the steps and the rain hit...and it hit hard and fast! We all ran inside and went over everything as best as they could.  Afterwards, we headed to eat with everyone.  We were all soaking wet once we got inside the restauarant.  My flats were wet!

Squish squish. 

 

We were eating and Tenlee got choked on a piece of bread.  I sat there watching her for like 3 seconds hoping she was going to cough it back up, but her face started turning red.  So I jumped up, knocked over my tea, and starting beating on her back.  The bread flew up! Whoa...Scary moment and I'm sure I had everyone's attention during this time.  I had no idea because I was so focused on Tenlee.  She was good to go after that.  I was so ready to get home that night.  We drove in hard rain the entire way and tons of roads were starting to flood.

 

Wedding Day

 

After the rain on Friday, we were all worried about how Saturday would be. 

It was perfect.  Sunshine and all!

 

Leven decided to stay home and drive over later because the girls had to get there early and have their hair done and pictures made.  So no big deal....well I had to re route 3 times because of water on the roads were flooded and no one could drive over.  I was freaking out! Thankful Tenlee was asleep during this time but I had Taydem freaking out too. I was mad at Leven for not going, but really I just needed to be mad at someone/something...so he got it!

GPS is awesome...right?

It finally gave us a good route and we made it just a few minutes late.  Glad I left early!

 

Lauren {the bride} looked stunning! AND my girls looked so pretty! And they did a good job.  I couldn't believe Tenlee walked down the aisle [lots of bribing I did]! The venue had horses everywhere and Tenlee kept wanting to ride.  So I told her she could ride after she held Taydem's hand and walked down the aisle.  As soon as she did this, she ran over to me and said "RIDE!"  Uh oh....of course I couldn't take her to ride so she threw a fit.  Major fit.  I had to take her back in the bridal suite until the wedding was OVER.  So I missed it all! Bummer.  After it was over, Leven took her over to the fence and she watched and watched.  She loves horses!

 

I can't wait to see all the pictures from the photographer! But until then....here are some of mine!