Wave

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been waving to the camera. Recently she's been taking out her camera and getting pictures of us during our visits, and for some reason today we all waved too! Well, everybody but Chuck.

Clarkie didn't feel like getting more than his feet wet at the pool, but he did enjoy himself.

Turns out, the main reason mom's dusted off her camera is because she's interested in starting up another blog of her own. You may recall her past blogs, in particular the one where my parents reenacted stock retirement photos. It was awesome, and now random websites have started using their reenacted photos as stock retirement photos! The new blog will feature photos like you see here, with family, friends, and fun days out and about in Texas and Florida. She's not sure what to call it so I thought I'd start a poll. Dear blog readers - what do you think? Cast your vote in the comments for your favorite title:

1. Fun with Rob & Ellie
2. Ellie's Alley
3. Here and There

In case you're wondering - no, my mom does not typically go by Ellie. I think she should just share photos with friends on Facebook, but who am I to deny somebody the joy of having a blog? Especially one which will surely include lots of smiles and waving!

18 Years!

It's hard to believe, but today we celebrated our 18 year wedding anniversary. My parents came over to babysit and we went out to a lovely dinner at Truluck's...

... followed by a Segway Tour of Austin! Chuck mentioned years ago that he thought it would be neat to try this out, and it was - but I have to tell you, I am not great at riding a Segway. After ziplining I figured this would be a breeze, and it wasn't exactly hard. I just wasn't very good at it!

Luckily, I didn't actually wipe out. We both had a great time exploring the city at sunset in a fun and geeky way. And while today marks 18 years married to this fun and geeky guy, this weekend I also celebrated 9 years working at the Foundation!  

A few of my (fun and geeky?) coworkers surprised me with 9 essential items from 7-11 to celebrate 9 years on 7-11. Now if only the years would stop flying by so quickly...

C-L-A-R-K

Clark is growing up so fast. While we haven't made much progress (NONE) with potty training, we have definitely made progress with SPELLING! 

We also just converted his crib into a big boy bed. It was getting hard to lift him in and out! He seems to like it, though he doesn't quite seem to understand that he can just get out on his own... which is actually kind of awesome.

Clark had an especially fun day today, as Grandma & Grandpa are BACK and they watched our big boy all day today. Randomly, daycare closed today instead of Friday in observance of Independence Day. Thank goodness my folks came back in time to help us out!!!

Sounds like a good time was had by all. Thanks for watching our sweet little guy, mom and dad! We're glad you're back.

Garage Sale

You might think that volunteering, playing, camping and running a 5K would've been enough to keep us busy, but we did WAY more than that during our week off. Aurora told me a month ago that she wanted to have a garage sale, and I told her we could do it if we spent some time cleaning out the house. Believe it or not, we did! I had a TON of stuff piled up all along the counter (and table, and floor) inside the kitchen door, and not only did we sort through all the junk, we also took a trip to IKEA and bought a new shelving system to get everything organized. I don't have a before picture, but the after is phenomenal. Now there's a place for the mail, keys, shoes, and every backpack, purse, lunch bag, grocery bag, diaper bag and gym bag. It's a huge improvement!

We found a bunch of stuff to sell, and this morning we woke up bright and early to set up our canopy, table, chairs, signage and goods. I posted our garage sale on Facebook and we made a pitcher of Kool-Aid. While most of our customers were good friends and neighbors, we had a few other people stop by and in total made almost $70.

Afterward we took two bags to Half Price Books and got just enough trade-in credit for Aurora to buy a sticker book, then we dropped a couple boxes at Goodwill and headed to Amy's Ice Cream for a post-garage sale treat.

We kept talking about how fun the garage sale would be, but I really didn't think Chuck would be that into it. Turns out, he helped and hung out with us all day! I think he's pretty happy with how clean and nice the house is looking. I'm sure the ice cream helped, too...

Freedom

I have to tell you, having a tent is the ultimate feeling of freedom. This weekend we packed up our car and headed up to Lago Vista, TX for a one night stay at Arkansas Bend Park, no reservations required! It was absolutely gorgeous. Water all around us, breezy weather with plenty of shade, and we even saw fireworks from our tent!

While we were going on very little sleep (and no coffee!) we packed up early and headed to the Firecracker 5K. I really enjoyed this run. While it was hot and the course was hilly, it wasn't crowded and the views were just lovely. I finished in under 30 minutes (which was my goal) and from there we headed straight to the Lago Vista 4th of July parade.

We saw firetrucks and boats and horses, got candy and toys, and while I don't think it was QUITE as well run as the Lakeway parade we've been going to for the past few years, it did not disappoint. What a fun and memorable 4th of July! Chuck and Aurora are watching fireworks from our balcony as I type, but I'm about ready to turn in early. All this freedom is exhausting!

My kind of week!

If there's one thing that blogging every week has taught me, it's that I'm pretty predictable. I bet if I asked each of you to guess what our week of Mommy Camp would entail, you would probably get it right! Volunteering, playing outside, eating ice cream, maybe a birthday party or two. Right? I'm sure by this point many of you would add in camping and a 5K (stay tuned for my next post).

This week Aurora and I volunteered at the food pantry, made 4th of July goodie bags for the local homeless shelter, and Aurora helped me put on our annual LIVESTRONG Ice Cream Social, in memory of our friend Carmen Mitchell. Her family attended and we hung a tile that her granddaughter designed. We also went to the splash pad, did crafts at the library, attended a birthday party at the lake, caught up on our shopping and spent some time cleaning and rearranging the house...

I asked Aurora what she'd most like to do if it were entirely up to her, and she said she'd like to spend some time at home playing Minecraft. So, we did that too! Well, I read while she played. No surprises but it's been a great week.

Summer Fun

Aside from a few scattered rain storms, we had a pretty nice weekend of summer fun. We went to the movies, attended two birthday parties and enjoyed some time at the lake.

This weekend hasn't been ALL fun for Aurora. Last week she went bowling on a field trip, and she slipped and fell and her bowling ball squashed her pinkie finger! It turned purple and she was really afraid the nail would fall off, but it's healing nicely now. When yesterday's party moved to the pool, she cut her knee on a broken post in the water that had a sharp metal edge sticking out. The lifeguard was so nice when she came to help with her first aid kit, but then she mentioned that she'd noticed the problem and hadn't done anything about it. Huh. It stopped bleeding and Aurora really wanted to get back in the water, but a storm came rolling in so it wasn't meant to be. She had a surprisingly good attitude about everything. She still exclaimed that swimming in the lake and playing with her friends made for the best party ever! I may have overdone the party food and drinks, but hey - at least I have the rest of the week off to hydrate, eat salads and go to the gym, right? Oh, who am I kidding. We're totally going to eat ice cream all week!

Quack

It's been a busy time for me at work and a crazy time in general as we have a new CEO! You probably know that I run our volunteer and intern programs and manage the front desk, but these days I also sell merchandise on eBay, work with our global leader program, and on-board new employees. Today, I went on a duck tour. In a couple weeks I celebrate 9-years at LIVESTRONG and this was honestly one of my favorite staff outings to date. The weather was gorgeous and the team was happy. Here are a few pictures I stole from other people's Instagram accounts (the first one was taken and posted by our new CEO):

I'm taking next week off to spend some time with Aurora. We've arranged some fun and interesting activities for our week of mommy camp, including an afternoon at work (what!?) so be sure to check back again soon!

Jellystone Park

Last year we went camping for Father's Day, but it was with a family camping program that lent us all the supplies we'd need. This year, I bought Chuck his very own tent and we went to Jellystone Park for a weekend of camping with amenities! We met Yogi and Boo Boo Bear, went swimming, jumped on a huge bouncy pillow, went on a Hey Hey Ride, did some indoor crafts when it rained, went hiking, played on the playground, and found lots of frogs and rolly pollies.

I brought plenty of snacks, but we also grabbed food from the "Pic-a-nic Basket," had a pizza party and a delicious pancake breakfast on-site, and on Saturday night we found an amazing hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint a few miles from camp. Even the kids loved it! Maybe our next camping trip will be more primitive and we'll try really roughing it... maybe.

B-D-O-E

I realize Chuck doesn't make it into every blog post, but that's about to change as we've been gearing up for Father's Day. Aurora made a book for the B-D-O-E (Best dad on earth) at school, which he opened a few days early. She is quite the creative little artist!

We have special plans this weekend, which may or may not be hampered by the NON-STOP RAIN in Austin. Today the forecast called for severe weather so all the schools (daycares/summer camps) closed early. I'm sure it will storm tonight, but it's been nice and dry since they made the call. I'm hoping that the better-than-expected weather continues into the weekend. Regardless, I probably won't post again until Sunday evening so I wanted to wish my dad, my brother, and all the B-D-O-E's out there a very Happy Father's Day!

5 Little Ducks

This weekend we had some downtime, and what do you do when you have downtime with an almost 3-year old? You let him pick out big boy undies! I haven't been making an effort to focus on potty training, but many of the kids in his class are already out of diapers and his teachers have been telling us it's time to start. I remember Aurora's first time wearing undies. I said "what are you going to do if you need to pee?" and she said "have an accident!" which is exactly what she did and (of course) exactly what Clark did, too. He sure likes his Spidey underwear and he would love to earn a treat by going in the potty, but we're not quite there yet...

He recently switched up his bedtime routine and now instead of me rocking him and singing a song, he sits in this rocking chair and sings me a song. It's very sweet, even if he does have the most complicated bedtime of all time. I call it the 20-point bedtime routine, and if we don't get it all just right, he cries until I come back and do whatever we missed.

Aurora spent the weekend asking me to pull out her tooth. She went from not letting me touch a loose tooth to letting me pull it out only if it's bleeding and hanging by a thread, to telling me to pull it out before it's even totally ready. I hope the tf has cash and doesn't forget to do her job tonight!

Having a Blast

Remember at the end of 1st grade, when you got your yearbook and decided to use the inside front cover to survey your friends about which rocks and minerals they liked best? Right. So after a few days of signing yearbooks in strange and interesting ways...

We've moved on to Summer Blast! Our sweet girl wrote us a thank you note at the end of her first day. This summer camp takes place at Valley View Elementary but it actually serves all Eanes ISD students so she's making lots of new friends from different schools and (clearly) having a great time!

Tomorrow she has a field trip - in fact, she'll be taking field trips twice a week! This camp only goes for 4 weeks in June and 4 weeks in July (with a weeklong break in-between) so it won't be her only gig this summer, but so far so good.