Back to School 2014

August 25, 2014 was the first day of school for Autumn's 2nd grade, Brooke's 4th grade, Chloe's 7th grade, and Ciera's 9th grade year!  It is so crazy how quickly my cute girls are growing up!  We kind of cheated with Ciera and Chloe's pictures... they both had activities (Ciera-band, and Chloe-athletics) where they had to wear athletic shorts and t-shirts to school and then change into their school clothes, so these pics of them were taken at a different time.  Brooke and Autumn's pictures are actually from Monday morning though!  They were so excited! The day went well... everyone was happy when they arrived home that afternoon.  It is going to be an amazing year!

Summer Band

Since the beginning of August, Ciera has been working hard at marching band just about every day... She has said it is hard work, and was not too thrilled about it at first, but as time went on, she liked it a bit more, it became easier, and she ended up making good friends and good memories.  One day, they got fitted for their marching uniforms and had their band pictures taken... since I was there, I snuck in and took pictures too!  Ciera was so embarrassed...
On the last day of summer band, the entire marching band did the ALS "ice-bucket challenge".  They all stood in a line and dumped ice-water over their heads in succession... it was funny to watch their reactions.  (But I am sure it felt pretty good after a day of outside marching rehearsal!  We have just begun all the craziness that is marching band season, and I am sure by the end Ciera will have learned a lot about herself, about music and marching, and about whether she wants to continue doing this throughout high school!  We are so proud of her and her accomplishments!

Dollar Days at the Dallas Zoo

My older girls had not been to the Dallas Zoo, so I thought it would be fun to take them this summer.  I found out that the zoo has "Dollar Day" once a year... which happened to be on August 19th... so we went.  The zoo opened at 9:00 that day, so we left Wylie at 8:30, thinking we would get there a little after 9:00, spend the day walking around, get their dollar lunch items (hotdogs, chips, sodas, waters were all a dollar!), then head home around 2:00.  Boy, was I wrong!!  We got off the freeway at about 9:20, then spent until 10:00 trying to get to the zoo (which is RIGHT OFF THE FREEWAY!) and into the parking lot (which we didn't get into at all... we parked in a grass area past the "parking lot overflow")!  By the time we got into the zoo it was 10:15.  My girls (and I) were already frustrated from it taking so long to park.  But we were going to enjoy ourselves if it killed me!
We had friends meeting us there, so we started walking around and fighting the crowds, looking at the animals.  Our friends arrived at about 11:15, at which point my girls were already complaining about the heat, the amount of people, and their "feet and legs hurting".  We walked around for another hour looking at the animals (depleting our water supply) and then decided to go get some lunch.  The lines for the dollar food was SO LONG, so we decided to forego lunch, hit the reptile house (which is air conditioned), then go home.  Well, we were not the only ones with that idea.  The line for the reptile house came down the sidewalk and around the corner and just kept going...
By this time, my girls had had enough.  I had had enough.  Our friends had had enough.  So we all walked a mile to our cars and left.  Never again will we go to the Dallas Zoo on Dollar Day...  Not for a million dollars.

Date Week

For Mother's Day, Dave bought tickets for him and me to see "The Phantom of the Opera" in Dallas.  For Father's Day I bought tickets for him and me to go to a summer music festival in Dallas where some bands that he likes were going to be playing.  Both events were on one week!  Tuesday, August 12 was "Phantom", and Friday, August 15 was "KXT Summer Cut".  Both were amazing, and really fun!  It was nice to spend some nights out with my favorite guy!

Day at the Museum

I took the girls to the Perot Museum last week for a day of fun before Ciera had to start marching band rehearsal.  It was fun.  We watched their 3D movie about Pandas, and then toured the museum for a couple of hours.  Chloe bought a Venus Fly Trap plant at the gift shop, which she has fed one fly and two grasshoppers since. (The grasshoppers got away... one missing one leg, which the plant is still digesting.)  It was a fun day with my girls!