Sunday, July 28, 2013

"Moving Day"

Thursday and Friday the packers/movers came and loaded up all of our stuff for the ship & cargo plane. We all went to the storage unit but quickly decided that the kids were just in the way. So the kids and I spent most of the day Thursday and Friday at the pool!

We ran in to Allie's good friend (and old neighbor) Addison on Thursday

The girls' best friends were at the pool when we got there on Friday!

I finally gave in and let the girls go back to the playground Friday after we got back from the pool. They were very anxious to be able to play on it again!

Putt - Putt

Last night we went putt-putting with some of our friends. Had a great time!!


Afterwards we went to Mickey D's for dinner and let the kids play in the Play Place. These girls are going to miss each other so much!!!

Missing You

Found this sweet note while organizing our room last week.


Friday, July 26, 2013

Dave & Busters

We went to Dave & Buster's Wednesday afternoon.........lunch and half price games!!! The kids always have so much fun there (and Derek and I too!) In fact, we were having so much fun we didn't take many pictures......and they are from my phone which takes terrible pics. We ended up with about 6,000 tickets and got some fun prizes!

Allie & Avery playing a giant game of Connect Four
 
Playing with the prizes.........
 
I'm sitting on the bench right outside our room............this is the playground they beg to go to every day. We thought it was a great idea to request this room. Turns out, it wasn't such a great idea. The playground area is filled with sand. In this Texas heat they are always covered from head to toe in sand.........and it won't just brush off b/c it is sticking to them with sweat. Whenever there is an argument, sand is thrown in faces, down pants & shirts. Needless to say, it's been about 4 or 5 days since we've let them set foot on this playground!
The car Blake is playing with and the football are a couple of the prizes from D&B's. They already had the bubbles. Allie also got another pair of headphones for her mp3 player and Avery picked out.........candy, no surprise there!!
 
Derek is climbing up on the roof to retrieve the football. I didn't realize what a strong arm I had!
 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Mission Concepcion and El Mercado

We spent the morning walking around the grounds of Mission Concepcion. It is the oldest unrestored stone church in America.


Afterwards we decided to finally hit up the Mexican Market ( El Mercado)......not really what we expected but still glad we went and checked it out!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Travels and First Day back to Texas

While I loved stopping off at the City Museum on our way back "home", Derek and I quickly realized why we usually travel at night. Actually the first day was pretty good......it was Day 2 that wasn't so great. After the City Museum we continued on to Oklahoma City to stop for the night (a little over half way). We all went right to bed with no fussing which was really nice. We had plans for a stop at Dinosaur Valley State Park the next day near Dallas but we decided to sleep in some and take our time getting on the road. (which meant we wouldn't be going to the park anymore) That was probably our biggest mistake because I think the stops a few hours down the road are what makes for a more enjoyable trip. Oh well. You would think we would be expert travelers by now...........It really wasn't that bad though. The girls traveled really well. I think Blake was just tired of being strapped down for hours upon hours.
First day of traveling -- he did so well this day. Loved playing with his cars!

Allie was constantly listening to her MP3 player

We're staying in Temporary Housing on the Air Force base here at Lackland. We stayed in it when we first moved here....it's pretty gross and really tiny for all 5 of us (one bedroom and a living/kitchen area). Luckily we don't plan on spending a whole lot of time in the room but we're all pretty sleep deprived because no one can go to sleep when there are others awake and then as soon as the first person wakes up before it's even light out.........everyone else has to get up.

We set the girls bed up in the breakfast bar/kitchen area. It's the mattress from the pullout couch. That way we still have a couch to sit on and don't have to fold up the bed every day.

The first full day back we went to the storage unit to unload our utility trailer. We're trying to sell it and had several interested but didn't have any pictures. Of course, once we uploaded the pictures no one wanted it!

We found this guy in our storage unit! Allie says she learned about it in one of her classes and that it's a Rhinoceros Beetle.

 
We were doing all of this during the hottest part of the day and we were all drenched in sweat, miserable, and just hot. We did have our swimsuits in the car so we drove over to our community pool where we own our home and had the whole pool to ourselves!!!

As far as everything else goes........Derek and I have been going through the storage unit -- organizing everything into different piles. (things that will be shipped to England {Household Goods}, things that will stay here in storage, things that will be sent to England via Cargo plane {Unaccompanied Baggage}, things that can be counted as Professional Gear, things we want to take with us in our luggage right away, etc). We have been blessed with some pretty nice weather these past couple of days...........overcast, a few sprinkles, a constant light breeze, and not too incredibly hot like most Texas summer days! We also have some amazing friends who have kept the kids at their house to play so we can get more done!!! We've been told I don't know how many dates for when the packers will be here to load up our stuff but I think this newest date we've been told is pretty legit since we have it in writing. If all goes as planned everything will be done next Thursday and Friday, July 25th & 26th. We also got the call this morning saying our No Fee passports are in!! Now we can finally apply for our VISAS and hope and pray it gets here in 3 weeks or less!!!

Dinner @ Tiago's!!