Catch up!

For those of you who don't know, Erica went to Maryland for three months. Her first week there was spent camping, fishing and crabbing with my dad. He took her to the same place that he used to take me as a kid to do the same things. She spent a day with Ms. Jo Anne (my dad's ex-girlfriend that still keeps in touch with the kids). Then she went to my mom's where she will be the rest of the three months (with exception of when she spends more time with my dad and Ms. Jo Anne).
She is being spoiled already by my mom; they went clothes shopping yesterday and today. Erica misses us (so she says but I think she just misses Sean). She has already tried to figure out how to spend half the year with my mom and half the year home, lol. At the end she may not what to come home but I believe she will miss us (Sean) enough that she will. Of course, she will miss all the spoiling that she's getting.

In the meanwhile, I figured I better keep Kayla and Sean (especially Sean) busy. I spent a few days researching local attractions, prices and looking for discounts/coupons. Kayla will be busy 3 weeks out of the summer for church events and will be pretty busy with her friends. I sat down and scheduled the whole summer full of activities. Of course, some things will have to be changed as things come up or the weather is bad; but we have a good foundation. If it's on the calendar I'm more likely to get up and do it. I even scheduled pool days. The local theatre offers free movies but I didn't have the information yet. We scheduled things that were free (library events) to things that are a little more pricey. We also scheduled some Saturday family activities. We just found out today that our "original" missionary, Coby, is getting married 25 Jun in Dallas so we are going to try to go and stay the night. We had planned on going trail horseback riding that day so a perfect example of how we will have to be flexible with our schedule.

I also started back at doing my meal planning. I decided to do 2 weeks at a time instead of a month; I think it will be easier to do for me. I went grocery shopping today and will be doing all my meal preparing tomorrow as well as housecleaning. I really tried to pick very quick and easy recipes this time so we will see how it goes. We tend to eat out a lot in spurts so I want to cut down on our eating out expenses especially since we want to do a lot of activities this summer.

I have fallen in love with scrapbooking retreats and have signed back up for an overnighter scrapbooking retreat this Friday. Will have to see if I can stay up all night; I will definitely have to take a Friday and Saturday nap. Jon is supposed to go riding (if it's not raining) but Kayla will be home to watch Sean so I can nap, lol. Kayla will be going to a YW campout Friday night so it will be a perfect day; Jon and the boy can spend some time together. I have a few paper crafting things that I need to work on (cards/tags and a baby name sign) and I'm taking some pictures incase I decide to do some scrapbooking. I've been debating on doing digital or paper scrapbooking. I'm not sure yet what I want to do. I think I might just take my laptop and work with Photoshop CS5 and see if I can make some scrapbook pages.

My friend, Jen Altman, has been an inspiration to me with all the educational things she is doing with her kids. So, as part of our summer activities we are going to get an annual zoo pass (only $63 for our family). I bought a book about animals and ordered the Usborne animal flash cards. We are reading a little about animals everyday then we are going to use the flash cards as a game at the zoo; to see if we can match and find the animals. I figured with the pass we can see a little bit at a time and not have to try to rush through it. The zoo is only about 15-20 minutes away (on a good traffic day). Consistency is my problem so please pray for me that I will be consistent with this adventure. I guess it will all depend on how Sean likes it and how he acts.

As far as San Antonio TX goes, we are still LOVING it. I believe it is were we were meant to be. We have a great Ward family and I have made some really GREAT friends. It took some time to make friends at first but I have made lifetime friends since being here. They have been a true example of what a friend is as well as strengthening my spirituality. There are a lot of youth so the girls have made lots of church friends that go to the same school. It's a great area with a large variety of things to do. I am finally starting to get more comfortable with the roads downtown though I couldn't survive without my navigation system, lol. I am starting to venture out with Sean more during the day checking out more places. We live outside of "downtown San Antonio" (up north) so it has the feeling of a small town within a large city. It's a nice part of San Antonio and though there is more traffic then Hagerstown MD (where we moved from) it's a lot less busier than downtown. The weather is great here though it will get hot this summer (last summer wasn't as bad as I thought though). But I would rather have it really hot and use the A/C then to worry about shoveling snow and driving on ice. I think Sean was meant to be a Texan because he LOVES his cowboy boots, cowboy belt, cowboy pants and hat. He has even been known to sleep in his boots.