HOT!!!! HOT!!!!!!! HOT....

What a week we had. It has been 103-107 degrees and well...I want some doggone rain. Sun is totally boring now. Sun... lovely hot, hot sun. It makes your skin scream aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh
no more please!!! The girls and I have been hanging since this week the older are gone to band activities. We did the rent the movie thing.......10,000 B.C. not good. Good enough for a dollar though. We rented She's a Man. I didn't watch that but K and G said it was good. We want to rent Penelope but it is always out. We or I wanted to go to see Mama Mia but adult friends were gone on vacation...........ya know Florida, Mexican Riviera, Calif. Washington and such. We watched Mulan for fun because of the music. Oh and College Road trip ...I laughed till I needed to have a moment to put myself back together!!! Loved it!!!!! It kind of reminds me what will happen in less, less folks than 2 years............. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yes, it's hot ...we have a pool.......... but certain temps. don't feel refreshing anymore.......... ummmm 90 degrees in pool??? No thanks. We went to a water park on friday called NRH2O. A blast that was. They had many slides of diff. sorts, a rollercoaster designed to get you wet baby!!! And, of course the wave ool and lazy river all for $22 pp.. I laid in river and wave pool.............nice! A friend of mine wa sthere with her younger kids and we had a blast catching up since the summer has arrived. One thing we forgot to do ...put sun lotion on our backs!!!!
Oooouchhh! All 4 of us were hot that night. It was a lot of fun...we enjoyed subway subs for dinner since we were so tired and exhausted from putting way to o much energy in sun bathing and getting wet! haha. So if anyone comes to visit ... in the warm months...really warm months we will go to NRH2O. After band camp and colorguard camp is done we hope to visit Six Flags which is 40 minutes from us and Hurricane harbor...another wet and wild adventure. The hopefully we will visit Ok. to go to waterfall and river with tubes!!! Yes. Sounds waterfuly delicious.

No pics of us at waterpark........... only memories!

What I like about Texas

Okay...after visitng the midwest I thought I woudl rearrange my thinking for now. I want to list some things I do like about here.

Here goes.......
i love the tex-mex food.....especially the steaks...yum-mo.

i enjoy the shopping...especialy for shoes and purses

i enjoy our neighbors/the close ones

i enjoy the warmth to an extent...not 100 plus.

i enjoy not havinf allergies and sinus pain

i love church being 5 min. away (although with 586 ppl. you need to get there earlier) and the stake ctr. 6-7 min. away

i enjoy the choir there because it is very organized and spiritual and fun

i love our pool because you can go in anytime or as much as you want as long as no major worms or spiders are there too!

i love the culture and free concerts at the parks and certain shop ctrs. I love free!!!

I like and love paying lower gas prices than midwest!!

I think for now that is enough......... I will work more on that subject as the months go by.

Time has passed.............

Here I sit ...thinking where did June go? Oh, and where did July go as well? June was as follows...school ended the second..Stephanie and Kayla had marching band for 3 days and gretchen went to softball camp. Weekend came and went. Oh yeah........it was 100-ish so we were in the pool. duh! Second week...Gretchen had volleyball and basketball camp the other two babysat and slept in. Lessons and drum challenges were in the process. What did Susan and Mike do? He worked and worked...no...went to Utah and California for work and little pleasure. She......... ran around like crazy person? Yes and tried to keep spiders (icky!) and big toads out of her garden that is trying to figure out where to go. Nasty spiders. Toads... okay can handle. Following week. Gretchen ..again..went to percusion camp with 3 other girls from her school. She was gone from 8-5 every day.... we missed her! SHe learned lots so it was worth it. The other two sleep, pool fun, sleep pool fun...out with friends or hung out with mom. yep... it was so.


So June pretty much escaped our family.............. now July snuck in and we dived in for our vacation to midwest. We drove to Ohio the evening of July 2nd and arrived in Ohio by dinner time cleaned up and went to a 4th of July party at friends house. Whata blast!!! Great fireworks and fab friends. We got home around midnight and slept hard. The next day the 4th we went to Coldwater, Michigan to visit old neighbors from Indiana... we hung at their lake cottage ...ate, drank. and jet skied (?) and laughed silly. Fireworks again........awesome!! Mike and I got romantic and slept in our expedition and let our girls hang in cottage...they watched Jaws 2. Partying was going on all around us but we crashed out! We had a few aches and pains the next day but survived. We then left to go see another group of friends further into Michigan at their lake place. Again lots of swimming and boating!!! We ate and laughed and told stories and ended the evening and went back to OHio to Mike's parents house. We enjoyed the day of Sunday..........rest!! Stephanie and Kayla went to EFY at EMU (Eastern Mi. Univ. ) and had a blast... from what I could tell from daily evening goodnights from Kayla. It was weird ...good weird not having them around. gretchen was affected because she was "bored" being with the grownups until her time came to be with Indiana friends. But, she did have some excitement... Tuesday she made 3 different fudges with her memie...then went to lunch and movie with her. I accompanied for fun only. Needless to say... good thing............. halfway through movie...it stopped...and theater people escorted us to Tornado tunnel in mall area. Well, g's eyes just popped and Mike's mom was hustling as well as she could. G was not very comfortbale with threat of Tornado lurking in area since last year in texas we experienced loads of fast storms and a crazy weather neighbor! Turned out... 1/2 hour later.......... all was good. We finished movie and came out to very wet conditions. Whew! I went shopping with great friend Lisa, from Mi, and had blast! We got same style of shoes but different color....just like back in "old" days!!! Loved it. Great fun and nice shopping. We caught up on just about everything! Thanks Lisa. Wish we were closer.........
Anyway...went out to dinner at favorite restaurant in Toledo...mancy's. Cannot remember last time went there..............maybe 15 or so years? Awesome food...had wonderful Halibut to eat.
We enjoyed the atmospere and dining with Liz and Dan Steele. Oh what fun we had! Nothing beats new and old memories............. and just plain fun.
Still geeting reports from daughters about how much fun they were having and guess what...a girl from Keller Tx was there!!! NO one we knew but funny ...hahahaha. ANd, another cool thing Stephanie got to room with a girl from Huntington, Ind that she kinda knew but couldn' commit to memory...Harmony Reed. What fun they had....... and what I might not too. Good for them!

Onward to our journey to Indiana for Gretchen.......... she stayed a couple of days with her friends the Stinson girls. OMG!!! Life was good for G. Bye mom...and dad...see ya!!!

Of we went to visit former employment in Decatur. Then to lunch at Pizza Hut... nothing like that experience in Texas. We visited with Phil and Kindra George.......... life is fine. Lots of stuff to catch up in the hood and church wise. Then off we went to........... a movie for $1!!! Not in texas dear. Maybe $4. We saw Fool's Gold...okay for $1. Next off to where we were staying.... the Shumard's. Visited a bit and then went to fav. rest. as far as mexican .... Cebelloas! Yummo!!
We then visited with Joan Huber, the Poorman's, The Braun's, and the Shumard's. Great conversation there........... Off to home ...........temporary living .... we syaed up late and visited with Gayle and Larry...tlaked and shared lots. Exhausted.... slept well. Off to mall for Mike to do a little work...Gayle and I went shoe shopping!!! I have my groove about shoes........again! I love shoes. texas has awesome selections of shoes......... so now I am pickier than usual. Found a couple of pairs at decent price. The off to lunch with Alyson Braun and maybe another friend.......at panera. Can you see how much food I am eating!!!!! ugh... I think workouts wil be 2 hours now when I get back to TX. ANyway...........had great lunch.... returned to Shumard's for rest and dinner and more excitement. Left Saturday ...early 5 am ish to get girls from EMU...and retunred to OHio at Mike's parents. Whew........... loads of driving too. We then just hung out and enjoyed the cool whether because back in TX it was 100 104 degrees. We enjoyed many pleasures of fab. ice cream from around the corner...visitng with relatives... oh my dad cam down from traverse City MI to visit with my sister's family and us. Good to go there.

We then journeyed back to Indiana to visit with the Mockler family and any friends Kayla and Stephanie wanted to see. Aaahhhh.. what great weather.........cool in evening...great fod and wonderful visiting. Just like never left. Well...maybe a bit.
Are we "homesick"? In some ways. Maybe for the long term friendships we have made and aren't getting in TX. I know ...after being in Indiana for 19 plus years it is hard. But am glad we made those friendships.............. now we need to just find our link here in TX..... People are different in the south. Sorry...don't mean to offend. I received many pieces of advice before I left and thought I wouldn't need them. I think I do ............. Our journey came to an end 2pm.. on Monday the 14th. Home at last!!!! Mike passed out........... I did whatever to not have to work too hard. We plunged in our pool since it was 102 degrees that day. Welcome back Skeans!!!