Super Summer Challenge 2010

This summer we did the Super Summer Challenge. One of my friends had done it the summer before and her family really enjoyed it so we did our own version of it this summer. My girls loved it. It gave us a plan for the summer and for the most part we learned a lot, mastered some challenges, and had fun! One of the fun things for the girls was working on the challenges and earning chips and once your earned however many chips you got some sort of reward. They had poker chips and Kylee's color was white and Katie's was blue. When they did something on the chart they earned a chip that went in the bowl. When they got to said number reward we did something fun. So for the first 15 chips we got snow cones, at 25 chips we had a camp out in the living room with mommy (usually dad does this so it was huge for me to do it), at 50 chips there was a gift (Kylee got silly bandz and a book and Katie a Bee Pillow Pet), at 75 chips a surprise which was a trip to Chuck e Cheese, and last was 100 chips was a special outing as a family. It took us all summer to get to 100 chips so it worked out great to finish up the summer with one of our already in place traditions of doing a last chance fun hotel stay before school starts. We stayed in Downtown Fort Worth at a hotel in the middle of all the action with a pool on the roof. The girls spent most the time swimming but we worked in a trip to Barnes and Noble, yummy Mi Cocina dinner, and a chocolate fondue for dessert. It was great all around. Charley and I actually got to sit on the pool deck and talk while we watched the girls swim. Katie has become quite the swimmer this summer and she and Kylee were able to goof around and play together. It was really fun to watch. On Sunday morning we really enjoyed just walking around downtown Fort Worth and grabbed breakfast at a little cafe. It was so quiet that morning but nice! This was a great way to end our Super Summer Challenge and pretty close to ending summer.

Annual Trip to Arkansas

The girls went to Arkansas for their annual summer trip to spend time with Meme and Pops. I was so thankful that Kylee took her camera and got all these great pics from their week. We missed them like crazy but as you can see below they had a blast. They swam almost everyday, went on walks with the dogs, saw deer, fish, rabbits, and a Chihuahua puppy(Katie was so excited about this), made Taco Soup (Kylee's favorite), and so much more. One of the neatest things that Kylee and Meme did was read a chapter book written by a young girl and then illustrated all the characters from the story. This was so neat for Kylee and a great learning experience. Meme is very creative! I think they loved all the special time with Meme and Pops and Charley and I had a couple date nights, I cleaned out the playroom, and just relaxed. They look forward to this every year and I am so glad they did it.