Did I Mention We Have A Puppy?

Harrison (with Blossom on the right) and his friend Ty got puppies around the same time!

Well, we do have a puppy, and we think she's pretty darn amazing.  Nicole and Melanie have been working with her teaching her to sit (yesterday) and roll over (today).  Blossom's a pretty good student and has learned both of her tricks so far.  In Cuba, where the Havanese breed originated, they were often trained as circus dogs.

Anyway, for a 3 month old puppy, we're pretty impressed.

She can also fetch a ball and bring it back. Although the poor pup is so small her "ball" is one of those 25 cent bouncy balls you can purchase from a gumball machine.

What should we teach her to do next?

Diving For Fun

We had a fantastic week with our Tonini cousins who came to visit.  One of our outings while they were here was to Jack Carter Pool in Plano - a real deal at $3/person.  The kids had lots of fun, avoided major sunburns, and only got scolded by the life guards a couple of times, so I consider it a good day!!

Here are some pictures of their greatest dives.

This is Corina - she wowed us with her beautiful form all day :)

I can't really say the same about Melanie!!

Although this one's a little better. . .

True to form, Nicole's always waving to the camera

The landing on this one ruptured a bunch of blood vessels in her back and left her with a lovely bruise.

Carson looks like he's gonna belly flop.

Harrison's first dive ever!

Ryder's first dive ever - I think he thought he could fly :)

Jacob performed the most flips

And there was a water slide that they had some leisurely fun on.

It was a really great day and we all had lots of fun.  Corina was undefeated in the contest for best and longest held underwater handstand.  You go girl!!!!

4 Cousins - 6 Flags Fun

Yesterday I took 4 kids to Six Flags and we had a blast - although it was super muggy and over 100 degrees outside.  Our cousin Carson was with us, because we did a "cousin swap" this week and sent Melanie to Houston to spend time with her cousin Corina, while Carson came and spent the week with us.

We were thirsty all day long - so thirsty in fact that even public drinking fountains seemed refreshing!

It was a great day to go other than the heat.  The crowds were not too bad, so the waits were very short. We rode several of our favorite rides more than once.

Here are Nicole and Ryder as we headed up the old wooden roller coaster "Judge Roy Scream" for a second time.  You can really see the fear in their eyes. . . not.

Here's Carson on the way down.

Sadly, as I age my sense of what rides are the most fun changes.  I loved this one called the "Texas Chute Out."  It has all the sense of thrill of a roller coaster.  You sit in this chair and they gently raise you to the top where you have a wonderful view, then you drift back down feeling a gentle breeze as you go - just wonderful!  The kids liked it too - Ryder was the one who asked to go on it again.

Then there was this one called the Shockwave.  As we were sitting in the ride waiting to take off, I said to Ryder, "Look at those loops that we'll be going through - it looks like binoculars."  To which he said, "No, it looks like 'shift' o, 'shift' line, 'shift' o."  The kid thinks in keyboard and he thought it looks like this. . .

O_O

He may be onto something with that one.  He's gonna be a mighty fine text messenger someday.  I guess I should be proud.

Here's Carson and Ryder on one we all enjoyed called Crazy Legs.

I made them wait to do the water rides until the end of the day, because I didn't want to walk around all day wet.  This picture was taken at the end of the ride - you can see we are dry, the boys were bummed, but I was very appreciative.  Especially when I looked at the poor mom sitting directly across from me who was completely soaked - her family got all the water that trip!  Fortunately we went on Aquaman a few minutes later and the boys got drenched (me too, sigh...)

All in all it was a mighty fine day.  And I was lucky this time because Ryder was too short to ride the really adventurous rides, so I was able to sit those out.  There was a time in my life when I would have felt really discouraged by this, but on this day going on FlashBack twice was more than enough!!