Fun with Nana

Kenna got to spend the night with Nana and Papa on Monday night. From what she told us, it sounded like she had a great time, but as usual, she didn't give us too many details. So, tonight I was checking all my favorite blogs and see this on my mom's blog. Robert just about passed out. I'm just glad she had fun!

Visit with Family

Our whirlwind summer continues; this past week took us to East Texas. Most of Robert's family lives near Texarkana and his twin sister and her boys were down visiting from Missouri, so we headed East for a few days to spend time with family.


All the cousins with Granny (Robert's grandmother); she took us all to breakfast at McDonald's:

The kids with Poppa (Robert's grandfather):

We all enjoyed swimming in Aunt Tonya and Uncle John's pool. Getting all the kids to stand still long enough to take a group picture proved to be difficult, but in the end it was Cody who got them all together for this shot (Cullen, Cody, Austin, Kenna, Lexie, Coleman, and Camden):

Lexie, Kenna, and Cody posing on the slide. We had just eaten a pizza dinner and they were waiting to swim "thirty minutes after eating". I don't think we held them off quite thirty minutes, but no one got sick!

Cullen:

Camden and Grandaddy Joe:

Kenna and Lexie:

Let the Little Children Come

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Matthew 19:14

The kids and I are back from the mission trip and I have many pictures to share. We had a wonderful week ministering to children in the South Texas Valley. We were about 20 miles from the Mexico border. In the mornings we drove to Lyford, a town about 30 miles from our hotel and, with our team, conducted Vacation Bible School at a small church there. The church's congregation is dwindling and aging, so they just can't do VBS themselves; but, there are many precious children in the surrounding neighborhood, and we were privileged to get to share about God's love with them. In the evenings we drove to San Benito, another town about 30 minutes from our hotel. We met more precious children there and conducted VBS there as well. Here are some pictures of some of the children we worked with:








On Friday, we finished up in the morning and had the rest of the day free. A group of us went to the beach at South Padre Island, about an hour's drive. Our kids had never seen the ocean, so we didn't want to pass up this opportunity, when we were so close. We went to a public beach and it wasn't the most pristine, clean place, but it had waves and sand, so you know the kids were happy!




Camden loved playing in the waves:

Cullen getting buried in the sand:

Kenna loved finding little creatures in the sand:

God provided for us in so many ways this week. One of the most amazing being safety and health for our entire group. Other than a few minor injuries (Cullen got his first bee sting and a couple of scrapes), we all stayed well and safe - amazing considering all we did and all the time we spent driving. Which brings me to another huge praise. My friend Karen and I rode together in her SUV with our six kids. On the way home we calculated that we spent over 30 hours in the car together during the week - our kids got along beautifully and Karen and I never ran out of things to talk about (that probably doesn't surprise those of you who know me well!). I am really proud of my kids and the way they went with the flow of things and kept positive attitudes all week. So, here are a couple of car pictures. Last Sunday morning, bright eyed and ready to leave:




And Saturday afternoon on the way home:

I have to end with this last picture. After all that time in the car all week and 11 hours to get home Saturday, we got to our house and unloaded all our stuff from Karen's car, dumping it all by our front door. A little while later I wondered where Cullen and Camden were - I found them playing by the front door - Camden sitting in his car seat!

A Pair of Parks for the Pierces

This summer continues to fly by at an alarmingly quick and busy pace! This week has taken us to two parks - a water park and an amusement park.

On Monday, the kids and I met up with a couple of my college girlfriends and their kids at a nearby water park. It's a relatively small park, but still had plenty to keep the kids entertained while we grown ups talked... and talked... and talked!






On Wednesday, Robert took the day off work and we went to Six Flags. Kenna and Cullen had both earned a free ticket through a reading program at school and we also had a free ticket for Camden. We have a trip to Disney World planned for November and we thought this would be a good test. Now, I know that Disney is a completely different animal from Six Flags and thankfully we won't have the summer heat to deal with in November, but we still thought this would be a good opportunity to see what kind of rides the kids would be willing to ride and how they would do waiting in lines. Well, thankfully we didn't get to test out the waiting in line part. It was really hot, so we were grateful that we were able to walk onto most of the rides. The few rides that did have lines, we didn't wait more than 10 or 15 minutes for. As far as what kind of rides the kids like goes, pretty much nothing too scary or big. An unexpected problem we encountered with Kenna was that she was too tall for some of the kiddie rides. Some of them she did get to ride as long as she was accompanying one of the boys, but some they just wouldn't let her on. I don't expect that to be a problem at Disney, though. At any rate, we had a great time and are even more excited about our Disney trip now - if that was possible!

The kids with some Looney Toons characters (I'm not sure they even know who Marvin the Martian is!)

Cullen and Camden loved the train and insisted on riding it twice - once in the caboose and once in the engine.

Robert and Kenna on a "roller coaster". This one is pretty small and designed for younger kids. The next time Kenna wanted to ride it they wouldn't let her on without a passenger under a certain height. Both the boys had already ridden it once and wanted nothing to do with riding it again!

All three kids loved this ride. The boys seemed to prefer the spinning around rides to anything resembling a roller coaster.

The kids and I leave town Sunday morning for a mission trip to South Texas with a group from our church. We have a few guys going to work on construction and the women and children will split into two teams to conduct four Vacation Bible Schools - two in the mornings and two in the evenings. Please say a prayer for safety (and patience!) on the 10 hour car trip and for God's blessings on the work we do there. Also, for Robert as he spends the week alone at home - what will he do with all the peace and quiet?!

Surprise Visit

This past Saturday we enjoyed a surprise visit from the Woods. They had come back to get the last few things from their house and do a few repairs to get it ready to sell. The story of the selling of their house is pretty cool - you can read about it on Amy's blog by clicking here. We had the chance to meet our new neighbors on Friday and they seem like great people. They have a son Cullen's age and a daughter Camden's age. I was (and still am) so sad about the Woods moving, but God is taking care of us, bringing us wonderful new neighbors who I anticipate will be good friends.

But back to the Wood's visit. It was perfect timing. It seems we've been going non-stop since school got out; Saturday was one of the few days we had nothing planned and nowhere to go. Amy and I got a chance to catch up on things and I got to spend some time with sweet little Adiah, although her diaper wasn't so sweet (oh, I sure don't miss those days!). The kids were so excited to see their friends and they had a great time playing four square in the street and hide-and-seek in the Woods' empty house. Kenna and Natalie also "styled" each other's hair.

Kenna's new do

Cutie-pie Adiah

Fabulous Fourth

We had a wonderful day on Friday, celebrating Independence Day! What a blessing it is to live in a country with so many freedoms. As they say, "Freedom isn't free" and I am so grateful to all those who have worked hard and sacrificed much to ensure our freedom. I am also eternally grateful to the One who sacrificed everything to give us the ultimate freedom - freedom to enjoy a relationship with our Creator.

We started our celebration by joining our neighborhood parade. We hastily decorated the kids' bikes that morning and proceeded down our neighborhood's main street, led by a fire truck.



After the parade, we headed to the pool. They had great burgers and hot dogs and red and blue sno cones:



Barney made balloon animals and hats, poolside - you know he had to be hot!

Spongebob also made an appearance:

There was also an inflatable slip 'n' slide - much more sophisticated than anything I slid on as a child!

Silly Camden showing off his balloon hat:

Kenna and me in the pool:

After we'd had our fill of the pool (Robert and I, not the kids - they'd could have stayed all day!), we went home to rest for awhile, and then went to meet Nana and Papa and Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Kevin for dinner. We had Mexican food - appropriate for July 4th, don't you think?
After dinner, we went to the Gaylord, Texan. They had all sorts of free entertainment, including a balloon artist and a caricature artist.

We had to wait in line for quite awhile for the caricature, but I think it was worth it:

Here's a shot of the atrium of the hotel:

To end the night they had indoor fireworks. It surely wasn't as spectacular as an outdoor display and was very brief, but it worked for us - we got to be in the air conditioning and bug free!

Pool School

For the past two weeks, the kids have taken swim lessons. I had heard about this great swim school from a couple of different people and decided to give it a try. The kids all really improved.


Camden is just about swimming on his own now. He actually can swim, but he'll only do it where he knows he can touch. That's great for safety's sake, but at our neighborhood pool it means he doesn't get off the steps. Here's Camden practicing with the kickboard at lessons:



Cullen is swimming great and improved his strokes and diving at lessons. He loves the water! Even though this picture doesn't show him swimming, I loved it and wanted to include it - check out the water drops coming off his nose and mouth! (You can click on the picture to make it larger if you can't see it well.)

Kenna is also swimming great and her lessons focused mainly on improving their strokes. Here she is doing the backstroke:

The only two problems with lessons this year were that they were on the far north side of town (about 20 to 25 minute drive from our house) and that the boys' lessons were from 2-3:00, and Kenna's wasn't until 6:00 - which added up to a lot of driving back and forth. The lessons were in a neighborhood right across the street from the water park and everyday we'd pass it and the kids would ask when we could go. So, to celebrate the end of swim lessons, we went to the waterpark yesterday. We were able to go for awhile between lessons, and then go back for a little while after Kenna's lessons. We had such a great time! Kenna and Cullen are swimming well enough that I don't worry so much about them, and I just stayed close by Camden.

Here's Camden in the "play area". I kept calling it the "kiddie area" and he didn't like that!

Cullen in the lazy river:

Kenna in the indoor pool: