Summers end

 Kaiden has been busy playing with his neighborhood buddies: Colton, Alex and Landry almost every day this summer. I can't even count the number of times he's spent the night at their houses- mainly Colton and Alex's.  Alex also spend the night at our house a lot too. Colton has tried to spend the night several times, but he's not ready and always ends up going home. Jason keeps joking that we need to rent out Kaiden's room since he's never home.  I was talking with the boys and somehow Root beer floats came up and Kaiden said he's never had one before.  So, we made those for desert after dinner.  Turns out he loves them.  I took Kaiden for Meet the Teacher.  This year he's in 5th grade, Ms. Gilberts class.  His best buddy, Colton is also in her class.  We took Rachel tubing on Silver lake.  The water was cold.  Connor and Rachel tubed together for 30 minutes.  Kaiden swam around in the water, but didn't want to tube.  Afterwards Rachel came over to our house and played pickleball with us.  We've been on a pickleball kick lately and been playing for 1+ hour every night.  She loved it.  She also stayed for dinner.  Kaiden went to Flight 509 with Alex for some fun.  Last pictures are of the first day of school.  I had to work, which means I leave the house by 6:00am and I missed seeing the boys in the morning, but Jason took a picture for me.

2024 family pictures

 

August fun

 Connor gets nervous to try new things and I've been trying to talk him into driving with me all summer long. He always finds an excuse not to though. So Friday I didn't give him the choice and I made him sit in the drivers seat... in the garage with no keys in the ignition. But I had him get used to putting his foot on the brake and gas petals, turning the blinkers on, going through the motion of shifting from park to drive to reverse. Then Saturday I asked him to go to the store with me... we didn't go to the store. We went to the high school back parking lot. Wide open space, no light poles, no cars, nothing to hit. I made him sit in the drivers seat again and told him he didn't have to touch the gas petal if he didn't want to.  He could just practice braking and shifting and using the blinkers.  Since its an automatic it will automatically start moving once you left off the brake.  So, that's what he did.  He drove around the parking lot for probably 20+ minutes. In the end he said he actually enjoyed it and had "fun!" I think this took a ton of stress and anxiety away from driving for him. His braking is very stiff and jerky, but everything else was smooth. He did try to drive once with Jason prior to all this at the beginning of summer. I don't know how it went, but Connor did say he could tell Jason was VERY stressed, which in turn I think scared Connor. I waited a week and then I asked Connor to drive again with me in the same parking lot (high school's back packing lot). I told him it was completely up to him how long he drives and again he didn't have to touch the gas petal if he didn't want to.  He actually said he felt pretty comfortable though and he did use the gas petal.  He practiced parking in parking spots, using reverse to back out of spots, turning and stopping.  He did amazing! His braking was so smooth and not jerky or stiff at all this time!

Kaiden had Alex spend the night for a camping night. We set the tent up in the basement since they were calling for wind and rain over night. The boys camped inside, but we did make smores outside.  We had some family pictures taken at JC Penny and afterwards went out to dinner at Texas Road House.  I took Connor, Mason, Kaiden and Colton to the Garland Theater again to see Sing 2 and then the Lego store for Mason and Connor to get some more Lego figures.

Silverwood Theme park

 We took Alex with us to Silverwood this year. Connor decided not to go.  He's already gone twice this summer- once with Rachel and once with Mason. We chose to go on a Wednesday thinking it would be less busy, but that was not the case.  This was one of the busiest we've ever seen it!  They did just add a new section onto the water park this year though, so I think more people have come to check it out. We spent a lot of time in the lazy river, which was SOOO warm!  The boys played in the wave pool a lot too. They both went down the straight down water slide and the race slides and a few other smaller slides.  They tried to do some bigger slides but the lines were so long... 45 minute waits! Then they did a bunch of rides and we watched the magic show with pizza.  Jason drank way too much beer all day long. I was not happy with him. We were there from 11:45am-9:00pm!