The One About Good Times and Tan Lines

July 28-31, 2017
Holy COW!  These girls are trying to squeeze every last drop of life out of the last few weekends of summer!  I’m exhausted just thinking about it!  But it makes my heart happy to know they have such great friendships and families that treat them like their own.

After a mid-week float trip down the Illinois River with her Eagle Heights Church friends, Lara went to a fun (Almost) Back To School Party at her friend Molly’s house Friday night.  They have a great yard with a perfect hill for a giant slip-n-slide, so they do this a few times a year!  They had water, and soap, a hill, and a tarp – perfect makings for a fun party!  There was a water balloon fight, too.  Lots of fun!

On Saturday, Lara got to play her favorite roll: Basketball Sister!  Jake was invited to play on a team that he’s never played with before, and she was right there with us to make it a fun weekend.  It’s a plus that she actually likes basketball and knows what’s going on!  She’s a great helper for Finn, too.  We were playing at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, so she got to see another University, too!

Lara also has a J-O-B of sorts for the next week.  Our friends the Hatfileds are taking an end of summer (before the CRAZY resumes) summer trip to the lake.  And they have chickens.  LOTS of chickens!  So, Lara (and the rest of us it seems!) are helping care for the critters while they are out of town.  This means we had to leave EVEN EARLIER for basketball this weekend so she could be the chicken lady each morning!  She is very good at it, and makes it look good, too!

Emma spent the last half of last week with her Nana and Grandpa.  My mother has declared she is too old for teenagers!  LOL!  (She said she was too old for pre-schoolers about this time last year with Finn.  My kids apparently wear her out!)  On Friday, Emma went to White Water with a friend, his brother, and some other kids they know.  Emma and Lukus were friends when they both went to school in Stillwater.  She’s at the M-O, and he’s now is Cushing, but they are still great friends!  (His mom was my sorority sister and roommate in college; they live in Perry). Emma and her new friends had the best time at White Water and stayed for the summer movie night.  They decided since it was so late getting back to Perry, that Emma would just stay with the neighbor girls that were on the trip, too! She said they stayed up most of the night playing video games!

Emma’s Saturday night was spent at an open rodeo in Chandler with another friend of hers, Dylon, and his family.  This was the first rodeo of this kind Emma had been to and she said she learned a lot.  She also said that Dylon drove home from the rodeo because his mom doesn’t drive at night, and he’s an angry driver. LOL  She also leaned that all 5-6 year old younger brothers are annoying.  She thought Finn was bad, but then she said his little brother might have been worse.  But, another fun night of memories for her!  She got back to Nana’s sometime around mid-night!

 

Sunday, believe it not, we were all back together for a little bit.  All EIGHT of us!  Nana, Grandpa, me, Dad, Emma, Lara, Jake AND Finn!  Jake was back to the basketball tournament in Tulsa, and Emma came with my folks to catch a couple of games.  We had a late morning game, then a long break so we all went to McAlister’s for lunch!  It was loud, crazy, and too many conversations to track!  Just the way I like it! 

Emma had to head back before the tournament was over to go take care of her horses.  We were sad to see her go, but it was nice to all be together for a minute!  Lara was a trooper and stayed with us through the end of the tournament.  It was a long day with long breaks between games, and even though I know she was bored, she was a pretty good basketball brother fan this weekend.  We ended up second, and finally made it home about 9:00pm!  She ate well this weekend, though. I loved just having her there and getting to have spontaneous and random discussions!

I'm pretty sure they are both spending this Monday trying to recuperate from all their weekend shenanigans!

We turn our calendars to August this week.  Emma has enrollment on Tuesday.  My boys have it Wednesday, and Lara has schedule pick-up the next week.  Football practice starts in a week.  Summer is truly closing down.  I am so glad I am writing these weekend memories down!  What comes next? Another busy weekend I’m sure!  School starts in 2.5 weeks!  These girls will get every last drop out of summer 2017!