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Derek and I had a great time celebrating our 12th Anniversary with a special date night.  We headed to Wolfgang Puck's Five-Sixty Restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower in Dallas.  I have lived here ALL my life (was BORN in Dallas) and have never been to the top of Reunion Tower (the microphone looking building)…sad, but true!  So it was a fun treat.  The restaurant is new and amazing!  Very fancy, great food, wonderful ambiance and great views of the city.  Plus you are rotating so you see a full 360-degree view of the city…fun!

Then we headed to the Dallas Theatre Center's Wyly Theater for a production of Superman! The Musical. Very cool theater (although the seats were uncomfortable) – but we loved the play and had a great time together.

What a great man I married!  Each year I become more and more impressed with the man that he is.  I am so blessed to have him.

We had a fun field trip on Thursday exploring all the cool things at the Museum of Nature and Science.  Highlights were:

Digging in the sand for dinosaur fossils
The bubble table (Jacob was able to make long tubes with it and Caleb stuck his head in one!)
Samuel loved the air vent table where he made balls float above a cone (mesmerized!) and the water table
The IMAX movie about Alaska
The thermal imaging station (where we could see our body temperatures displayed visually)
The stuffed animals of TX are always a draw
And the lights/sounds room (with the roller coaster balls) is always a treat.

A fun day!

 

We got home just in the nick of time to make a quick dinner and feed the missionaries!
 

Jacob and Caleb were DYING to go to the Allen Skate Park (a very cool place with concrete ramps and a dirt bike track).  They were very confident and optimistic about their abilities…until we got there.  There were LOTS of "skaters"…all of which were very talented (up and down the ramps with ease).  No one wore a helmet and they all had on skinny jeans.  And NONE of the skaters mothers (or 3-year old brothers for that matter) were there to observe.  A mom + shorts + a helmet at a skate park = uncool (or so they tell me) .  I restrained from yelling things like "you go get 'em honey bunch"…but I did catch Jacob mumbling "embarassing" once or twice.  :)  The ramps and "bowls" were much harder than the boys anticipated, and it was very HOT.  So it quickly became apparent (after 25 minutes or so) that we should move on to the dirt track with our bikes.  This was much more our speed and the boys enjoyed the hills and jumps of the track much better.  But with the heat and the sweat and red faces we ended our field trip after only an hour and headed to get snow cones at Snow Mountain in Plano…that was EVERYONE's favorite part of the afternoon (including me!).

 

Sidenote: Jacob has been dying to try "skinny jeans" for several years, but we have said "no way Jose" OR "no way Jacob" (as the case may be).  But while school shopping I let the boys have many options and wanted to get their opinions on a lot of clothes, so I bended and let him try them on (not purchase, just try on).  Well – wouldn't you know!  He doesn't like them as much as he thought he would!  In fact, he said "they don't look right, mom".  Turns out he's more conservative than even he knew (a great thing!).

I joined the gym two weeks ago.  So far…so good.  It's title has the word "Family" in it (i.e. Texas Family Fitness), and I tell you, it feels a lot more family-friendly than the other gyms I've been to.  As in, real mom's and real grandma's and real dad's working out there.  And since I'm a real mom, I feel comfortable there.

And my favorite class is Pi-Yo which is a Pilates-Yoga combo every Wed morning.  But today – TODAY – today I left my comfort zone (as if becoming a member of a fitness facility was not stretching it enough for me).  TODAY I went to Zumba!  Yes, the Latin dance-crazed workout.  This very caucasian mother of 3 was trying to tap into her Latin roots (uhhh…strike that, I have no Latin roots, but I like Tex-Mex).  Anyway – it was fun.  And it was a great workout.  And I looked like a fool with my long, tree-branch-like arms.  And I've discovered that I can't shake my hips AND move my legs at the same time.  And I definitely CANNOT shimmy (or roll my "R's" – but that's for another post).

So – lookout J.Lo is all I'm gonna say about that.

I thought it worth noting, before all the soccer-hype of the last few weeks brought on by the FIFA World Cup in South Africa dies down, that our family has a special soccer connection.  My great-grandfather (my mom's mom's dad) is an inductee in the National Soccer Hall of Fame.  I took the following text from their website.  It makes sense that my brother, Mike, was such a great soccer player – it runs in his blood. And after reading the first sentence of his bio, I realize that our competitive nature also runs deep.  Wish I had video footage of that game!

Harry H. Fairfield

Remembered in his birthplace as the player who ignored the phenomenon and stuck with the ball to score the winning goal as 21 other players and the spectators stood transfixed at the sight of Halley's Comet in 1910.

Personal Information Class of 1951 Born: March 22, 1890 – Birmingham, England Died: February 6, 1991 -  Pittsburgh, PA

Emigrated to the United States and played as a goalkeeper until he flipped the ball over his head and into his own net. Returning from active service in World War One he refereed and held various offices in the Referees' Association until 1923. Served as president of the West Penn Association twice and as secretary three times, the last being from 1936 to 1950. He was made a life member in 1951. Served as vice president of the United States Football Association from 1938 to 1945 when he was elected president, an office he held until 1948. Helped organize the North American Confederation of the U.S., Canada, Cuba and Mexico in 1947 and represented the parent body at the FIFA Congress in London in 1948. He was a sports reporter with the Pittsburgh Press starting in 1923 and a member of the Brentwood Borough Council from 1938 to 1944 when he resigned.

…where we keep our jammies on, long into the morning, and park our cars on the window sill…

…and where we have impromptu "parties" with games, popcorn and Crystal Light in the afternoon…

I love summertime.    

Derek and I always joked that with last month's HOT and dry conditions, it would be just our luck that when the pool was ready to be finished and used it would be raining.  Well…

We have to laugh!  Today was supposed to be when they pour the deck for the pool and next week pour the plaster (with us hopefully swimming by the end of next week).  Looks like it is not to be.  Flash flood warnings today will probably keep them from NOT pouring concrete.  :(  Oh well – at least the rain means we don't have to hand water the grass.

Been doing a lot of reading lately – I think it's my post-trek freedom that has given me a little of a reading bug.  Some have been better than others…here's the list:

1.  Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins:  I very much enjoyed these action-packed books and can't wait for the 3rd in August.  Gale or Peeta?  What happened to their District?  The premise sounds strange when you hear about it – but it is captivating when you read about it.  These are even better than Twilight, in my opinion.

2.  The Goose Girl and Princess Academy by Shannon Hale:  I have so enjoyed these book by this author.  Quick, clean, but interesting reads.  Great characters.  Happy endings.  I'll read anything she writes I've decided.

3.  Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay:  I read this book for the first meeting of an invitation-only neighborhood book club.  Somehow I got invited as an add-on, but I have to say this is a lovely group of women who I really enjoy.  BTW, the invitation-only part is just to keep numbers down, not necessarily to be exclusive.  I have a fascination with WWII/Holocaust stories – I can't get enough of them.  The terrible mixed with the humanity and goodness gets to me.  The historic part of this story is moving and heart-wrenching and captivating.  The modern part of this story, for me, was a little ridiculous, self-indulgent and self-serving.  But worth the read to learn about the French participation in the Hitler era.

4.  Return to Red Castle by Dorothy Keddington:  This author/book was introduced to me by a friend when I was pregnant and bed-ridden with Samuel.  Knowing that I was on the search for good books, she let me borrow this author's collection.  Romantic suspense novels.  They are 80s-style – clean, cheesy and wonderful!  I think she is one of my favorite authors.  I've ordered 3 more by her just so I can bathe in her cheesy-ness. 🙂

5.  Little Bee by Chris Cleave:  Last month's neighborhood book club selection was similar to a lot of modern novels for me – depressing!  But despite the disturbing nature of the plot and strange selfishness of most of the characters, I found that this author is a beautiful writer.  Some of the passages were worth reading again and again – poignant and illustrative.  For that reason, it was worth it – but just barely.

6.  The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman: I bought this on a whim at Costco because the WWII perspective caught my eye.  I thought it was historical fiction – turned out to be historical non-fiction.  Fascinating story about a zookeeper and his wife who have a renowned zoo in Warsaw Poland.  The animals were shot or released by Nazi soldiers, but the zoo was then used to house Jews seeking escape/hiding.  It's a tedious story but a nice one.

7.  The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown:  I have to hand it to old Dan Brown – he sure knows how to write page turners.  And where he gets all of this scientific/mystical/historical knowledge I will never know.  My feeble/basic brain cannot always keep up.  And even when it does, it surely doesn't retain more than half of it.  This book definitely kept my interest, but I found the antagonist to be a little too disturbing/evil for me.  He gave me nightmares.  And the use of Deity's name (in vain) got really old for me.  The twist at the end, I did NOT see coming.

 

Well, there you have it – my latest reviews.  I have plenty more on my list of books to conquer this summer including (but not limited to)…Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter, and the list goes on and on and on…

As you already know because of THIS post, we spent a fun day at Lake Grapevine with the Hicken's.  The Smith's had a blast!  Tubing, jet-skiing, swimming and just enjoying the day with some of our favorite people. These pictures make me smile from ear to ear.  Thanks, Hicken's!

Is it really any wonder that I couldn't move my neck the next day? 🙂

This is what happens when a middle-aged woman gets on a red tube with an athletic teenage boy in the middle of a lake and says "I want to go fast"…

Poor Nick got off as fast as he could. 🙂  Perhaps it was all the screaming, or the cries of "Who's idea was this?!?!"  

Actually he was a great sport – and we had a blast (despite some soreness and mild bruising! :).  

When will that middle-aged daredevil ever learn?

p.s. Is 34 considered middle-aged?  I would hope not – but tonight it sure feels like it! Ha!