Rain Delay

This past weekend,

was 

Scout Night

at 

the local minor league baseball stadium,

The Missions.

Scout night includes:

the game,

a food voucher

and

a CAMPOUT

on the field

after the game!!

How cool is that?

Along with Scout Night,

the hubs got a couple of 

vouchers for the "party deck".

Unlimited food & sodas & beer.

(He was happy!)

So we started out over at the party deck.

Then met up with rest of our group.

The game was a total BLOWOUT.

And the kids were there with friends,

so there wasn't a whole lot of

baseball watching going on...

(I couldn't resist taking a picture of these CURLS!!!)

There were some pretty wicked clouds

near the stadium...

Then the lightening started...

then the thunder...
And eventually the rain.

And we all just kinda watched and waited.



Ms. Priss is petrified of thunder...
she FREAKED out
and jumped into daddy's arms.



And held on for dear life!

We got to see a rainbow off in the distance,

before the rain got to us.

And it got kinda windy...

I have no words for those last two pictures...

Captain J on the lookout.

Daddy with his hands full, 

literally!

Remember these seats were full...

all these people were huddled 

under the awning... 

Yep, I let my boys play in the rain...

The players actually continued through the rain 

and lightening.

Then they finally decided 

on a rain delay.

We decided to take a group picture

of the kids while we were waiting.

Mine are the two drowned rats in the back

on the left side...

The ONLY two wet kids...

When the skies finally cleared,

2 hours later...

We got back to NOT watching the game!

We finally left at about 10:30pm 

after we learned that they had 

cancelled the sleepover

on the field

due to the rain...

We had a good time, 

but 1/2 the stadium was there

to sleep on the field...

so there were a lot of 

disappointed kids

(and dads).

Its the End of a Season...

Things happen so fast around here I am always 

behind

with blogging...

(not to mention the 4 kids and husband that I have to keep up with).

Instead of this post being WAYYYY too long,

I broke it up into a few updates over the next few days.

I had a REALLY long one, 

then went in and broke them up.

The cool thing is...

I can schedule when you get them!

So here is the first one.

The next 3 are done 

and will be scheduled shortly

and hitting your inboxes later this week!

The "end of season" stuff is in full swing:

Scouts

School "year"

this season of sports

church classes

Summer is officially upon us!

And our days of nice weather are 

behind us...

we got a reminder of what Texas summers are like

Saturday

OH.MY.STARS!

I am NOT looking forward to this!

I can only pray it is not a record breaker 

AGAIN

this summer!

Scouting

About 10 days ago, we had our end of season

pack meeting with the scouts.

We had it on the "festival grounds" of our church.

Your church has "festival grounds"??

Yep!

Don't get too excited though - 

it is just because the church has no more room for 

ANYTHING 

on its TINY property where the church is.

The festival grounds are on

 a beautiful piece of private property donated

(or sold dirt cheap)

to the church years ago!

It has a builders house on it

(gorgeous!),

a 4 car garage/shed,

a sheltered picnic area

complete with bathrooms

and then acres and acres of rolling beauty!

You can see snip its in the pictures below.

Our Pack invited:

first responders,

firemen,

a couple of sherrifs

AND

2 real life, honest to goodness

TEXAS RANGERS!!

I was so excited about the Texas Rangers!

One of them even talked funny like some of the

folks back home and I got so excited,

til I found out he was from West Texas

and no where near "home".

Haha!

Each of the groups above spoke for a minute or two

about what they do:

most of the responses were 

"I am so and so and I do what he tells me to do"

Then the captain of each group 

got up and said

"I am so and so and I tell all of them what to do"

That got a chuckle out of their captive audience.

Then they broke the kids up into groups

(dens)

and we got to walk out and see their

cars/trucks

and

TOYS!

(No - no one got put in handcuffs!)

And this bad boy was whipped out

at the request of one of the big kids

in the group...

a DAD!

I was really impressed with the care he took in 

unloading it, 

then handing it off to his partner to check

before he turned toward the kids

with it.

My Mercy!!

J is mesmerized about something here...

Again,

the Texas Rangers were

BY FAR

 my favorite!!

I took this pic specifically for my dad!!

The kids got to take turns climbing in the firetruck! 

Even Ms. Priss climbed in there!

Here is our pack and the pack leaders

and our community helper friends.

A even found a little friend,

the two of them enjoyed 

messing with this light during the

presentations.

What humors me - the little girl on the floor

is only a year older than A...look at

the height difference!!!

Yep - she's petite!

Scout Camp

Last post,
I left you with a teaser for this one.

As you know, the boys are in Scouts.
R is full in, J technically starts in the fall,
but they are letting him participate a little early.

Daddy is going to be J's Den Leader.

Daddy, R & J all signed up for an
overnight camp that would allow them
to earn some neat belt loops.

The camp is an hour and a half away from where we live.
So Friday night, they packed up everything
(including a test set up on the tent).

Then Saturday morning they were all up
and out the door by 6am.
I heard them leaving but thought it was a part
of a dream.
By the time I realized it was real,
I jumped up and ran downstairs
and out the door just in time to
see the taillights driving away.

I immediately called and said good-bye.
But had this uneasy feeling since I didn't
get to kiss my boys good-bye.

They should have been there at 7:30am
they were supposed to call...
no call.
NOT ONCE.
I was a bit worried and my mind
started messing with me,
but as they day wore on...
I realized "No news was good news"...
So I locked the house up TIGHT
before I crawled in the bed
and actually left the ringer turned ON
on my phone (for once).

Then at about midnight,
I got a call...
Daddy...
First words out of his mouth were,
we are ok, but we are coming home,
Rico got sick all in the tent and everywhere.
(turns out he just overdid it and was overheated).

When they rolled in exactly 1 1/2 hours later at 1:30am,
I ran out and helped unload.
Daddy grabbed a passed out J, while I
ushered the pukey one in the house and straight to the shower.
(he did have on clean clothes - but he still deserved a shower)

J was so tired he barely made it up the stairs,
cause I can't carry his big ole self up the stairs,
although he tried to let me - HA!

R took a 20 min shower and I eventually
had to go in there and tell him to leave hot water
for daddy.

They ran through a pretty wicked thunderstorm on the way
home, which they actually brought with them.

And if I haven't mentioned it before,
my kids don't do well in thunderstorms...
(but they get it honest)

Daddy and I finally crawled into bed well after 2am,
we were laying there and he was telling me
how their day had gone,
then R shows up at our bedside unable to sleep.
Eventually we let him crawl into bed with us.
Then, the previously mentioned thunderstorm hit.
Within minutes of the clap of thunder that shook the house,
there was a 3 yo at our bedside wanting in too...

I think we got everyone back in their own bed around 6:45am.
Just in time for the baby to wake up.
Lovely!

Oh well...we survived and even made it to church!!

So here is how the rest of their day went:


Setting up the tent

R looking at dad taking pictures, 

wondering if he is planning on helping (I am sure)

But they look like they are doing a good job without daddy!

Look at my scouts!

Wonder how much daddy actually helped.

Here daddy is getting proof that they were in a valley...

...with no cell service.

What is it with us and taking pictures of 

cactus blooms??

Making catapults. 

J sucking on his water...

so it appears...

but he is really just chewing on the valve

and biting holes in them

which causes this thing to leak 

ALL OVER MY KITCHEN!

See you would think he would be extremely hydrated with 

all these pictures of the water tube hanging out of his mouth.

Daddy liked this cactus hanging over the side of the cliff.

J fishing...

no they didn't catch anything.

J getting his hook rebaited,

by the other dad friend there 

while he was laying on the dock

(I got a kick out of that -

laying on his back rebaiting a hook)

Archery:

took me a second to realize this was my kid!

Look at them...

Jousting:

Looks like R could hold his own here.

Waiting for his next victim...

Conquered that one too.

J figured he would give it a shot.

The croquet game...

Doesn't work that way J.

Not that way either, kiddo...

Ok maybe croquet isn't his sport.

(just kidding - he knew what he was doing - I think)

On to the BB gun course:

Look at that concentration,

(dern I have some good lookin kids!)

Sorry no closeups on the targets, but daddy said they were

ALL OVER the 

BULLSEYE!

Good job boys!

I am so glad they had fun and secretly happy they 

had to come home a tad bit early.

I kinda like 'em.