Thursday, August 19, 2010

Our Summer Vacation

This year for our summer vacation we decided to do kind of a "Staycation". We didn't stay at our home though, we went to Texas and stayed at my parents and did things around Fort Worth and Dallas all week. Kristen really wanted to go to Hawaii this year, but she didn't have quite enough saved up for that :)


It was VERY hot all week. Here is Kristen trying to cool off after digging for dinosaur bones at the Fort Worth Children's Museum.

One day we went to the Dallas Arboretum and the flowers were absolutely beautiful. I changed my camera settings and forgot to change them back so most of my pictures there didn't turn out. But this picture of this cutie turned out just fine :)


Can you see the theme of the week...trying to stay cool!!


We went to visit my aunt and uncle and Kristen decided to try out the riding lawnmower. She's not really dressed for yard work :)


At the Stockyards in Fort Worth, we watched the cattle drive, shopped some, ate some barbeque...


...and went thru the Cowtown Cattlepen Maze. Talk about HOT!! Middle of the afternoon, no breeze at all going thru the maze....whew!! We were supposed to find 4 letters, M A Z E, but after 30 minutes Kristen and I gave up after finding only 3 letters. We could see where the 4th letter was, but just couldn't get to it and we were dripping in sweat.



There we are, coming down the stairs after finding one of the letters.


While eating lunch this nice clown was going around making balloon shapes for the kids.





This is the Marty Leonard Community Chapel, on the grounds on Lena Pope Home. This little chapel is absolutely breathtaking.





The day we were heading home we stopped by my cousin's house because they were having a cookout with some of the family. Kristen LOVED playing with and helping feed her cousin.






We did so much more, too much to even list. We shopped some, and went to some great restaurants, then shopped more, and ate more. And then we shopped more and ate some more. We had to keep our energy up so the heat didn't get to us.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Swimming Lessons

Kristen has always been afraid of the water. While she was with her foster family I only received one update that told me anything about her personality...and one of the things on that update was that she hated baths and cried when she got her hair washed. Some things don't change. Well, she doesn't cry when she gets her hair washed any more, but she still doesn't like it.

And swimming? Well, she's terrified of getting anywhere near deep water. We've worked to get her a little more comfortable in the water, but it's been a slow process.

This summer I enrolled her in a two-week swimming class. She went every night and it was geared towards kids who weren't comfortable in the water. I talked to her about trying to get her head under water. She was having none of that!! She doesn't even like the water in her face :)

So I offered her a very hefty incentive to go under water by the end of the two weeks. Her response?

"I think you and I both know that's never gonna happen".

And it didn't. That little stinker can't even be bribed :)