Grandma's Summer Camp

After leaving Florida we drove to the Woodlands for a night. We were lucky to be able to meet up with the Thelens for dinner at Wings and More and the park while we were there. This is Caleb, their oldest son, and Cade. Brett flew home the next morning to go back to work while the kids and I visited in Texas.

Here's Maddi and Todd's son Blake.

The McDonald, Stanley and Thelen kids playing in the water at the park. This was our first taste of the Texas heat. Cade actually threw up that night before bed and I think it's because he was overheated. We are now wimpy Chicagoans who can't handle the blazing Texas heat.

Blake and Case are very into their trains and they enjoyed playing with their big cousin Cade. It's so fun to watch the kids interact with each other. Even though they don't see each other too often they have such a strong bond and just love each other so much.

We only stayed in the Woodlands for one night and then the next day after lunch we were on the road to Austin for Grandma's Summer Camp. On our drive to Austin we stopped at the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory and took the tour. The kids decided they want to work there when they grew up because of their motto "we eat all we can...and we sell the rest" because it's actually true and the employees do get as much free ice cream as they want while at work. The end of the tour we got a scoop of ice cream and we all decided Blue Bell is the best ice cream in the country! Too bad we can't get Blue Bell in our neck of the woods.

This year summer camp was at a house in Austin. It was a nice place with a pool but it also was on a ranch and had goats and chickens. The kids enjoyed their time with Texas Grammy and Grampa (who are living in Doha), Alex and Zoe (live in Balitmore), Aunt Sara and Uncle Joel, Grace and Will, Blond Todd and Aunt Becca. Cade brought his remote control boat and all the kids had a blast driving it.

Zoe, Grace and Maddi chillin on the swing.

Time to feed the goats!

The kids loved the goats and checking for eggs in the chicken house.

Maddi and cousin Will. He was such a cutie. Maddi is such a natural with kids and I always love to see her interact with little ones. She is going to be such a wonderful sister to Emalyn.

Texas Grammy always plans fun snacks for the kids at summer camp. The snack on this day was candy burgers. They used Nilla wafers for the buns, mint patty for the meat, green coconut for the lettuce, jelly bellies for tomatoes, onions, and pickles and yellow icing for mustard.

An interesting combination but the kids sure thought they were tastey!

Serious chef here making sure there's enough sugar in his burger.

Another big hit of summer camp was the airplane contest. Cade took it very seriously and looked forward to it all week. We flew the planes off the balcony and Grampa and Texas Grammy were the judges for fanciest, longest flight, furthest flight, most creative, etc. I was going to get Texas Grammy's pictures from her so I'd have more to document our time together but never got a chance. I'm really bummed that I never got a picture of the kids with Grampa and Texas Grammy or the rest of the family.

After 5 nights of camp we were off to New Braunfels to continue our Texas Tour.