You guys. I freaking love the beach. And I love road trips with friends. And yesterday I got both! I convinced one of my friends to do a crazy day trip down to Matagorda Bay and it was amazing!
My Moana obsessed Mia was in heaven. She had a blast playing in the sand, and then found a new friend who showed her how fun it was to jump the waves. 🙂
Kate and her friend decided to dig out a giant pool just above the water line. It ended up 3 times this size. lol. Every other kid on the beach thought this was awesome and pitched in to help. 🙂
Xander was delighted to be accepted in with the big kids when it came to pool digging duty. 🙂
I grew up on the coast and I absolutely love the beach. The sound of the waves, the feel of the sand between my toes, it’s the ultimate recharge place for me. And y’all, because of Covid we hadn’t been to the beach for over a year! 13 months to be exact. Well, I decided that it couldn’t be put off any longer! I did a bit of research and the closest beach to us is Corpus Christi. And wouldn’t you know it? Just on the other side of Corpus is a state park! It’s like it was meant to be. lol.
Mustang Island State Park is about 4 hours from us which is a doable drive. I didn’t want to risk staying in a hotel, nor did I want to deal with food and packing, so we decided to do it as a day trip. Which was an insane idea but I regret nothing!
The beach was perfection! I’m actually wondering if they brought in sand after the last hurricane because the sand was so soft and pristine! Mia was beyond thrilled at the giant sand box. lol. We picked up some sand toys at Target curbside and it was totally worth the $10.
I think spring is my favorite time to go to the beach. It’s warm enough to feel like you’re at the beach, but cool enough that my kids are happy just to get their feet wet so I don’t have to worry about them in the water.
No lie, the drive back was brutal, especially because we got stuck behind an accident in San Antonio for a hour. Literally. But it was so worth it! We basically drove for 4.5 hours (we had to make a pit stop to see the World’s Largest Pecan in Seguin!), played at the beach for 3.5 hours, then drove for 5 hours back home. I *may* have limited snacks and water bottles in the car so that we could avoid potty breaks. lol.
What can I say, I’m a sucker for cheesy roadside attractions!
We are fairly cautious when it comes to Covid and I went round and round in my head as to if we should do this or not. But it seemed very safe. We drove, so no exposure there. I did stop to get gas, but I get gas here too. And once we got to the beach, it wasn’t crowded at all so we had no problem keeping to ourselves. I think there was at least 20 feet between us and the next closest person. Plus, the wind was blowing very strongly and the sun was bleaching everything.
And now that I know we can do it in a (very long) day, we might go again the next time we have a day off!
Oh my gosh, how is summer already over?!? Â Kate went off to 5th grade this morning and I have to say that I’m about to have a mental breakdown. Â How is it her last year of Primary School when she just started preschool?!?
Oh my gosh! Â So freaking cute!
And now look at her, practically grown! Â And yes, her hair is purple. Â What can I say, I felt bad that she has to wear a uniform (although truly I LOVE the uniforms!) and since there are no rules against hair dye, purple it is! Â I’m not crazy though so we didn’t bleach it. Â It’s a wash in dye that’s supposed to last for 30 washes. Â We’ll see.
It just seems impossible to me that next year she will be in middle school and the babies will be in kindergarten!
How is it already the 10th?!? June flew by! Speaking of, let’s take a look at the goals, shall we? I actually got a decent amount done!
Project Life 2018. Done! Yay!!! It always makes me happy to get a new album onto my book shelf. 🙂
Scrap. Honestly, I didn’t get much scrapping done this month, but I did get 2 new layouts done. Still need to set aside a large chunk of time and work on mass producing some backgrounds.
Sewing. Um, I officially moved the unicorn quilt to the Christmas gift pile. lol. AKA I didn’t work on it at all! The thing is, it’s not even going to take me that long to finish the top, but I’m at a spot with a coping border and I’m worried all of my seams won’t line up. I should probably just accept that my seams won’t line up and move on, huh? lol.
Hexagons. I sewed together the big chunk! I also laid it out on Mimi’s bed and we discussed how big it should be and I’ve decided that scaling it back just a little bit will be just fine. So I need to make 3 more super hexie blocks, not 7. Yay! Here’s RaptorDad holding it up for me. I’m officially 1/3 of the way done!
Windchime. It took a lot longer than expected to stitch together the hexies, partly because I ended up needed a ton of joining hexies! So, no progress on wind chime this month. ::pouty face::
Applique. I didn’t manage to work on this at all this month either…
Charm Quilt. My amazing Mimi took pity on me and added a bit more quilting to the borders and helped me bind it so it’s officially done! We have all loved snuggling under it together!
Beach pics. Better! I’m obviously still awaiting some magical trick to have all of my kids smiling and looking at the camera at the same time (I suspect this magical trick is to hiring a professional lol) but I’m mostly happy with how these turned out. And we had a fantastic time at the beach!
Beach Trip Prep. Well, I caved and just let the kids watch movies the whole way there. Oh well. My mom and I had a lovely chat!
Montessori Trays. Big fat fail.
Should I even bother with July goals? lol. Of course!
Project Life. Finish gap. Which is only 2 layouts and I even already have the pics printed! Need to just get this done.
Project Life. I would like to tackle May of 2019 just in the interest of not getting further behind.
Scrapping. I’m not even going to set a layout goal because my scrappy mojo appears to have taken a vacation, but I do want to make a big stack of mixed media backgrounds. I think this would go a long way towards coaxing my mojo to return!
Hexies. Honestly, I would be taking a break from my hexies if not for the fact that my quilt guild is having a UFO contest this year in which we listed 12 projects and then they draw a number each month and we work on the corresponding project. Guess which number was pulled this month… Number 1 which was my hexies. lol. Clearly I’m not going to finish the top this month (this year?) but I do want to finish super hexie block number 10.
Christmas Half Square Triangles. I pulled this out again this week and started working on it some more. I’ve now gotten half of the rows completed. I just need to trim down the other half of the squares and sew them together. Then I get to decide what I want to do with the borders. 🙂
Take my kids swimming.
Make popsicles with kids.
Take kids to the splash pad.
Library with kids.
Thinkery with kids.
Notice anything about the last 5? They’re not crafty goals, but they are the most important goals on the list to me! Our summer is over halfway over! And I feel like we’ve been so busy that we haven’t “done summer” yet! So these are some easy goals to remind me of what my real purpose is this summer. <3 <3 <3
It was so cold, but my kids are (mostly) good sports.
There was a lot of “throw your coats over here! Stop shivering and smile! Now put your coats back on and walk over here!” lol.
But I love how they turned out. My sister and I do cousin pics every year and I love them! Mia’s dress (my favorite Kate hand me down) is comically too large, but I just happened to get these perfect matching plaid shirts for the boys from my sister-in-law and we made it work.
I’m so glad that my sister is such a good sport about me getting a cousin pic of them every year! And who knows, maybe next year I’ll get some where they’re all smiling at the camera at the same time. lol.
