TCU Lake Weekend 2015

I have known these girls for 23 years (Anna and Mandy even longer). This has become such a wonderful tradition. My parents bought the lakehouse in 2001 and we began getting together every year with our hubbies before any of us even had kids. We think that this year has been our 13th year! The group now has 10 adults and 13 kids. We all fit in the house easily because the kids and adults all get along so well. We laugh and play together. The kids swim. And swim. And swim some more. We used to have grandparents come take the kids away but now that they are bigger and our parents are older they have stopped coming. So now we don't have a night with just the adult anymore. But the way we have gotten around this is to plan an adults-only trip every other October during Fall Break. Our next adults-only trip will be October 2016! This group loves to plan. :-)

Mollie Jane, Alivia (9), Catherine and Anna Burke

Catherine and Anna

Catherine did a great job wake boarding!

LOVE this selfie of me and my little man, Matthew (3 1/2)

Baker (5) and Brian

Mandy and Stoke - that green life vest has seen a lot of use between a bunch of kiddos

Beautiful shot of the lakehouse. Still cannot believe we get to use it. 

The weather was just perfect.

See the white sign on the side of the dock? Matt surprised Mimi with it - I really like it

Just to prove and remind myself, that YES, I wakeboarded!

Matt did too! Looking good babe!

One, two, three - JUMP!

I wish this was the first pic of the page - this was from the first night. We stayed up so late talking. Love these girls.

Jackson, Alison and Smith Brawner

Sam and Anna

Me and Matt!

Mandy and Elle 

The kids get along so well - Baker, Birdie and Elle

Love this sequence of shots as they jump into the water off the back of the boat

Smith spent most of the day on this slide!

The adults did a lot of this. . . 

And this. . . 

The girls usually can pick up where they left off when they last saw each other

This is such a fun area because it is shallow and there are lots of cool shells and rocks that the kids hunt for

CORN HOLE! Red brought her boards all the way from Shreveport.

The overhand toss by Sam threw some people

Precious girls

The Bernard Family

Going through the tunnels is always a favorite

My girls. We laughed so hard at Red's weird looking arm in this pic

The boys loved fishing off the dock and would start first thing in the morning

Some political humor. Governor Christie should really never wear tight white pants.

Mandy had to leave a little early to get Elle to a dance recital

The shining star - ELLE!

Anna and Sam drove Catherine and Samuel directly to LLYC to drop them off for 2 weeks of camp. This is the text picture she sent when they were driving home. . . Ha Ha!

I can't wait for next year!

The Little's Stats

John's 5 Year Well Child Check
Height 43.25 inches (50%)
Weight 41 pounds (50%)

Matthew's 3 Year Well Child Check
Height 40 inches (90-95%)
Weight 36.8 pounds (75-90%)

John's Preschool Graduation

John "graduated" from the Pre-K class at Covenant United Methodist Preschool. John had a great year with a teacher named Jan Glosser. Miss Jan is not your typical preschool teacher. She is tall and a rather large woman and is not warm and fuzzy. I think she does really well with BOYS. And John seemed to like her a lot. She really liked John and gave me some good counsel when I was struggling with Pre-K vs. Kindy for John for next year. She told me that if John were going to a traditional public kindergarten, she would send him on, but knowing the rigors of ACS, the choice was not so cut and dry.

On graduation day each child's teacher says something specific about each one of them. The ceremony is really sweet (and rather long!). Here is Jan's speech about John:

John is bubbly, happy, independent and helpful. 

I can always count on John to brighten my day with a great 

story from the ranch and a sweet smile to go with it. “Come on guys!” 

is a typical phrase heard from John as his natural leadership qualities 

help wrangle the guys on the playground to build something amazing 

or dig the deepest hole they can imagine. When I asked John the other 

day what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, “A hunter!” And 

I asked, “What would you hunt” “Anything you need!” was his answer. 

John will thrive next year and I’m looking forward to hearing about 

his adventures.

- Jan Glosser

I thought this was a great summary of John.

Selfie of us at the graduation party.

John and Tyler Mangum. He is a sweet friend that lives down the street.

I really should write down the names of the kids in his class. I have no idea who they are.
Sometimes I feel like I do not have the bandwidth to be super involved in two schools.

Graduation ceremony. I am horrified that I did not make him dress nicer. For some reason
I think I was gone that morning and did not realize what was happening.
Good grief. For future reference John LOVES those boots - summer or winter.
It does not matter.

John and his best buddy, Blake Mezger. The love each other very much.
Such a sweet friendship.