The SEVENTH Week of Summer

Seventh Week of Summer!!!!

(July 8th - July 14th)

The Seventh week of summer was filled with travel - we headed back to Texas from our 2 week jaunt to Florida and Illinois.

But before we left, on Sunday, my in-laws dragged me kicking & screaming.....just kidding....were kind enough to take me & the kids camping.  Brody's one request for Illinois was to CAMP.  YIKES!

So to get used to the idea of spending 24 hours outdoors, I tried out a few of these.....they are good at the lake and the beach, so I needed to see if they would suffice at camping.  They were perfect.

Caught PaPa taking a nap.  I thought camping was all WORK and no rest?!?

For dinner, we roasted hot dogs.  My picky eater doesn't like them, so PaPa rigged the camping sandwich maker into a chicken nugget baker.  Brody was happy!

So what I failed to mention is that we were camping in an RV.  That's still camping to me. Shush.

But we did wake up to some pretty sites.

And cute kids.....

We also geo-cached while we were out.  And we were able to catch this crop-duster up close as he kept buzzing by us.

We found a "Texas-sized cache" - biggest one we found yet - and left our travel bug there to continue it's travels on to New York City.

When we got back, my little man was tired of camping and ready to go home....or so I thought....really he was just making a mess......

The last night in Illinois is always celebrated with a swim in the pool in our clothes.  Uncle Andy dumped both big kids in!

And then we were on the road for 15 hours - passing by my favorite site in St. Louis....

And the McDonald's over the road in Oklahoma.  Someone said they were going to close it.  I hope not - it is such a landmark for us!

We stopped in DFW on the way home for a quick Media Trip in Grapevine - so many FUN things to do there - LEGOLAND was a fav - gotta love Southfork Ranch built out of LEGO bricks.

And we enjoyed the Grapevine SEA LIFE Aquarium.  This 360 degree tube walking through a huge saltwater tank was very cool.

We also got to touch & hold starfish, crabs, and Spongebob (a LEGO one, of course).

That night, we enjoyed the "Volcano" from Rainforest Cafe - a brownie, ice cream sundae concoction that we all loved way too much!

We had breakfast over at the Great Wolf Lodge and got a peek at the amazing water park there - we hope to go back this fall!!!

But on to more cool Grapevine sites - like the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial - sits directly under the flight path of DFW so planes can see it as they approach - so cool!

And Grapevine just put in a working Glockenspiel that was so fun for the kids to watch.

The kids were excited to have some play time at the Gaylord Texan's Paradise Springs - a fairly new water park.

And we met the Tallest Texan around at the Gaylord that evening.

Last stop before heading home on Friday - a quick ride on the Grapevine Vintage Train - so fun for little Bubba - he loves trains.

MAtt was happy to finally have us home after being gone for 3 whole weeks.  We were all very happy to be back in our own beds too.

On Saturday night, we celebrated with ice cream for dinner - it was on our Summer to-do list and quite frankly, I was too tired to cook!!

How can you beat ice cream for dinner???

The FIRST Week of Summer

The SECOND Week of Summer

The THIRD Week of Summer

The FOURTH Week of Summer

The FIFTH Week of Summer
The SIXTH Week of Summer