Labor Day Weekend

Happy "felony Tuesday," gang.  Hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend!

After much internal debate, I made a last minute decision to go to my parents' house on Saturday, and I'm oh so glad that I did, since there was a whole lot of nothing happening with any of my Tulsa friends! lol  I love me a bit of downtime to watch TV, but a 3-day weekend full of that would have me battling depression, so it was a good call to go where there would be people and activity!

It was a notably good and fun weekend with the fam, and probably more appreciated since we've been in a hard season most of the summer.  The Parrish fam moved back to the Mill Creek neighborhood last week, so we went to see their new house on the way to Bill and Jill's on Saturday.  I was super happy to see J&K sitting at this blue Fisher Price table where Rach and I used to have our cereal every morning! =)

Their new house was very nice, and I'm laughing now that the only pics I have of it are of the back patio and this light switch made by the Miss K! ❤

I went with Mom and Dad to Bill and Jill's house to see their new furniture and this photo wall Mom helped them with a few weeks back (of wildlife pics taken by Jill).  Really great!

Jill is entering some of her photography in a contest, and I'm guessing it will do well!  We saw their house then had dinner at Hideaway, which was tasty and fun... they're entertaining and they feel like family to me, so it's always a treat to get to see them!

And speaking of epic photos, here's this lil' gem from 1985. lol  (The house the Parrishes moved out of belonged to my parents before them, so there's quite the collection of stuff to sort through and decide what to do with.)

I have so many questions about this, starting with why I'm not smiling and why my glasses are so big. lol  But seeing it makes me happy anyway!

Sunday was church then Johnnie's lunch with Mom and Dad, then seeing Overcomer at the new Midwest City Warren Theater with Dad!  Super nice theater with reclining + heated seats, and yay for Priscilla Shirer!!  

The kids came over that afternoon, and Miss K drew a sidewalk chalk pic of me and her together with mismatched dresses and shoes.  So LOVELY! lol ❤

More reminiscing that afternoon while Rach was over there! She went through some memory boxes with random stuff she'd kept from elementary and high school years... including this script for JB's teacher of the year party in 1995!  You gotta love how there's an arrow switching Rach's name and my name so the grandkids would be in age-appropriate order.

She also found a calendar she made in high school that had some pics I hadn't seen in a while.  This = the day Mom, Rach, Megan, Mark, and the Law kids came to see me in Shawnee (note the Garfield's restaurant door behind us).  That might mean this was the American Idol finale night, because I'm pretty sure we all went to Garfield's before I went back and watched the Kelly Clarkson moment in my dorm room! lol  I was a new college freshman at OBU and still very much obsessed with high school student Jordan Michael (standing next to me).  He was super funny and had a smooth confidence that bordered on arrogance, and I was a FAN!  All of this was before the JMM extravaganza, so Lindsey 2004-2007 was a bit of a hot mess express!

Not sure where we are here - maybe Kona Ranch? - but I love this picture! #weightlossmotivation lol

Rach, Megs (in Homecoming that night), Holly Dei, and myself!  I miss the red coat! ❤

Our very memorable downtown carriage ride (something we called a tradition but only ever did once)! lol

...Anyway, back to current day happenings, I really wanted to have one last swim this summer!  Miss K made me jump in with her.  Jace got a whistle toy (which he blew about every other other second that night - lol), so I had Carter count us down, then Jace blew the whistle and we had to jump in! lol  

It was cold, but it's so much better to jump in and get it over with!

I hadn't had a Root Beer float in years, but it's been a summer fav for the kids, so Mom made those for us, and we got a quick pic with them! ❤

The empty cups were also a hit with the kids, who found a million different ways to make a game of them in the water.  That's one of my favorite things about kids, how they can turn everything into a fun game.  The preshface Miss K got out and blew bubbles while the boys were in mass chaos mode making water tornadoes in the cups, splashing each other with them, wearing them as shoes, dropping a full cup into another full cup, and putting them over their ears to see how it sounded under water! lol

She collected cups as they were thrown out of the pool, and before long, she had quite the collection going. lol

T-man helped her build a taller pyramid. lol

He also helped cook the spaghetti and the brownies! =)

While the Jaceman and Kyndal Faith read to me and Rach! ❤  Jace did super well, and he also told me his memory verse, which is a long one this time, but he's getting it down!  (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

I was super impressed with Kyndal's reading ability!  She hasn't really learned it in school yet but has pushed herself on it because she wants to read like her brothers.  It's pretty exciting and exhilarating to watch kids learning new things - hearing her sound out the words and get it right 90% of the time was super fun, as was helping her when she struggled a little! ❤

The kids "helping" Mom as she breaks up the noodles for spaghetti!

J:  You can call me Jace the good reader!

K:  And you can call me Kyndal the gooder reader than him!!

LOL the innate sibling rivalry just cracks me right up!

We had a tasty spaghetti dinner (and Jace had chicken soup minus the chicken - hot mess). lol

T-man made the brownies for us and put Reeses peanut butter chips on half of them... he ended up melting more of those and adding ice cream for us, and I gotta say it was pretty great!  Two thumbs up from me!!

Dad cutting the garlic cheese bread - yum!

My peanut butter brownie sundae by T-man! #sogood

Once the Parrish fam left, Mom and I wrote thank you notes to the Pallbearers and everyone who sent flowers, food, or donations for Grandad's funeral!  It felt more cathartic than sad.  We stayed up late writing longer notes to Buster, Virginia, and Randi Kaye, then we got the addresses together on Monday morning, so that project came together faster than I expected.

There was also a lot of outdoor time spent watching the Miss K trying to get her one-handed cartwheel and roundoff down!  She's got it most of the time now!!  They go to a program at Oklahoma Gold Gymnastics and the teacher told Mom she needed to move to a class that's a level up and that if she gets her roundoff down, they'll move her up another level into the gifted class. She's super proud of that, and it makes me happy! ❤  Fun fact:  She's right-handed in most of life but left-handed in gymnastics, which she told us very adamantly because her teacher had talked to her about it.

My brilliant reader and gifted gymnast little ambivert niece! lol ❤

After all that, I got back to Tulsa yesterday afternoon and got to enjoy a bit of lazy TV time watching Liar, Liar!  A great weekend overall, so I'm thankful for that and for a shorter work week ahead!