June 2016 (the first 10 days)

Nathan's graduation was June 2, which also happens to be Rachel's birthday. We made plans to leave first thing on Friday morning the 3rd of June for our family vacation. Because of that choice, Nathan decided he didn't want to walk for the ceremony. He did get the cap and gown for the class picture and in case he changed his mind. Well on the afternoon of the 2nd the skies opened and began to dump rain. It continued for several hours with lightening and thunder added in. Graduation was supposed to begin at 7pm and it was delayed to 9:15, and it was still drizzling when the ceremony began. (We watched the procession on the district's website.) But here are the pictures taken a week later when it wasn't raining.

Friday we set off for Dallas/Arlington to visit Six Flags. After having done both parks at Christmas and Spring Break the kids couldn't decide which one they liked best so we revisited both. We were in Arlington from Friday to Sunday afternoon. Traveling to Arlington. And then a picture of me displaying this year's design for our Team Lindh shirts. We decided to add a motto this year and it is: Serving where we stand.We made two sets, one in the color of the person's choosing and then a sky blue set.

Friday park pictures.

Saturday park pictures, look for the one of Nathan and Sarah holding hands. They were doing that spontaneously and it makes my heart so happy to see my kids showing love for each other.

Sunday morning we attended sacrament meeting in Ft. Worth at 11. Then we left for San Antonio. We decided to take a different route than I-35 south to SA. We used Google Maps to guide us. It went well for a while until we ended up on a two lane highway with no shoulders and then a narrow road with no center line OR shoulders! It was time to call our experiment quits. So I charted a new course eastward back toward I-35. But then I realized that between us and I-35 was Valley Mills, TX (pop. 1,173) You'll have to look it up on a map to find it but Valley Mills is where my great-grandparents are buried. So we decided to make it a stop to see the cemetery. The last time I had visited there was in 2006 when I went to visit my grandmother in SugarLand when Caleb was a newborn. My mother and I had taken my grandmother up to visit her sister, Lois (Who passed away in 2008 and is also buried there at Valley Mills.), who lived in Waco. During our visit to Waco we had taken Lois and CoyNell (my grandmother) to see their parents' grave site. So it had been a while since I had been there and it took me a little bit of time but we found it! Since we were there we decided to capitalize on all that training Nathan did for his Eagle Project and we took pictures of all the sites on the "lower side" of the cemetery. Between our four phones we managed to add 342 records in about 25-30 minutes. In the picture of the van, the van is where I asked Jason to stop and Darik is standing to the left of the van, that is my great-grandparents' grave. I took the picture from Lois's site, which is up a small embankment. (Hence my great-grandparents are on the "lower side" of the cemetery.

We continued our course southward and added yet another detour to the list. We headed over to the original Salt Lick outside of Austin. (If you ever find yourself in Austin, this is a must experience!) When we got to the parking lot we found this wonderful Dr. Who prop and my kids HAD to have a picture by it to send to Rachel. Rachel loves Dr. Who (and so do my other kids, for that matter) so it seemed fitting to snap a picture.

Then it was time for some good eating!! Stuffed, we finally made it to San Antonio. Monday we wore our new sky-blue shirts and hit the park! We had a great time until about 4pm. We had decided at 2:30 to go to the water park portion of Six Flags. We did three rides together. At the end of the third ride I somehow managed to clumsily run my left foot into a portable barrier, HARD! I could not walk or bear weight at all on that foot. So we had to call it a day and head back to the hotel. The kids were so patient about being taken from the park sooner than expected. They watched movies at the hotel while Jason took me to an urgent care to get it x-rayed. (Having broken a different toe on that foot before in my life I was quite sure my second toe was broken. However, I was wrong, it was not broken but it was extremely painful.)Tuesday we returned to the park but rented a wheelchair for the day so that I could keep it elevated when possible and stay off of it.

Tuesday's pictures: I learned that ADA accessible does not mean "easy to get to". Often times the ADA "entrance" is the exit ramp. This is challenging to maneuver when you're trying to go "upstream" with a large, bulky wheelchair. There is also not anywhere to wait at the exit and so you're in the way until you can get on the ride. I wasn't interested in riding immediately upon arrival because I wanted to ride with our kids who were standing in line. So Jae and I would wait until the kids were next in line and THEN I'd hobble over to the ride and get on. But despite the challenges, we had another fun day.

Wednesday morning we went to downtown SA and visited the Tower of the Americas. We had a great time looking around the city and enjoying the Texas history lessons available inside the tower. Then we traveled on to Port Aransas where we stayed two nights.

On the way to Port Aransas we stopped in Beeville, TX (pop 13,000). It was a tiny bit our of our way but we wanted to stop and get a picture there for Gramma and Grampa Lindh. This is where Bill had been stationed many years ago when he and Linda first got married. We wanted to show the kids where their grandparents had lived for a short time.

And then we were at the beach until Friday morning. The water in Port Aransas is so much clearer than in Galveston because it is further from the Mississippi. The beaches also have muscles, thousands and thousands of tiny muscles. When the waves wash over them and uncover them they end up laying horizontally on the beach. But then they quickly turn and bury themselves back in the sand. It is SOOOOO cool to watch. I could spend hours just uncovering them and watching them burrow back down. (In fact, Anna brought me a pail of them so I could hold them and do just this. =) It was awesome!)

We headed back for home on Friday morning. We went southwest out of Port Aransas so that we could see the whole island and then circle back through Corpus Christi and see what that town looked like. Here are a few pictures of the USS Lexington that is docked in CC. While my foot was doing better for short jaunts from the condo to the beach or the car to the beach, touring an aircraft carrier was not going to happen for me. So we'll leave it for a later exploration. We made it home about 4 and amid laundry and unpacking managed to get Jaron and Darik ready to leave for Scout camp the next morning.