First Days of School

First day of Second grade at Andersen Elementary School.

.....walking to the classroom, he was nervous but pretended to be too cool for mom to take his picture in the hall so this is all I got.

Tate, sitting down and doing his wordsearch at his desk. He had a great first day!

Grant on his first day at Grace Church Preschool.

Grant is really liking his new school. He goes 9:30 -2:30 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. He has made many new friends. His teachers are Ms Joyce and Ms Renee, he likes them alot!

Summer 2011

Grant "graduated" from the 3 year old class at Oak Hill United Methodist Preschool.

I tagged along with David to Los Angeles for a work trip the first weekend of June.

We had a great time and enjoyed looking at all the cool sites!

We had one last meal with our great friends, the Reaves, at Flores the week that we moved.

The moving truck arrived on June 14th to pack us up and move to Tulsa.

Boxes, boxes, everywhere! The house looked SO different with everything gone.......

The first week we arrived in Tulsa the boys and I got season passes to the Aqarium and the Zoo.

Needless to say we went alot and if you come to visit us, it is likely we will take you!

Over the 4th of July weekend we went to Arkansas because David had heard about the White River in Eureka Springs. We got a fishing guide ( a lady!) and all went for the morning. I didn't think I would like it much but it was so peaceful being in her boat early in the morning and it was quite chilly for the first couple of hours and we all caught alot of fish!

In Eureka Springs there is a train that takes you on a 1 hour ride through the woods and hills of the Ozark Mountains. The boys had never been on a train before so we thought it would be a fun experience. They let us all out half way and told everyone to put a penny on the track and the train would run over it and we could see what it does. Tate thought this was very cool but unfortunately Grant's fell off the track and we couldn't find it. He wasn't happy.

The highlight of our summer was Gulf Shores! We had so much fun with my family and our lifelong friends, The Mendrops. Alyson and I have kids that are roughly the same age and they play so well together, it is always so great to hang out with them. This is Grant and John Curtis probably trying to act out some sort of superhero stunt.

We went to Dallas one weekend and aunt Carol took us to the Lego Discovery Center.The last week of summer Tate went to Mimi and Daddo's church's Music Camp. He had alot of fun and at the end of the week they put on a musical for the parents. It was great!

Tate has been wanting a dog for some time so he finally got one for his birthday. Gracie is an 18 month old English Cocker Spaniel. We love her so much, she is so sweet and was a perfect way to celebrate the end of our Summer!

Send Off parties

Tate and Grant's friends from church- This is such a great group of kids. Most of this bunch we have know since birth. We will miss them so much!

Some of my beautiful girlfriends from church. We were so lucky to have such great friends at from Westover.

Some of David's friends- Jim, Danny, and Jon.

Brent, Mat, Jim, and Danny

Christy and Angie, loving on sweet Bailey.

Julie, Ashley, David R, Derek, Ryan, and Chris

Tate and his good buddy, Jackson Nettleton. These two have know each other for three years and play so well together.

Tate, with Chance and Lexi. We love these kids! They were great playmates for Tate and Grant! (Chance doesn't usually look this silly, he was making faces for me:) We could always count on them to be around when Tate got bored. They enjoyed riding their bikes and playing in the creek behind our street. Grant loved playing with their little brother, Carson, too.

My awesome neighbors and girlfriends! We loved hanging out together and watching the kids play on most days when the weather was under 100 degrees.

During the months of May and June we had a few different send off parties for out big move to Tulsa. We were so blessed in Austin to have the greatest friends! Our wonderful friends, The Reaves, hosted a care group going away party for us. We have know the Reaves for 12 years! They were some of our first friends we made at church. So many of our memories of Austin will involve them and their precious family. Our care group family continued to grow over those 12 years and we were blessed to meet so many different people from all over the country who chose to move to Austin and start their families. We loved that our kids had a great group of other kids to play with within our caregroup and alot of "second moms and dad" to love on them in the seven years they were there. We know we will probably never find another group like this and we miss and love them all so much!

Another sweet group of friends, our neighbors, also threw us a send off party. I felt so blessed to live on such a great street! Via Grande Dr was a great street to live on! There were alot of kids whom we loved playing with each day. Around 4:00 each day we would sit outside for about an hour and watch the kids play- sometimes with wine! Tate was never bored with Chance around. As soon as he was done with his homework he would ride his bike to his house and they would play and expore until dinner time. I loved that I could let him go out by himself to play if I had other things in the house to do and he would always be safe and have a great time.

A couple of weeks before we left I got to go out with some of my friends from the boys preschool. ( Wish I had a picture of this great group of ladies, too!) I have know most of them for the last six years when Tate started preschool with their kids. We used to go to lunch once a month or so and even when our kids weren't in the same school anymore we could always find a night to go to dinner or a CABI party! I will really miss them and know I will probably never find a group so close at Grant's preschool this year.

We loved Austin. However, we had felt a tug on our hearts for some time that God was calling us to do something different. We will miss that great city and all the fun things it contained but more than that we will miss the friendships we have made there over the last twelve and a half years. Tulsa is a good town and I am sure we will find ways to fit in and make friends but they can't compare with what we had in Austin. We can't wait to visit!

Soccer

Tate played I-9 Soccer this spring and really enjoyed it. He has never played before so we heard that I-9 was a good way to introduce kids to the sport. On the first day of practice the coach let the player who chose a number closest to the one he was thinking of choose the team name. Tate guessed closest and named the team the Bobcats. David and I were relieved because of his affection for deer, nature, and dogs, we weren't sure what he might say. The Bobcats had a 2-6 season. They won the first two games and lost the rest but each player got better and most importantly they had fun while learning the rules of the game.

My Mom by Grant

Grant's school had a Mother's Day brunch at last week to celebrate moms and grandmothers. He didn't want to go and chose to sit like this during the whole program. At least he gave me a sweet card. It said:

My mommy is ? years old.

Her hair is BROWN and her eyes are ?.

My mom likes to relax by WATCH THE NEWS.

She loves to cook EVERYTHING.

Her favorite household chore is EVERYTHING.

Her favorite TV show is THE NEWS.

Mommy always tells me SHE LIKES ME.

When my mom shops, she buys EVERYTHING.

If she could go on a trip, she would go to COLORADO.

I really love it when my mommy GETS Wii GAMES FROM THE REDBOX.

My Mom by Tate

The following is from Tate's Mother's Day book he made at school for me. See if you notice a theme:

Happy Mother's Day

by Tate Walker

My mother is the most wonderful mom in the world! She is as pretty as DOGS.

She weighs about 54 lbs and is about 4 feet tall. Her favorite food is PASTA. In the good old days when mom was little she used to LIKE TO READ. I think mom looks funny when she is wondering about dogs. I know she is really angry when she SCREAMS. I wish mom would RUN with me every day. I wouldn't trade my mom for A DOG.

My favorite thing about my mom is SHE DOES NOT FREAK OUT IF WE GET A DOG.

If I could give my mother somethings special from me it would be....I WOULD GIVE HER A DOG.

My mother loves me when I ......CLEAN UP.

My mother looks prettiest when.....SHE IS IN THE WOODS. (picture of me and deer on this page)

My mother's favorite thing about me is.....WHEN SHE TICKLES ME.

THE END.

Easter

We had a great Easter! We normally spend it with family but with David traveling back and forth to Tulsa each week we decided to stay in town and enjoy one last Easter in Austin. We had a few friends over to have lunch, hunt eggs, and throw lots of confetti eggs. It was a wonderful day!