Lake McQueeney

For the past several years, we have been enjoying fun family vacations at Wimberley but this year Bebe and PawPaw decided to shake things up - we were headed to Lake McQueeney!!! They really had no choice but to change destinations as the water in the Blanco River was unsafe to swim in. We were all so happy with the change as we used to go to Lake McQueeney when we were young. This place was magical. You never got hot because of all the shade trees, the breeze of the lake, all you can east soft serve and tortilla soup with grilled cheese. Ahhh the good ol days.

Time finally came for our trip to begin. Emery Kate packed up her sippy cup of chocolate milk (working on my favorite aunt brownie points) and was ready to hit the road.

But not before Uncle Kelly got in some good quality time with Miss Molly. She loved his hair! It was so cute.

So we got the kids changed out of their PJ's and hit the road. We caravaned down I-35 to make the trip a little more exciting. We finally hit McQueeney at lunch time. Got our fill of burgers, grilled cheese and chicken tenders and headed for the lake. This lake is a hydroelectric lake (thanks for explaining Blakers) and stays at a constant level.

The boys were excited to show off for "John Martin". Caden was all over the water. Hudson...well he lasted about 3 seconds on the toob without the boat even going and had to get off. Don't worry, he got brave by day 2 and was a toobing machine. Blake, our fearless boat driver, never got tired!

Caden and Jonathan getting ready. Blake tried hard to make them fall. He only succeeded with Jonathan...Caden had a death grip on the toob.

Sweet Sterling was Amy's personal babysitter during the trip. Wherever Molly and Amy went, you can be sure Sterling was with them. I am sure it helped out Amy a ton especially since Blake was on the boat all day.

Our teenagers - Amber and Ashton - had a good time. Carey & Jon made them put up their phones for the weekend and they were going through major withdrawls.

Kelly did a little fishing. He caught 4 catfish even though there were constant boats and loud, party people all over. What a provider!

I hung out in the pool most of the time. Don't worry, I wore a hat (only took it off for the photo) and SPF 50! Woman would be so proud. Molly loved the water!

Paw Paw brought corn hole and most of us played during the afternoon. Bebe (who has never played) and Paw Paw beat Kelly and I. So embarrasing....

Mom showing off her skills...

Carey took EK to the playground for some bonding time. EK loves the play ground and pretty much spent all of her time there. What a big girl!

Blake finally decided to take a little break. Who can blame him? He took all the kids out!

Amber and Ashton getting some loving from Miss Molly. We all were fighting over her the whole weekend.

We had dinner every night at the restaurant. It was so nice not to cook and clean.

Uncle John finally getting to hold Molly...so sweet!

Our parents. Thank you both so much for such a special trip. Hopefully we can make this a new tradition!?!?

Sisters! Carey and I have the best memories of this place. Famous Amos cookies, cold in the wall AC units, Buzz, grilled cheeses, Mr. Horner and the list could go on and on.

Our men - minus the young'uns.

All the single (and married) ladies! Here we are acting all nice and proper for the camera but...

this is how we really are! What a FUN, CrAzY, loving bunch. So happy to be apart of this family!

Sneak Peeker

I couldn't resist sharing this! We are trying to keep our new house underwraps until we can have an official gathering. Lots of of cool features, twists and turns in this house! Can you figure out what this is?

and in with the new...

The remodel from %$#@ took over a year to complete. Not that we did that much work but we had to work around Spring Training, baseball season and vacations. It was all worth it - at least we think it is! No room was spared. We did something in every single room in the house. Even the closets!

Yea for our new bedroom. We did outsource the hand texturing on the ceiling and walls. Kelly is good but not that good! We did all the painting ourselves though.

This kitchen is officially closed! We are no longer cooking in it as I don't want to have to clean it. Sounds like a plan to me.

Our new and improved office or as I like to call it the animal massage room. We have used it only once so far but it was fun to get side by side massages while staring deep into the deer's eyes.

The dining room is once again the dining room. Thank goodness...it was not that great of a closet.

The below is our extra room that should really be a formal dining/living space but that is so not us. So we call it our dance room. Anyone want to come over and bust a move with us?

The breakfast nook...where we once use to eat home cooked meals!

Our official guest room. No more sleeping on the bunk beds!!! My parents and Ashley are so thankful.

My favorite space in the house. Our master bath was completely gutted and then put back together. I love our new mirrors and sinks. Don't be deceived by how small the vanities seem, I can fit everything in them and then some. Love it!

The hall bath was the first room totally completed in the house. We love how it turned out. Paint can do wonders!

After all this hard work, we are enjoying our house while we can. We put it on the market as soon as we finished. Yea!!!

Out with the Old...

Kelly and I decided to finally finish our remodel...ourself! We thought we could do it faster, better and cheaper than anyone we hired. We were right for the most part but we were miserable for about 18 days. That is right - it took 18 days to finish two rooms but some touch ups. Maybe it was the heat or the fact that I am not qualified to do anything but be a tool runner or vacuumer so Kelly was pretty much on his own so those 18 days were loooooong ones.

We had to tape off all our doors going to our closets and bathrooms which meant I had to get everything out that I needed. I pretty much wore the same things every day. Kelly is one lucky man! The dining room became our closet, garage, and holding tank of everything from our bedroom and office.

Kelly said he will never ever do a remodel again! I agree whole heartedly. It was awful.

Our bedroom before the remodel. White walls, white molding, white doors, and white carpet. Not very exciting!

We had to take off the doors to get our furniture out of the room.

We turned the living room into our bedroom for the 18 days. It was nice being so close to the kitchen! Those late night Kool-Aid runs just got a whole lot easier.

Handyman Kelly scraped off all the ceilings. We had to kill the AC so the dust wouldn't get sucked up so Kelly had a nice sweaty afternoon of scraping.

Our neighbors got an eyeful as we kept all of our trash, scraps and carpet on our driveway for about a week. They are probably excited to get us out of the neighborhood!

We also decided to tackle the caulk around the front of the house. I scraped out all the old caulk off the porch and around garage door and Kelly came back to fill in the holes. We make a great team!

He may be smiling for the picture but inside he is probably dying. We did all of this in the middle of the afternoon in the blazing hot Texas sun. We both didn't have on our happy faces alot of the time but we did make it through. What a first year for us!

Poor guy even came home from work and worked even longer on the house. We saw 3am and 4am way too much during this time.

Showering Lacy and Wesley with LOVE

Lacy and Wesley are going to the chapel and gonna get married so we decided to shower them with love and CHICKENS! Since Wesley is our favorite chicken rancher, we just had to have a chicken theme. We served deviled eggs, chicken scratch (texas caviar), smoked chicken, hot spicy chicken dip, and chicken eggs (cake balls). The shower was so cute!

My mom is really good at drawing/painting chickens so we got her to help us decorate too!

The happy couple. We all could not be more excited for them and wish them a lifetime of love, laughter and happiness!

The boys even took a break from playing cornhole to watch LJ and Wesley open gifts. What good sports!

Carla, Andy and Kelly. We love that the Jankowski's are apart of our group now!

Justin loves getting a Crotin sandwich! Thanks for getting in our picture Michelle!!! Justin is all ours!

This was Wesley's favorite gift of the night. Good job Carla and Andy!

Lacy with her mom and sister. Don't they all look like sisters!!!

Wesley and his ladies! What a lucky man! We welcome Wesley to all of our families!