July 4th at Medieval Times

This year's fireworks displays were canceled due to inclement weather. (In Texas that generally means flash flooding, torrential downpours or tornados!) We had the torrential downpours and flash flooding the entire week of July 4th - to the degree that we were rerouted to our home a few times due to washed out roads just by our home. The creek near our home had risen over ten feet and had white water rapids while our street looked like a river itself draining into the 'creek'.

So, we decided to be untraditional and attend the "Medieval Times" exhibition! What an amazing time it was. We all had great fun dining with our hands while watching the Andalusian horses perform, Falconry demonstrations and the entire tournament of the realm. The tournament had six knights with jousting, sword fighting and traditional tournament games. Our little 'knight' came home from the evening and immediately went to find his knight costume and wielded his new sword. The girls loved seeing the knight's battle for the love of a 'real princess'. After each game in the tournament the knights would throw flowers to the princesses in the crowd and our girls were thrown a flower! They were starry eyed...It was true love as they cheered the red and yellow knight!

The evening was a great success and on the way home we found that other cities had not canceled their celebrations of the 4th - so, we chased fireworks and got to see Fort Worth's beautiful display!

"Houston, We'd Love to see the Temple."

Today our family hopped in the car and drove to Houston for Mary and Cagan Randall's sealing in the Houston, Texas temple! What a day! The kids were great - considering they were in the car for hours each way. We were able to attend the sealing and visit with our friends and then we loaded back into the car to come home! Although it was quite a bit of driving we felt it was worth it to be there, feel the spirit, and have our children attend another temple wedding. Our eldest loved the Houston temple and the beauty that surrounded it. While our two youngest loved walking on the 'hidden pathway' to the left of the temple doors.

Shamu and "Sea World"

This weekend our family took an impromptu trip down to visit Aunt Tammy, our cousins, and Shamu! Our children loved being with "Z", their cousin, and were so excited to go to spend time at "Z's new house"! They played in every room in ther Aunt's new house! (They can't wait to go back again.)

Our family was so excited to go to Sea World! We enjoyed feeding the dolpins, riding "Shamu's Express" rollercoaster, the ferris wheel and the paint mixer (Sea World's version of the teacups). But, by far the experience that had our children awed and amazed was watching the new show "Believe" starring Shamu. Our son clapped so hard and fast; he was so engrossed in the show that nothing else could get his attention. Our little A loved it so much that she asked to wait until the entire stadium had cleared out so that we could walk down to the tank and look at Shamu up close. E and L decided that they want to swim with Shamu when they grow up. We had a wonderful time! That afternoon we went back and played in the "Lost Lagoon" waterpark - My husband relaxed and the kids and I got soaked! We did wave pools, "Splash Attack", "Sky Tubin" and all the kiddie pools we could find. M just kept saying, "Again, again."