Smalltown USA

Mr. Ruston started the summer session of Mother's Day Out last Tuesday.  Not sure what he's doing with his hands (haha!), but he was pretty excited to be starting a new class.  He's with the big kids now! :)

We made nachos for lunch on Wednesday and I had a little Bean Helper. He likes to help in the kitchen.

 He was in charge of spreading the beans on the chips.  But I'm pretty sure there were just as many beans on his legs!

 That night we went to the movies in Taylor for our weekly field trip.  It's such a cute, old timey theatre. They only play 2 movies... One upstairs and one down.  We went and saw Madagascar 3. "Polka dot, Polka dot, Polka dot! Afro circus!"  OMG, that song is so ridiculous, let catchy.  I swear I sang it the whole way home.

There are times when I really wish we lived closer to a big city. (Or in one!)  I miss the convenience of being able to get whatever I want, when I want it!  BUT, I do like Smalltown USA sometimes.... like when we have festivals.  It's crazy how the whole town comes out and participates.  Western Days was going down last week and we went to the parade Saturday morning.  We had a pretty good reason to go.... Danny's dad was the parade marshall and Ruston got to lead the parade with him! :)

 They're all ready to go!

 Scott, Bekah, and Blythe met us downtown for the parade.  We had to sit close to the end so we could grab Ruston from Pawpaw.

 Here they come!  When they came by us, Ruston was clinging to Pawpaw! haha. He did manage a little wave, though.

 Danny grabbed him when they got to the end and he came and watched the rest of the parade with us. He and Blythe liked the balloons they handed out, but they kept popping!

 The boys and their babies.

 Family pic at the parade! Ruston was exhausted and just done by this time. :)

He made the city paper, too! 

Monday we went over to Amy's to work on some shirts for our beach trip!  Amy had paints and markers for them to use.  They are all so excited about going!!

 We went over to Meemaw's to swim for a bit afterwards.  It sure is hard to get a group pic with kids, huh?

 Yesterday we worked on a little Pinterest project.  It turned out SO cute and Ruston is so proud of it.  It has a new home on our mantle!

We're headed to the beach today... can't wait!!

Field Trip #1

Our first field trip of the summer was to the Capital of Texas Zoo!  We went there are couple of years ago on a school field trip...  It's not a big city zoo.  It reminded me of the zoo on the movie "We Bought a Zoo", but even smaller than that.  It was perfect for a morning trip with a toddler, though.  Ruston and I rode with Kathie and Dillon and Danny got to meet us there for a little bit too.  The zoo is in his county, so he just used it as his lunch break.

First up was the bird house.  Ruston kept scooting closer and closer to the bird, but he wouldn't turn towards me for a picture.  Those eyes stayed GLUED on the bird... I think he was scared of the poop... hey, I would have been too. :)

He liked the peacocks...he kept yelling at them to "get bigger!" when he wanted them to open their wings.  The peacocks just wandered around the zoo... the majority of them weren't in cages.  I'm pretty sure they were the clean up crew for the little lunch area...they were watching us like hawks, waiting for us to leave!

Yes, I know his eyes are closed, but it's the only pic I have with the guinea pigs. There were so many of them! All different sizes and colors.  One seriously looked like cousin It. His hair was all over the place and hung in the dirt...I don't know how he could see!

The camel was the biggest animal Danny got to see before heading back on duty.  It was also the furthest away of all the animals.  Most of them you could walk right up to their cage/enclosure.  I wonder why... Camels don't spit, do they? Isn't that llamas? Hmm.

The zoo had a brand new baby zebra born at the end of May.  I REALLY wanted to see that cute little thing.  We saw him, but he wanted no piece of coming closer to the fence.  So we hung out with Daddy zebra instead.

Gigi used to bring her Daycare kids to this zoo.  She said it looked pretty much the same!

These little guys were fighting over some food that Dillon threw them.  I don't know how Dillon managed to escape my camera all day, but I have not one picture of him.  Dillon - I'm going to take double of you on our next field trip!

When we walked up to the white tigers pen, we were pretty excited... he was right up against the gate for us to see!  We felt pretty special that he was showing off for us...until we realized he was stalking out a mouse! There was a little mouse just a few feet in front of him that was hung on some broken branches.  The tiger's eyes followed that thing non-stop until the mouse got free and ran off.  Lucky mouse!  As soon as the mouse was gone, the tiger was outta there too.

The lion was completely anti-social.  We visited him twice and he wouldn't even look our way.  Man, he was huge!

This friendly little guy moved as fast as I imagine a turtle can to come visit us!  As soon as we bent down by his fence, he booked it across to us.  Turns out he was starving.  He ate some grass right out of my hand.  He had a really big mouth!  We picked a bunch of grass and threw it in there for him.

This bear was seriously hilarious.  He was in the very back of the zoo, down some overgrown paths that had empty cages all the way down.  I don't think many people make it back there to see him because it looked like that part of the zoo was empty!  When we walked up to his cage, he stood there for a minute, then walked back and plopped down up against this big rock.  Then he propped his foot up on the tree, grabbed his toes with his hand and threw his head back.  He kept looking at us to make sure we were watching his little show. :)

Ruston loved the alligators.  Maybe it's all the Swamp People we watch. :)  It wasn't easy to pull him away from them.  Actually, he really liked the snakes too, so I guess he's a reptile boy.  

This is him staring at the crocodile.  He was trying to hide from us under the water, but we got him to come out. :)

So glad my boy loves animals and zoos as much as I do. :)

The start of our Summer

Our summer has started off busy as ever!!

Diesel turned 9 years old on June 3rd!  As you can see in the pic, he was having some panting problems.  We started cutting his thyroid medicine in half and now he seems fine!  Poor thing's heart must have been going 90 miles an hour.

We are working on potty-training.  Ugh.  No fun.  As you can see, he spends a lot of time on his little potty. So much so that he has to eat some of his meals while sitting there. haha.

He likes the big boy undies, but has no problem using them like a diaper.  We're backing off a little right now and are going to have a "Naked Weekend" when we get back from our next beach trip.  Stay tuned for that...I'm sure it will be great fun! ha!

Speaking of the beach, we headed down there the week after school got out.  It was such a great trip, because it was in the middle of the week and it was seriously EMPTY.  The elevators were quick, the beach wasn't crowded, and we had the pool to ourselves for a bit both days we went down.  I didn't even take my good camera, but did snap a few pics with my phone.  Ruston is going through a phase where he likes to pretend he's a puppy.  I gave him a snack and came into the living room to find he had put his plate on the floor and was picking the yogurt up with his mouth!

Daddy helped him apply a super cool Barbarian tattoo.

He loved that thing and you can actually still see it, almost 3 weeks later! Yes, I swear, we bathe our son.  It's just a really high quality tattoo! :)

We stayed down on the beach for most of the day.  Little guy curled up and took his nap down in the ocean breeze!

The condo offers crafts for the kids at different times during the day.  Ruston made this crocodile one day.

On June 9th, my good friend Kat got married!  Danny had to work that night, so Lauri made the road trip with me.  It was a nice getaway!  I slept pretty darn good in that hotel bed. :)

Look how cute they are!  The wedding was so pretty.  Black and white with pops of purple.  The reception was at the hotel, so it was super easy and convenient.  My favorite part? The mashed potatoes! haha.  The scooped mashed potatoes into martini glasses and then you added whatever toppings you wanted, just like a baked potato.  Super fun!

While we were out of town, Danny had to take his Dad to the airport.  Ruston rode along and they went by the helicopter hanger to see the DPS choppers.

But of course, Ruston was drawn to the tractor. :)

Other than those fun happenings, we've just been sleeping late...

...playing outside...

...and getting some work done in the hay field!

Last week our church had Vacation Bible School.  I taught the first grade kiddos and had such a great time.  It was definitely hard work, but something I will for sure do again.  First grade's color was bright pink.. my partner Gena and I are in the middle of the picture.

The church provided supper each night before the VBS activities.  Ruston was all about the watermelon!

He showed off his dancing skills on the stage after the parent's night program.  The little ones didn't perform, but he would have done such a great job!

Our pastor said he would dye his hair if we got 150 kids there for VBS.  While we never actually hit 150 on a single night, the total enrollment throughout the week was 154 kids!  He made good on his word and showed up Friday with some bleached hair! haha

Ruston had been coughing and running fever on and off for a few days, so we took him into the doctor last Wednesday.  She listened to his chest and decided he needed to do some breathing treatments.  She suggested we purchase a nebulizer, because she thought it was something we would definitely be needing in the future.  Ugh.  Poor bubba.  So we've been using the nebulizer and he's starting to sound so much better.

On the way home from the doctor's office, I had a little mishap with my car. :/  I was going through a construction zone, on a bridge, and there was a HUGE rock in my way.  I couldn't swerve because I had cars in front and behind me, a guardrail on my right and a lovely 18wheeler on my left.  So I hit it.  And it did this to my tire.

Awesome.  Hopefully the rest of our summer will be full of the fun events and rid of these kinds of things!