Summer Nights, Firefly Lights

So, now that summer is in full swinger are just having a blast. We are out there every day swimming. Emmy is really good with a life jacket. Eli and Dora are fish. The could play out there for hours. Eli's favorite game is diving for stuff on bottom of pool. Dora lives to ride daddy the dolphin. I should probably cap that. She loves Daddy the Dolphin!

Here is Amethyst. I call her the Tesseract. I think that was the source of power from the Avengers movie. But it may have been Thor. Those were good movies. 

So, Bridget bought Eli this jawbreaker at Galveston candy store on the strand. He has been licking it to the core. I told him you can tell how old it is by counting the rings. I'm pretty funny. 

So Bridget went to New York for 3 days on break. She met with her agent and saw Golden. I got Eli a large fishing tackle box for all his rainbow loom stuff. We've been making videos too. 

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/pARZpnM1SVo

To kill time, and do something special, we went to chuck e cheese. I refuse to capitalize that. It's a lot of work to watch 4 kids at a pizza place where the number of flashing lights and beeping sounds is enough to induce a seizure. 

Best friends 

I surprised Eli and Dora at 845 and took them outside to hunt fireflies. Dora actually caught one in a cup! Eli wanted to suck it into his bug vac and ended up smashing it. They had a lot of fun staying up late. Cute kids. 

I braided Emmys hair. So cute! I'm awesome. 

Fun fun fun. In the sun. 

Father's Day

We went to Blessington Farms and picked blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. Kids were kinda tired but had fun. 

Strawberries. 

I had a massive haul! I got a memory picture book, Dora colored for me, Eli made me a DAD rainbow loom charm. Bridget got me shorts and a shirt. 

We made crepes for breakfast. But Dora got up really early and made me breakfast. 

She picked cereal, cut bag open, poured it for me and was waiting for me to come down. 

It was fruit snacks and mini wheats!

Galveston was a Blast

So I'm taking a job in Galveston to work and teach. Here is a picture of UTMB, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. It is one of the older medical schools this side of the Mississippi. Anyway, here is a picture of the school.  

After my computer training, I came home and we spent the day at the beach looking for shells, building castles, burying Emmy in the sand, searching for sea crabs, and flying airplanes and kits on the beach. It was really fun. Bridget took kids mini golfing why I was gone. 

At dinner, Dora made a hilarious joke. 

"Look, this chip is sunburned!"

Such a funny little princess!

This kid really wanted Taco Bell!

Princess Her Highness!

My buddy!

After dinner Eli and I went looking for crabs at night. Didn't find any living crabs, but we did find lots of seashells. 

Someone made this. Eli destroyed a couple of other castles. 

Galveston is Fun.

We got up Wednesday morning and decided to do something different. At SeaWolf park there is a submarine and a World War II destroyer. This is one of two left. This submarine operated in WWII and sank several Japanese ships. The destroyer was created to hunt out and sink German submarines. For $6 you can hike all over these ships inside and out. There is really not a lot of room to move around. 

Torpedo!

The wood on top is teak. How cool is that! Eli in front Carla with Amerhyst, Bridget coming up stairs. 

Eli standing next to bunks above a torpedo. 

Emmy spinning a rudder. 

Dora and Eli ran ahead to explore the dining room then engine rooms. 

Dora the Destroyer. 

Big bullet! Oh and some shells too. 

Aiming. 

After exploring the ships, we went to the strand where they have a confectionary. Kids got tons of candy. 

Eli and I found some fun treats. These are ant suckers and scorpion suckers. Yes Eli is already eating his and so excited to say he are a scorpion. But I still csnt get him to eat corn? Kids are weird. 

For lunch we went to Gumbo Diner on the sea wall. Good gumbo. Also beignets  pronounced "Big-Nettie's" for you non southerners. 

We spent all afternoon playing in surf and sand. I left my phone inside so no pictures. Eli and I swam in surf and found about a dozen hermit crabs. Emmy and Dora collected sea shells to make a sea shell necklace when we get home. Emmy liked to dug in the sand then come out into the huge waves. She either hs no sense if fear or self preservation, or thinks a lot more of my life saving ability than she should. 

After dinner we went to Rainforest Cafe. That place is kinda fun. 

Volcano dessert!

Dora offered to give me hair! Combover?

I woke at 4:45 and couldn't go back to sleep. I'm sitting in balcony at hotel watching moon go down and sun come up. I really need to go to bathroom but don't want to wake anyone. 

Galveston continued.

We ate dinner the first night at IHOP. Eli came up with a couple of funny jokes. 

"If this is IHOP, why aren't more people jumping up and down?"

And,

"Hey Dad, what is a frog's favorite restraunt? IHOP! Get it?"

My meal buddy as always. 

In the morning I took the big kids too the ferry. They loved it. We saw three dolphins and lots of huge boats. 

Sweet precious. 

When Amethyst woke up from her nap, we loaded up and went to schlitterbahn. That's when phone got locked up! No more pictures for fear of ruining/losing my phone.