First Day of School 2011

School started last week for the lucky Frost kids. The kids were all secretly excited to go to school, Ellie was blatantly excited to start kindergarten.

Adam is in 4th grade. That is the last grade at the elementary school here.
He is very excited about his teacher.

Michael started 2nd grade. He is excited because he has several of his friends in his class this year.

Ellie finally gets to go to kindergarten. She has been anticipating this year for a REALLY long time. I am excited for someone else to entertain her for a few hours every day.

She didn't know anyone in her class, but after the first day she let me know that she has a good friend named Ally she met that day. On Wednesday night she told Joe, "Daddy, I got to go to school today and I get to go tomorrow too!"

Here is the four of them. Look at the stair steps.

Nate started preschool at Miss Sylvia's today. He has been excited all week, but then this morning he wasn't so sure. As soon as we got to Miss Sylvia's house he wanted to walk up by himself, but since it is the first day, I told him I had to go with him.

Here's to a great year! Here's also to some free time every week.

Aunt Margie's Visit

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Margie and her 4 boys came to visit us for a week. We had a great time visiting with her, but we did so many things, by the time they left, we were all exhausted. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.

Joe's dad came out for the first few days that she was here. It was nice to see him again. Here is a classic picture- a good representation of how he dresses everyday.
One day while they were here, we went down to the nearby creek. We had previously gone over spring break and had a great time, this time, however, it was super hot and the water was pretty low. The kids had a good time though, they hopped in the water and took off down the creek walking through the water and chasing the little fish and having a grand 'ole time. Nate was a little frustrated that he couldn't keep up with everyone. We stayed and had lunch, but the sand was killer hot, so we left shortly after lunch to go back to our house.

Another day, we went out to our property (of course, what else do we do every weekend). The boys had a great time riding 4-wheelers and there were a lot of 4-wheelers riding every which way all day long. Jack:

Josh:

Nick:

Cole: We made the mistake of having Cole and Nate ride together once....after their first accident we quickly separated the two.

They also enjoyed the zipline:

Even Margie was brave enough to try it out. All the while that the kids were riding 4-wheelers, this is what Joe was doing:

Guess if you have 7 4-wheelers running it is a full time job to keep them up and going.

Here is a picture of all the kids:
(left to right_ Cole, Jack, Ellie, Nick, Nate, Josh, William, Adam, Lily, Michael, and Emma)

Thanks for visiting Margie, we really enjoyed seeing you.

The Beach

Margie came and visited us for a week, and we had a great time. One day we went down to the beach. It was quite an enjoyable day. Margie, Nick and Josh:
Joe, Ellie and Michael

Ellie

Adam and Nick digging:

Nate spent more time playing in the sand than in the water, but that was fine with me.

Cole wasn't feeling well, so Margie just came with the bigger boys- Jack, Josh and Nick.

Wow, why don't we go down more often?

Everything In Texas is Bigger

...even the spiders. This beauty was found outside near our garden. I looked up while I was weeding and then quickly moved away. This is the underside, he is upside down on his web.

Reference to see how big he is.

Close up...look at those pinchers:

ugh.

Severe Texas Drought=New Dock

In case you aren't from here and don't listen to the news, we are in a severe drought this year. We have talked in years past of putting in a dock, but we have been too busy. With the water being so low, we decided that this would be a good year to put a dock in.

We started with 4X4 posts and cemented them into 5 gallon buckets.
The kids were very helpful with holding up the poles while the cement dried.
Then we went out and roughly marked where the dock would be. The first weekend we worked on the dock, the water was out about 30 feet from the shore and down roughly 5 feet in depth. Since then it has moved out about another 7-8 feet. (its been two weeks).
Then we dug holes for the buckets to go in. This is where the drought conditions and big tractor are very helpful.
Next we transported the heavy buckets down to the road. The tractor was helpful. There was one trip when we had the 14 foot boards on and Joe was in the bucket with them and I was driving that didn't go so smoothly. By the time we got to the lake Joe was about ready to fire me, but we got through it. Then we put the buckets in the ground. This was the worst part. Concurrent with drought conditions is very high heat, but also high humidity. During a big part of this project there was direct sunlight shining down on these boards. We were VERY hot and it was pretty miserable.
Then we put the "L" on. Those buckets at the end were very heavy and the lake was very close to the end of the dock that weekend, so there were a couple that were in the ground but still movable due to the water seeping in the holes.

The next weekend, Joe put a third board in that ran down the center of the dock. This was to support the planks. He also cut all the planks.

This weekend we installed the planks. This was the best part of the whole job because it was very quick work and instantly gratifying. Isn't it amazing that we could do this ourselves?

A view from the shore of the dock. We are going to cut the posts down later and install a railing.

Alternate view. We purposely put the dock next to the tree you see on the other side of it so that we could tie a rope to the tree and swing off the dock into the water. Joe also used his tractor to clear the mucky topsoil off the ground so that when the water comes back there is only sand in this area.

As a reference point, this island in the next picture is normally several feet under water. In fact, there are a few stumps on one end of them that I got stuck on in a boat one year with my brother. We almost had to bail out, but luckily we didn't. This weekend the island was a favorite stop for birds.

Here's hoping for a rainy fall so we can enjoy the dock soon!

One of the Scariest things I have seen in a while

Since Ellie got a new pink four-wheeler, her old four-wheeler was not being used. Nate quickly figured out that that could mean he could drive it. He has been talking about driving a four-wheeler for a couple of weeks now.
He actually did a lot better than I thought he would. Every time you looked at him he had a huge smile on his face. Adam was put in charge of following him as he drove and it was cute to see them ride next to each other and hear Adam telling him where to go and when to put brakes on. If I think back, the other kids probably started learning when they were about Nate's age, but it still seems way to early for me.

And yes, they are both just wearing underwear, but that is because they just got done playing in the mud in their clothes and I didn't want to clean yet another outfit for them.

Redneck Bath

Gee Michael, I think that pail is a little small for your bath...
I'm not sure if that is much better.

And while we are on the topic, I needed a can open this weekend and we were at the land, I swear I had a can opener, but I was wrong. Joe brought out his true redneck side and opened it for me.

Anyone want some beans?