"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life;
to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived." ~Henry David Thoreau

Monday, July 23, 2012

Texas Day 9

(pictures are very out of order)

-Ran errands with Gov first thing in the morning.

-Cheryl Cobb came over with Mary and Carson to swim.

-Jessica Filina came over with her kids for another try at swimming and they stayed for lunch.  No rain!!

-After continually getting in the pool with no floaties on and wandering into too deep water, we decided it was time to teach Devin how to safely make it back to the wall or stairs if he was about to drown.  We took off his floaties and he actually started swimming!!  Completely unassisted.  The kid is determined to do everything faster than any of the other kids and this is proving to be no different. 

-Missionaries came over to do laundry.  While they waited, Gov showed them and Ethan how to burn things with a magnifying glass (he was really just teaching Ethan, but the missionaries had fun playing too!)  They tried to pop corn in a tin pie plate and got a few kernals to pop!  No matter what their age, boys will always be pyros!

-Had a DELICIOUS chicken tatrazzini dinner.

-Kids went out and played on the big orange tractor.  Devin was in heaven playing with the gears and making the bucket go up and down!  They even got to help Gov shovel and scoop dirt!

-Ethan hadn't been feeling well in the evening and he got ready for bed early.  He didn't want to miss the fun outside so he played even though he was already in his PJs.  But before bed he started running fever.  Oh great...here we go again!

-Cody and I stayed up to watch more stand up comedy on Netflix.  It's becoming one of our favorite things to do together!

















Texas Day 8

-Played hookie from church because I had a migraine during the night. 

-When Gov got home he introduced Dev to the widget box.  This is a HUGE McCorkle milestone!  He absolutely loved it and each time he pulled something out of the box he'd say "Where this come from?"  As always, my favorite thing was the tiny camera.

-Gov also introduced the kids to the scary man in the closet using his Albert Einstein mask.  Garrett thought it was fascinating, but Dev wanted NOTHING to do with it.  It was great!

-Swam for hours again.  Hailey jumped off the diving board and swam all the way to the other end of the pool.  It was 34 feet and she did it about four times!  Incredible!

-The missionaries came over for lasagna dinner.  They are quite the threesome right now because they range in height from 5'4" to 6'9".  To be sure of how tall everyone was, they actually wanted to be measured!











Texas Day 7

On Saturday there was only one thing talked about....Dad was coming into town!!!  We drove out to Dallas Love Field to pick him up.  Gov and the oldest four kids went while Granana stayed home with Garrett while he napped.  Cody was super tired when he got in because he'd been up since 4:30 that morning.  As soon as we got back to Granana and Gov's all he wanted to do was take a nap.

While Dad napped, Ethan and Hailey were busy at work making a movie with Gov's stop animation software.  They made about 400 frames during the day amd it was amazing at how quickly they got the hang of it!  And the coolest part is that they used our old Fischer-Price Little People Village to make the movie.

At 5:15 Cody and I left to go downtown to meet Emily and Philip for a "double date".  Yeah, that's a bit disgusting considering we are all cousins and siblings, but they were the only other ones who were in town to go on our traditional cousin-night-out.  We ate at Razzoo's Cajun Cafe and had a blast.  Then we headed around the corner to Four Day Weekend and as always, LOVED the show.  This was the second time in a row that I won two free tickets during intermission!!  But I paid the price with embarrassment as they used something from my life as the theme of one of their sketches.  It was hilarious!!  And of course had to do our traditional duck face poses.  What a fun night!








Texas Day 6

On Friday we swam allllll day.  The missionaries came over for a little while, along with an old missionary named "Edler" Tyre who had served in the area and went home last October.  He came back with his super pretty girlfriend to tour the missiona and show her around.  They all hung out for a while and had ice cream with us.  In the evening, the Filina gang came over for burgers and swimming.  But wouldn't you know, that after a week of total drought, it started to POUR rain and thunder right in the middle of dinner!!  Complete bummer.  Everything got moved inside.  It wasn't as fun as swimming, but Gov taught all the kids how to play Ghetto Craps.  It's about time to take them to Vegas to win us some money!  Jessica and I spent the rest of the night visiting and catching up.  It was a great night after all.




Texas Day 5

On Thursday we got up early and made the 3 1/2 hour drive down to Brenham, Tx. Brenham is home to the Blue Bell Creamery. In all my 32 years of being a Texan, I have never toured the factory! That's quite the abomination! We met my childhood bestfriend, Melissa (Scott) McElwee and her hubby Steve down in Brenham for lunch and then they went on the tour with us. It was WONDERFUL getting to see her because I hadn't seen her since Joseph's funeral three years before. Her little Conor Joseph is only two weeks older than Garrett, but about twice his size! It was so much fun seeing her as a mom. She and Steve are great parents. Steve had me laughing because he didn't hide his baby hunger in the slightest. Turns out he is now pressuring Mo for a bunch more kids because I "make it look so easy". Ha!

We met for lunch at this fantastic sandwich shop called "Made in Heaven".  Then it was off to the factory and it was incredible. Mo and I spent the entire time drooling over everything. Granana had to miss most of the tour because she was busy with closing issues for Grandmother's house. That has ruled her life for the last several weeks! The tour ended in an old time ice cream parlor where we were treated to any type of ice cream that we wanted. I picked a new flavor "Summer Strawberry Pie". It was so good! The others got either mint chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookie dough, or homemade vanilla.

I feel like I am a total expert on all things Blue Bell after touring the factory! Go on, ask me anything! Now how am I going to convince Cody to send in his resume to the EHS dept at the factory? I'm sure he could find a good job there if he wanted one!