7QT: Austin Adventures Cont'd

~1~

I never finished telling you about the rest of our Treeschooler's adventure. One of the deciding factors in making this commitment was that the day of the shoot was the day before my grandmother's 92 birthday… and in the same city! We hadn't seen Granny since Cupcake was about a year old. We surprised her by showing up at the restaurant where she thought she was just meeting her adult children. I think she was pleasantly surprised, don't you?

~2~

My aunt had displayed some family photos and I was so delighted to see this one. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of both of my grandparents looking so young before. That little guy is my dad, I think. I'm pretty sure because he looks just like my brother did as a kid. Although, it could also be my uncle.

I have always thought my oldest son looked an awful lot like my PawPaw, but also thought maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part since I loved my PawPaw so tremendously. (I'm tearing up just typing that.) This picture and the comments of some dear friends on IG made me believe that it wasn't just my imagination.

~3~

Afterwards, we headed to the Texas Memorial Museum because they promised DINOSAURS and a paleontology lab with a real, live paleontologist to talk to. Well, they delivered on the dinosaur bones part…

...and some really beautiful rocks and gems. But the Paleontology Lab was closed, much to BigBoy's dismay. :( Oh well. It was a pretty sparse museum, but it worked for us since we weren't trying to kill a lot of time there.

~4~

The next day, we headed over to Sean's sister's house to meet up with family and squeeze in a little baby cousin love.

This little guy was fussy with a capital F but so squishy and delicious to kiss!

It was a crazy busy kind of weekend but good. It made us think that we really need to plan a family vacation. I know summer's over, but we are thinking a nice fall vacation somewhere cold.

Anyone know anything about Missouri? ;)
{To clarify… this is not a reference of any kind to recent troubles in MO. We really and truly are planning a trip there to see some (we hope) beautiful fall colors!}

~5~

Now, it's back to grind of daily life. Some of the online classes the oldest two are signed up for start next week but The Professor's Latin 3 class has a translation due before the first class begins. (High school is hard!) I think we will be easing into the school year a little at a time instead of just jumping right in. Right before this picture was taken, The Professor walked through the kitchen, smiled and sighed saying, "It's good to be doing Latin homework again!" He's such a cute little classics nerd!

~6~

 On the feast of the Assumption, we attended the Ordination Mass of this young man, the newly minted Fr. Justin, O. Cist.. He was beaming!

We couldn't hang around for his reception so we waited to give him a gift at his first Mass.

Cupcake was so excited to give him a present. She insisted that she had to give it to him and watch him open it. I think she thought it was his birthday. It was so sweet and beautiful that even the professional photographer who was there came to take pictures of the scene. So I was only hugely slightly mortified when she asked why we gave Fr. Justin a necklace. It was a rosary. 

~7~

And speaking of rosaries… I was playing around with taking pictures "off auto" on my big camera the other day and thought this one turned out pretty good. This is a quote that I love (from the movie Shadowlands) that I had asked Kendra to go all "Picmonkey Crazy" on but knowing that she's got lots of little ones, I decided to play around and see what I could do with it. Of course, Kendra came through and even posted hers today. (I never should have doubted.) Thank you, Miss Kendra! Her printable prayers are really just amazing… all free and beautiful too. 

Whether it's the first of your school year or the last of your summer, have a great weekend!