This week

 

Eden has been practicing all of her instruments, using as much free time as she possibly can. 

 

Chloe posted this photo of her and Andy. They are still going strong and have celebrated one month together!

And Jonah and Keishla had a one day breakup this week, but are back together again, after being together for over a year. 

Nancy's Sky Garden w/Steve

My 39th birthday

Head Lice

Hurricanes and other random things

 

On Sunday this week, it was hot and sunny. On Monday, we had the eclipse. On Tuesday I had my life's best birthday so far. On Wednesday we had the Epic Lice Incident of 2017. And on Thursday we found out a hurricane was slated to hit the Texas coast. It was quite the week! This hurricane was a bad one. The aftermath is worse because it has caused heavy rain over a large portion of Texas. Fortunate for us, Georgetown is just getting pretty soggy. But we are otherwise good. But the coastal towns, especially Houston, are getting hammered and it is a deadly situation. It's been sad and worrisome to see. 

So we took the kids to the Dollar Tree yesterday to load up on supplies for the victims. When we took them to the donation spot, nothing had been donated yet. Charity was beside herself. She was so worried about the people not having enough supplies. It was really sweet to see her big heart. 

Then when we got home, this happened with Sam. I texted Steve about it. 

 

Last night Kelly invited Andy and I over for a party. Andy's girlfriend Chloe was also invited. We had a good time. I found this photo of them too on Chloe's Instagram. Cuties.

 

And Hana DM'd me this cute photo of her and Charity. :)

 

What a week!

Dance party

 

One of my sweet dancers had a slumber party this weekend for her birthday. Hana and Becca were invited, and they had a bunch of fun. These girls are all such wonderful people. They are so sweet and good and talented. I love them all a ton.

Eclipse

I saw this photo of my cute Grandma Bailey at her assisted living home in Idaho during the eclipse. I love her.
The eclipse on Monday was such a neat experience! We didn't even get anywhere near totality here in Texas. But it was still so cool to see! Apparently there will be totality here in Texas in just 6 years. I cannot wait!

Lice!

 

The night of my birthday, Cessie informed us that we had kids with lice. So when Steve and I got back late that night, we inspected everyone's heads and found that everyone was infected, except possibly Andy because we couldn't tell with his thick fro. Even Steve and I! We weren't sure when it came to our family, and how, but we were guessing Sam was the culprit and that he got it from school. But because it was my birthday and it had been so perfect, and I was so happy, and it was so late, I decided to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. 

So the next morning, we kept everyone home from school, and we started by treating everybody's heads.

Then we cleaned the house from top to bottom and sanitized everything that we could. We gathered up any clothing, towels, or bedding that could possibly have been affected. And we went to the laundry mat where we all worked our butts off doing FORTY loads of laundry!!! It was intense!

 

At the laundry mat, everyone still had treatment stuff in their hair. So we also all looked pretty ghetto.

 

After the laundry mat, I wanted to take the kids swimming, but our pool was closed for maintenance. So after a little deliberation, I went ahead and got a hotel room in Round Rock off of Priceline. We left Steve and Cessie at the house to work on getting the laundry sorted out and put away and getting the house cooled off. (Steve had read that heating the house to 130 degrees for a short period of time would also help to kill lice. So he had done that too as an added precaution.)

Then the rest of the kids and I went to the hotel to swim and do another lice shampoo treatment on everyone in the hotel room. I know it sounds excessive, but we were super paranoid about not getting it totally out of our house and heads or getting a re-infection if we were not thorough enough. 

 

When we all got back home from the purging, we were so exhausted, but the kids and I all felt like it had turned out to be a pretty awesome day. We all had a family problem and it was all hands on deck to fix it and we did. Together. And we had fun and bonded doing so!

My 39th Birthday

 

I did not get many photos of my birthday at all, but it really was the best birthday I have ever had! I kind of wish I had been better about capturing it. My birthday was on Tuesday. On Monday we had the "Great American Eclipse" and it was a totally chill and awesome day for me. 6 of the kids were in school during the day and I had received a hammock for my birthday from Sherod. So I was able to lay in that and enjoy the eclipse and listen to music. It was perfect! 

That night we had the Drolets over for dinner. They are always a blast to hang out with. And they brought my requested pies for dessert. Everyone made me feel special and it wasn't even my real birthday yet!
The next day I was still feeling lots of love from lots of people. I got so many sweet messages from people. And I got some nice phone calls. I even had some of my favorite dance students drop by and surprise me with a pretty bouquet of flowers and a card and lots and lots of hugs. I got to relax most of the day again. 

That night Steve and I went to Flix to see Dirty Dancing! I was super stoked for several reasons. I had never seen that movie in the theater. I had seen it once as a teenager, but felt so guilty seeing it because it was pg13 and kind of naughty. But I guiltily LOVED it. For someone who loves dance as much as I do, how could I not? But I don't think I have seen it since. Not only that, but Steve had never seen it! He was a Dirty Dancing virgin! It was the 30th anniversary of the movie being released, so Flix was showing it. And we really love going to Flix. What made seeing this movie so fun is that first Steve and I went out to eat at our favorite, Jack Allen's. And while we were there we read all of the IMDB page with all the fun facts, about the movie. So it made the movie a bit more interesting. And the audience energy was the best ever. We all were having so much fun with total strangers with a mutual love for Dirty Dancing. It was much dirtier than I remembered it, which was kinda weird. But I am gonna be honest- I loved it. It totally did not disappoint. 

We came home late with the kids waiting up to surprise me with birthday wishes. 

I have never had a birthday where I felt this much genuine love from so many people who GET me! And I felt genuine love for myself, imperfections and all. I felt happy with my life in all areas and excited about what is going on and where I am headed. It was perfect.

Amanda Bishop

Babies getting off the bus on 1st day of school

Babies walk to school with Daddy

Finishing up Summer, School Starts, and Family Comes to Texas

 
I like getting screenshots of my kid's cute social media posts. 

 
Hana wrapped up her ballet intensive at Ballet Austin this week. She made some fun friends.

 
We had our first day of school on Thursday. Eden is in 11th, Andy and Becca 9th, Hana 6th, Charity 2nd, and Sam Kindergarten. ACC has not started.

 
Yesterday we met Sherod, Emily and Riley in Waco and hung out for the day. It was Charity and Riley's bdays. We met at a farmers market, Riley took the adults on a tour of SpaceX where he has been working all Summer, we went out to eat together, and we just hung out at their hotel and talked. It was a great day. 

Cessie's Photos

So we found out kind of late that Cessie started an Instagram page about Goergetown sights. It's really good! Her photos are all taken on her iphone 5! She has never had any kind of training on photography, so we were really impressed! So I started making photography requests of her. Like family photos and photos of Berry Springs. 

She complied! Today I got these photos of Charity and Sam at Berry Springs. I love them!