Lions and Tigers and Bears and Hot Air Balloons!!!!

This past weekend my parents came for a visit. They also brought my cousin's three boys with them(my parent's adopted grandkids, since my sister nor I have provided any grandkids for them, yet). So much for a nice relaxing weekend! Oh well, who needs a weekend to relax and rest when my life is full of business and craziness during the week-I wouldn't know what to do with myself!! Anyways, I had a blast with my parents, Zack(who we used to call Zachary, but now that he is 7 yrs. old has out grown that name apparently),Cameron(also 7-they are twins), and Dylon(5 yrs.). They got to Cow Town on Friday night. We took the boys to eat at Chick-Fil-A, so after they ate they could play on the playground to release some of their energy! While the boys were playing and their Uncle Brent watched them, my mom and I did a Target run to get lunch stuff for a picnic and grab some coloring books to occupy the boys while they were at my house, considering I had no toys for them to play with. The jumbo coloring book was a huge success and the boys colored the rest of the night until bedtime! On Saturday, we took the boys to Crispy Creme to eat doughnuts and also to give them a some what educational experience in how doughnuts are made. They thought this was the coolest thing and really enjoyed their doughnuts. They were soo cute with their hats on and eating their springle and football doughnuts! Crispy Creme should definitely used this cute kiddos in their advertisement!! After doughnuts, we were off to the Ft. Worth Zoo. The boys were so excited and loved getting to see all the animals-we did soo much walking! After the zoo we had a picnic in the nice, cool shade. Then, we were headed back to my house to rest while the boys took a nap-we were exhausted! My dad and I got in a little OSU football time-way to go Cowboys! Next, we were off to Plano to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. The plan was to leave at 4:00 but we didn't get on the road until 5:00(it takes so much longer to do things when little ones are involved). As usual when the Bailey family tries to go anywhere we some how always find a way to get lost, so yes we got lost(just one time,though), but found our way to the park. The balloons did a launch at 7:00 so as we were in the car headed to the park the sky was filled with hot air balloons-so cool, but didn't look real, kinda looked liked something from a book! As we got closer to the park the traffic was horrible, so after sitting for about 30 mins. and crawling, we finally decided to pull over and park and walk-yes more walking. We ended up parking a mile away from the park. These boys were such troopers-we did so much walking!! At 8:00 they had a Balloon Glow, this was kinda cool, music was playing and there was a count down and then all the balloons would light up and glow for a couple of minutes and they repeated this all night long! Some of the boys favorite balloons were the colorful balloon, the pirate, and the cat balloon. After the festival, we were starving from all our walking so we pulled into Chile's to eat a very late dinner. Here's a cute story: The boys each ordered their own dinner off the kids menu. When it came to Dylon's turn he ordered his corn dog and the waitress asked if he wanted french fries with that and he looked at her with the sweetest face and asked if they had tator tots? She said sorry, but no, and I think both of our hearts melted and his face and the cute way he asked! We finally got home at midnight and we were so very tired from our crazy day adventures!! They headed back on Sunday afternoon. The boys were so sad to go(which made me feel good to know they had a good time),but I was ready to have a little peace and quiet and down time!
God is so good!! I didn't get a lot(hardly any)rest time this weekend and was dreading starting my week tired, but my kiddos at school were at their best today-what a great blessing!! We got lots of learning done and had lots of fun at the same time! One thing that God is teaching me right now is my life is not all about me, it's about being devoted to God and his purpose for my life! This has really changed my out look on life. Over the last 4 weeks I have been totally stressed out and not really enjoying my job that much because I have let the pressure and rigor of the academic side of teaching and my expectations I have for my students take joy from me. Today, I really tried to make it all about them and not me and the day went AWESOME in Ms. Bailey's classroom!