Dad's Birthday (61)

We celebrated Dad's 61st birthday at Mom & Dad's and it was especially fun since Dean, Chris and the girls were in town for the day. And with Emily and Michael in town again it was almost a full house. Look at how excited Celeste is to have me hold her. No really, she's totally beside herself. And if you look carefully in the mirror, you can see Rabekah made a sneak appearance into the picture of Chris and I. It was nice to have a reason to get together and celebrate, and someday soon I'm going to get Dad to use his Senior discount on something for me. Maybe at Starbucks...

Blueberry Picking

Where? Why yes, back in the mountains.

Fletcher called Kevin and told him about this amazing blueberry farm about 35 minutes from the mountain house one week and it was perfect timing as we had just run out of blueberries.

Ok, we had not. But it seemed like a good a reason as any to make a weekend getaway. The drive made us wonder where in the world this place could be, but we followed the signs and lo and behold there it was. We parked, picked up our buckets and watched the rain start to pour down. Fortunately they had a beautiful large, open shed for us to wait in and we passed time playing some Uno. It soon became clear that it wasn't going to stop raining anytime soon, but since there was no thunder or lightening on the horizen, we grabbed our umbrella's and went for it.

The kids had an absolute blast and were excellent pickers. Cole was on a mission to find the worlds largest blueberry. Adison was too -- except when she found what she thought might be the largest one, she would eat it. We picked and picked and picked until it stopped raining. I didn't realize how much we had until she weighed it out and we put it in baggies and we registered about 6 quarts. For $8.00. Total.

We snapped some pictures in action, including a self-portrait as I often am behind the camera and worry if for some horrible reason I am no longer here, my children will have no idea what their mother looked like. After I mentioned that little tidbit, Kevin gladly snapped a few of me and the kids.

This was such an amazing day. We finished it by stopping at a pizza joint in town and having a delicious and filling lunch.

What better thing to do the morning after blueberry picking than make pancakes, and that we did. I'm telling you, these mountain blueberries are the juiciest, most fragrant and flavorful thing I have ever tasted. We will not be buying blueberries at the store next year, I've already got blueberry season marked off on my calendar.

Cole-ism

(There was a spider on the stairs and I heard the kids attempting to move it by getting it to crawl on the fly swatter.)

I told Cole to kill the spider, because they can bite. This is what I heard moments later:

Adison (laughing): Cole! The spider is DEAD!

Cole: (angry) It's not funny!! Mama is telling me to kill nature!

Mr. Pool

Cole is absolutely loving the pool this summer, mostly because he really has gotten the hang of swimming and because he took the swim test to go off the diving board.

A few weeks ago we were at a friend's pool and they had a real high dive. After going off the low dive several times Cole asked to go off the high dive. We told him yes and went with him. I fully expected him to hesitate, look over the edge, change his mind...but he walked right off the edge, like he was walking the plank.

He watched a few of the kids diving and wanted to learn too. One (of the many) things I love about Cole is his willingness to do something right. You show the boy something, and he will carry it out precisely as shown.

This picture is of him, carrying out his little diving form off the board.

Family Game Time

This summer I have turned down the kids request to play multiple kiddie games because, honestly, they just aren't fun. So I began the hunt for a new game that both the kids could play and that Kevin and I would enjoy. UNO came to mind because the concept is easy enough for Adison to grasp.

I finally picked it up and taught the kids one day, and for be most part Adison gets it. (although she will often put down a totally random card and yell: A-HA! Or hold her cards facing out so we all can see them).

The kids love it and I love playing it with them. I am so enjoying our summer and the fact that their ages allow us to do new things like this together.

Here we are waiting for our pizza at Mellow Mushroom and playing a few rounds.

July 4th

It was back to the mountains again on the 4th, a tradition that is fast becoming hard to break. This time we brought our friends Skitch and Jenny with us. No, his mother didn't name him Skitch because she loved his brother more (although that is most likely true) Kevin and I call him this because: 1) his name is Kevin also, and that's just too confusing and 2) we think he looks like the drummer in the movie That Thing You Do, who is once referred to as "Skitch".

We met these great friends at church last year and I don't really know how or why we didn't get to know each other sooner. The four of us with our kids in tow packed up and headed up for the long weekend. The weather was perfect, as usual and we spent the days lazing around, taking hikes, doing crafts with the kids and eating.

On the big day, we drove downtown to park at the lot and watch the fireworks. Last year it seemed like days before the festivities started and once they did, it was another long time before it ended. Armed with experience we packed up, filled the kids full of cookies and waited. We heard fireworks, but didn't see them anywhere and assumed it was from some other little mountain town attempting to show their stuff. Finally, curious about the noise we walked over to the other side of the parking lot where we found that the building we had been standing next to had been blocking our view of the show - now almost over. We only saw about 2 minutes of it, but the kids were thrilled just the same.

Jenny and I went on our morning walk the next day only to come back and find that both Kevin and Skitch decided to shave handlebars that morning. I don't need to tell you how proud of themselves they were...you can tell by the wink in Kevin's eyes.