Happy Birthday Dad! WE LOVE YOU!!!

It was my Dad's 61st Birthday on July 8th. To celebrate his birthday, Mom, Nicole, and I took the kids to the zoo. I was amazed at how much Nicole loved it - she had to see EVERY animal!!! We had a great time. I wish we could show some video clips from my video camera - snapshots just don't do anything justice! The monkeys were hillarious and we enjoyed watching the tiger take a bath in the waterfall right in front of us! After the zoo, the kids, including Nicole ALL fell asleep about as soon as we got in the van for the drive home.

Then we enjoyed eating dinner with Andy and my Dad's handmade candlesticks. For anyone who hasn't seen these, there is a picture of us all at the table with them. They weigh a ton! My dad and his best friend got together and made these from a 100+ year old tractor. They removed the parts, painted them, and even put felt on the bottom! The coolest thing is that my dad made them for all the family for Christmas and since we were with Andy's family that year, he MAILED them to us in Idaho - just a few hours away. It cost him $25.00 to mail them to us because they were SO heavy. That's just how my Dad was - wanting to make the holidays special for everyone and not wanting to leave anyone out. Boy I miss him! After dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to a candlelit pie - we wanted to find a sugar-free one in memory of my Dad's sugar free pies, but this was all we could find at our market down the street. We then watched a DVD of pictures of my Dad's life that my friend helped me put together with music shortly after his death. What a treasure - I owe this friend, Emily and her husband a million thanks and so much more. Nicole and I bawled and we all were touched by the good life he lived and the memories we were blessed to enjoy with him. We miss you so much, Dad. We hope to live our lives so that you will be proud to call us your family and we are so grateful that families can be eternal!!! Happy Birthday and we'll see you soon (with an eternal perspective)!

4th of July Parade and Celebration at Kim's Home

Other than the crazy morning searching for the van keys, (which we still have no idea how they ended up in the knife drawer), we had a wonderful 4th of July. The kids were happy that we could see a few of the big hot air balloons going over our house since we woke up before 6 AM to go see them!!! I guess one of the hot air balloons landed in a culdesac right by our house a year or two ago?!? That would have been fun to see. The funny thing is I had everything all laid out Thursday night to go see the hot air balloons Friday morning. We had my family (Mom and Nicole) and some good friends (Jonathan and RuthAnn Gibbs) staying with us and we decided to switch and do everything on Saturday so we could stay up late Thursday night :). I should have been as prepared Friday night!

Anyway, we really enjoyed all of our company - Stacy and her family were here for a night as well and it was great to see them and their sweet baby Taylee. Stacy and Ryan took Nicole to Stadium of Fire, so that is why they aren't in the pics much. We enjoyed going to the parade (in the Subaru) with Mom, Kim, and Nicole later Saturday morning thanks to the Gibbs having some room for us to squeeze in! Kassi got a little scared when the sirens went off, but the kids loved the bands and everything else about the parade! What is a childhood without frying through a few parades now and then! Actually, we got rained on at the beginning which was kind of fun! The highlight of the day was going over to Kim's house for dinner. We got a few family pictures on the front steps before the rest of the family arrived and then we enjoyed a delicious dinner and enjoyed getting to know Kim's wonderful family better. We even got to play a little Holey Board, which is a favorite of Andy's Dad's. It was a wonderful evening and we enjoyed being at Kim's home and associating with him and his family. We are excited to welcome Kim and his family into our own and to become a part of his throughout the upcoming years! I've rarely seen my kids warm up to someone so fast - especially Jesi! As soon as Kim walks in the door, she is playing tag or something with him! After meeting Kim for the first time, Drew said something like, "He is awesome!" I think we all feel that way about Kim now! Hope you all had a great Independence Day!!!

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Drew and Jesi had their first lemonade stand! They had so much fun eating their lunch and waiting for customers. They had 3 customers total - all kids from next door. We still need to plan a way to spend all of that 30 cents they earned :)!

Drew and Jesi were so excited when I suggested that we wash the van. I think it looked better before we cleaned it (with all the water spots) but, it was SO worth it. I think cleaning the van makes the top 10 list for the summer for these two kiddos!
The kids have been having lots of fun playing in the back yard this summer. Kassi really does have a swimsuit that fits her. Jesi picked this one out and I didn't want to cause tears by suggesting another! But, I had no idea it would be quite so small! This picture makes it look like Kassi really didn't care for it, but she had fun too!
Kassi has a very interesting blueberry pancake eating technique! She picks out all the blueberries and cries for a new pancake. She does the same thing when I feed her oatmeal with blueberries - she has to have a blueberry with each bite or she refusses to eat another! She is our official fruit-aholic!
Drew's baseball is over for the year. Here is a cute picture of him with his medal and one of his faithful fans!