More Pictures

Emily had fun playing in the mud.


Hunter taking a nap at the park.


The kids on the merry go round.


Ben thinks he's a hot shot climbing.


My pretty little Emily dressed in pink.

Summer Fun!

We have been having a pretty good summer so far. We've been going to the library a couple times a week. We've had ice cream a few times already. :) My sister in law, Shannon and her 3 kids are up visiting us right now. She has twin 7 year old girls, Annie and Kaydi, and a 1 year old boy, Hunter. They've been here about a week so far and are staying until after the 4th of July. We went shopping the other day. We've also gone to the park and library while they've been here. We bought a slip and slide for them to cool off with. The other night we had a campfire and roasted hotdogs and made s'mores. We hope to take the kids swimming sometime, but today it's kind of chilly outside. Uncle Tim might take a few kids fishing later today. Here are some pictures I've taken the past week.




Here are Hunter, Tara, Clara, Allison, Brittany,
Brandon, Annie, Emily, Kaydi, and Ben.



I have to admit, I'm not sure if this is
Annie or Kaydi. But, it's a cute picture.



Hunter


Emily and Hunter


Annie and Kaydi...or Kaydi and Annie. :)

More Flowers

DAISIES!

Yesterday I took pictures of the daisies in our backyard. Today when I looked out, there were tons of these yellow flowers too, so I got out the camera again.

MUD!

I finally planted my garden this morning! I planted it all with corn. I'm hoping that Tim will till me another garden to plant the rest of the stuff in. When I was done with the garden, I decided to clean out the kids' sandbox. It is full of weeds and not much fun to play in like that. At first I was just digging and pulling out the weeds. Then Allison wanted to play in mud, so I decided to flood the sandbox and let the kids play in it while I pulled weeds out of the soft mud. It was still actually pretty hard to pull the weeds out, but it was a lot of fun playing in the mud. I think we should do that more often. :) Allison, Ben, and Emily all got good and muddy, but a quick spray of the garden hose and they were nearly clean. We all took showers and baths when we came in the house.

When we lived down by Detroit, there was a Wayne County Mud Day every year. I took Allison and Clara to it once when they were about 4 and 3 years old. It was at a park and they had brought in truckloads of dirt. Then firetrucks came and sprayed it all down with their hoses. It was the biggest mud puddle you've ever seen! I thought it was so cool, but at the time Allison and Clara didn't agree and they barely got their toes muddy. Now I think they would be diving in like most of the other kids were. Anyway, it was good "clean" fun. :)

Goose Egg, Fillings, and "The Bucket List"

Emily was playing on Allison's bed today and fell off and bumped her head. She had/has a huge goose egg on her head. It bruised instantly and had a little bit of blood on it, so I took her to the Emergency Room to be on the safe side. The Doctor said she is ok, although her head will be sore for a few days...poor little girl.

Tonight She and Ben had to go to the Dentist for fillings. Ben went first. He did a great job and it didn't seem to bother him at all. The Dentist ended up filling 2 teeth for him. I was so proud of him for being so good. Emily went next and did just as well. Her cavity was deeper than the Dentist had thought. Emily and Ben were both most excited to get their prizes after they got their fillings. I'm glad it went so well for them. Ben has 2 more teeth that need fillings and Emily has 1. They'll be going back in July to get them done.

Tonight I watched "The Bucket List". It was an OK movie. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be though. I think the idea of a bucket list is pretty neat. While watching the "Special Features" I saw that the guy who wrote the movie has published a book called "Bucket Lists". I think I would like to read that. It is full of "Bucket" lists that many different people have written.

I didn't get the garden planted today. :( I HAVE to do it tomorrow! Well it's going on 11:30pm now, so I'm off to bed.

"Kung Fu Panda"

Last night I took Ben and Emily and my sister, Tricia to see the movie "Kung Fu Panda". It was a really cute movie! I like Jack Black a lot and he was the voice of the panda. Ben and Emily were really good sitting through the movie. They only had to use the restroom once and were quiet through the movie. It's only the 2nd time they've been to the theater. The first movie we took them to was "Rocky 6" and they were a little younger than 3 years old then.

It was fun hanging out with Trish last night. After the movie we went back to her house for a few minutes. She found out last night that she and her husband, Bum get to move into the bigger half of the duplex they're in. It's really nice. It's more spacious and has a nice little porch off of it that they can sit on. Bum was already moving furniture last night. :) I guess he was excited. I'm happy for them.

Today I am going to plant my vegetable garden FINALLY! :) I hope it will still have time to grow. Allison invited some of her friends over to spend the night and go to Youth Group with her at Church tonight. We haven't heard yet if they are coming though. Clara is still at Camp. I hope she's having a fun time. We sent her a package yesterday. She'll probably get it today or tomorrow.

Ben and Emily both have to get fillings tonight at the Dentist's Office. I hope it goes well for them. Emily is supposed to get a second one tomorrow morning. I'm nervous about them getting fillings. I don't want them to be afraid of the Dentist. I hope it won't hurt them.

Allison wants to make chocolate chip cookies today, so hopefully we'll do that too. It looks like it's going to be sunny and a nice day again today.

LAST Day of School!! Woo Hoo!

Today is Allison and Clara's last day of school for the year! It has surely flown by super quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was worried and nervous about Allison starting Middle School. Now she's done and she did great! She had a fun year and liked Middle School. She's got some new friends too. Today after school she is going to a birthday party for one of her best friends. She's still so shy and quiet around people she doesn't know well, but I'm glad that she has let a few nice girls get to know her better.

Clara has been playing softball again. She had her first game on Monday and her team won with a score of 22 to 8! Her second game was on Wednesday. They lost but only by 2 points. :) I think she's pretty good. She is going to summer camp on Monday for a week. Allison could have went too, but didn't want to.

I am really hoping that Tim will till up a garden for me to plant this weekend! I wish I already had it planted. It's been warm and rainy the past few days and would have been great for the garden. If I don't get it planted this weekend, then I think it will just be too late.

Well, I guess summer is here now! I hope we will have a great one and make lots of good memories!

The last post of Beaver Island Photos. Please see below for the other 5 posts.

Me


Bobbi and Tricia


I don't remember what I did or said to make Jen
crack up, but it must have been funny. :)


Bobbi and Me in the back row.
Jen, Tricia, and Mom in the front row.

The 5th installment of "Beaver Island Photos"/Beaver Island Sunset

Beaver Island Photos IV

This is the view of Lake Michigan from our cabin


This is the beach in front of the cabin


Here is the dune that we climbed.


This is the view from the top of the dune.

This dune was up and beyond the one the rest of us climbed. Tricia is amazing! She just breezed up there like it was nothing, while the rest of us were panting below her. :)

Beaver Island Photos Part 3

Here are Tricia and Bobbi on "The Rock" of Beaver Island.


We got a kick out of this real tombstone in a local cemetery. That poor guy, no one would believe him I guess.


My art work on the beach


Enjoying some time around the campfire.


Here we are looking for rocks.

...more of my Beaver Island photos

Here are Bobbi and Jen at the restaurant


Here are Tricia and I at the restaurant


This is a sign in our cabin


This is a huge and beautiful birch tree that we tried to climb. Tricia did manage to get onto the big branch on the left side of the picture. Bobbi helped her get up there.


This is as far as I could climb. :)

Beaver Island

This past weekend, my Mom, my 3 sisters, and I went on a little getaway to Beaver Island, Michigan. We had a great time! We took the 2 hour ferry ride over to the island Friday morning. We were able to stay until Monday morning. We talked, played cards, did MadLibs, hunted for pretty rocks and shells on the beach, caught a couple of sucker fish, and climbed (or tried to climb) rocks, trees, and dunes. We ate out a couple of times. We visited a couple little gift shops. We played in Lake Michigan. We watched the sunset. We drank coffee and ate lots of yummy food. We laughed a lot all weekend! It was a really nice time. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Here are Bobbi and Mom on the Ferry

Here are Mom and Tricia on the Ferry

Here are me and Jen on the Ferry

Here are the buckets we decorated to use to collect rocks and shells. Tricia didn't have time to make one. The one on the far left is mine, followed by Mom's, Bobbi's, and Jen's. We made it into a little contest. I won! :)

Here's a picture of me with my new sunglasses