Summer Birthday Partys

Julie went with the kids to see the Disney Train, along with Amelia. Once they got there, they found that the wait was about 3 hours. After 2 hours they finally got into the train thanks to some good luck.

After the long wait, maggie was tired and Billy had this expression glued to his face. We think he may have been turning into Pinnochio.

The next day our neighbor, Dillon, had his birthday party. They got a big blow up bouncer for the backyard and had all the neighborhood kids over for hot dogs, cake, ice cream, pinyata, games, prizes... you know, the typical HUGE birthday party. The kids had a blast!

Maggie inside the bounce house.

Can you guess hwo this pirate is?!

Drew wanted to get in on the bouncing. He progressed in his bravery as you will see.

The boys began wrestling inside the bounce house. The perfect playroom for a boy with padded walls and floors!

Dillon the Birthday boy bouncing.

Maggie as a piratre.

Dillon was having fun with all the kids. He was a gracious host!

Drew found the bounce house and wanted to go down the slide (bottom right)

So I put him down to see how he'd do.

He loved it!

Then he got braver and wanted to go bounce inside the house....

Then he got braver and wanted to do everything all by himself....

In the end, Drew got a girlfriend out of the whole experience. I think she was impressed by his bravery... Thats my BOY!!

Our Camping Trip/Family Reunion

Julie always gets after me for adding too many of the same type of pictures but in my opinion, I always like to see a lot of pictures so... here they are. We went camping for this last family reunion. We were looking forward to it as it is one of the only things we have planned for this summer. I'm sure more will come up, but this one was planned. All the kids enjoyed a baseball game with Tim Sr. and Tim Jr.
Drew rode this "hotwheel" bike for at least half of the time he spent in camp... He loved it!

The girls and Maverick watching a movie.

Drew was even trying to play some baseball.

This is the box that Paul helped Billy rig to try and catch a ground squirrel. They put chips underneath the box...

and Billy waited patiently at the end of the string, watching for a squirrel to get curious and investigate. They did finally catch a squirrel although I didn't get a picture of it. When they cut a hole in the top of the box to see the squirrel, it jumped up out of the hole and ran away.

Billy had a lot of boys at camp to hang out with and play with.

This is a picture of the camp looking from the field nearby.

Ahh.... The famouse horseshoes tournament... Julie and Jen were partners and as you can see, Julie had perfect form.

Along with Tim...

and Amelia...

Tim Jr.....

and Janelle.

Everyone sat along the sidelines to be cheerleaders until their turn came up.

Another picture of the sidelines.

Maggie had a few friends too.. although she and Lucy seemed to be inseparable.

Of course we had to get in a game of hearts or two.

Drew was just happy to be outside and run free the entire time.

In the evenings there was a campfire... Whats camping without the campfire?

I had to add this picture... When we got home, Drew was going stir crazy because he had gotten to roam free for so many days. Julie gave him a chocolate milk to quiet him from screaming. It worked really well until we realized he was being too quiet. We went to check on him and he had poured the chocolate milk all over the floor and was painting pictures in it. When we went to tell him how notty he was, all he did was laugh. It's hard to yell at a 1 1/2 year old when he's giggling over something he did wrong.

Overall it was another fun family reunion. We hope to have more fun this summer with one more camping trip planned in August. We'll see how Julie fares camping while pregnant.