The summer is flying by!

If I haven't mentioned, the first day of summer vacation was approximately 100 hours long. Well, I blinked and now we are 2 months into summer vacation. Interesting.
Here are a few more snapshots.

Anna can now ride her bike! Last summer she occasionally sat on the seat, but now she pedals it around the sidewalk. She is definitely of the age where she wants to be outside A LOT and loves to ride and play catch....sounds familiar! All my kids at age 4 would probably be outside all the time if I had let them (or wanted to be out all the time myself). This week has been really hot, so I try to convince Anna to wait until the evening when things cool down.

Carolyn chose tennis for her sport this year. I especially love it because it doesn't involve school year games and practices. She loved her tennis camp and coincidentally it was led by one of Matthew's 6th grade teachers! He did a great job making it fun.

Matthew has become a photographer this summer. Be warned, when boys are no longer Cub Scouts things ramp up in a big way (money, time, responsibility) for Boy Scouts. Anyway Matthew has been working on merit badges and the easiest way to prove you did part of a badge is to take pictures. So Matthew has been photographing animals, the planetarium and his money making job. He must be enjoying himself, because I found this pic. on my camera today :)

We went to the Science Museum last week because it has the only Iowa Planetarium and Matthew needed to go to a planetarium for his Astronomy merit badge that he started at camp. This is an example of the Boy Scout ramping up as I mentioned before. Don't get me wrong, I like the Science Museum. In the past we have been members to the museum. This summer, however, with the huge expense of siding I would not have chosen to spend $38 for the day at the Science Museum. Alas we went to fulfill the merit badge and had a great time. Joel probably spent an hour (and I don't even think I am exaggerating) working at making his rocket. They then have a launcher and runway for the rocket. All the kids love it.

True confessions. Carolyn, Joel and I went to opening day of Harry Potter, book 7 part 2. Matthew stayed with Anna and went to see the movie with Ken the next night. My kids have seen almost no movies on the big screen. I think this relates to their expense, but mostly because Matthew's 1st movie was Finding Nemo and it scared him and he never really wanted to go to the theater. He saw Moster's Inc. (which is really not as scary as it sounds - it is a kids animated movie!) and then never went to the theater again until Harry Potter 6. The other kids have seen Alvin and the Chipmunks and Ponyo. I think that's it! I haven't seen a movie in the theaters since Harry Potter 6! Which means I did skip the 7th movie! (I just don't want you to think I am an out of control movie viewer.)

I REALLY wanted to see the 8th movie. I had been reading the books (we are on 5) with Joel and the kids are always playing 20 questions with Harry Potter trivia. Actually, for going opening day, it wasn't that busy because we chose the 1:00 matinee. People who were truly dying to see the movie went at midnight. I wasn't quite that obsessed, although I was a bit jealous. It is funny that I took the kids to see this movie, because I wouldn't let Matthew watch any of the movies until he complete each book. Joel is WAY younger than I would have ever considered letting Matthew watch the movies. I guess I decided to let him because Carolyn has read all the books and REALLY wanted to see HP at the theaters and Joel isn't really scared of film the way Matthew was. You can all just say, "it's because he's the 3rd child" and it probably is true. I am now a (re)lax(ed) parent occasionally. I must say the movie was FANTASTIC. I am one of the crazy people the reviewers talk about when they say, "move on now people". I am sad that I have read all the books and seen all the movies because I really did love them. I am soooo NOT a wizard type person, but I felt like HP wasn't really about that as much as about relationships, friendships and courage. I most liked that Harry found a family with the Weaslies and that Neville became the leader of the revolution at Hogwarts. I liked that the Weaslies were poor and material things didn't matter. I like watching the friendship of Harry, Ron and Hermione. They didn't have to be wizards, it was fiction and that was just part of it. Harry always did the right thing to help others and I ate it up.

This and that, summer fun.

Joel finished his last game of baseball for the year. Funny thing, the other team didn't show up. There was a rain-delay so perhaps some miscommunication occurred. However this allowed the older siblings to play too. Matthew still has the scar from a sliding into base incident. Joel really loves baseball and continues to make practice swings with his pretend bat. (I think Carolyn has a book under her shirt...how very Carolyn of her. She is denying it though....but almost always takes a book with her where ever she goes.)


We went to Yankee Doodle Pops again this year to celebrate The 4th of July a bit early with classical music and the best fireworks I have ever seen. The people on the left are college friends who live in west Des Moines. Unfortunately the last time I saw them was one year ago at....you guessed it.... Yankee Doodle Pops. We are getting together for a back to school BBQ this year and hope to see them at a Hawkeye game. (Last year the girls stayed home...in my case because Ken's mom just had knee surgery and I didn't really want the kids with a sitter while we were that far away.)


Board games are NOT boring around here. This game was the best $.99 I have spent all year.

We enjoyed going to Family Night at Mitigwa.

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

We made a trip to Burlington to visit my folks in June. We all love to visit with them! The kids finally joined in the quarter collection fun. When the state quarters started I had one child and began to collect a set of quarters for him. As each child joined the eldest, they too had a quarter collection started. Initially I was very diligent, but lost steam along the way. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa came to the rescue. Each year, my mom would remind me to bring the kid's quarters for a visit and we would add all the quarters we could. Until this visit, this activity was just for Grandma and me. This visit, the 3 big kids got in the mix because the LOVE their quarter collection.

We also made a trip to the park and to the Dairy Queen (DQ has become tradition).

Additionally, Matthew ran around taking pictures of Grandma and Grandpa's wildlife (bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels and birds) as part of his Second Class Scout Rank project. Here is Stumpy....we used to think he met a terrible tail-cutting fate, but now think his lack of a tail might be genetic as "Stumpy" has been around for about 30 years.


P.S. to my Dad...I am printing the photos for you, so you don't need to print them....well I might not print Stumpy.