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"So Frequently we mistakenly believe that our children need more things, when in reality their silent pleadings are simply for more of our time."
***President Thomas S. Monson (Ensign May 1994)
The kids have been doing the summer reading program at the library. One
of their first prizes was a free bookworm to paint at Color Me Mine.
It's a pottery store where you can go and pick out one of their many
many pieces, paint it however you'd like and then they glaze and fire it
for you.
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| Getting to Work |
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| McKaylie |
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| Noah |
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| Here's what they looked like when they were done painting and when we left them. |
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| The finished products |
It was a lot of fun and we're all hoping to go back again really soon.
They have a really awesome - huge - piggy bank I want! :) I'm so happy the library gave these away!
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| Flynn and Opa |
We had a great time on the 4th. It was all family time, laid back and easy going. Love those kind of days! We spent most of our time at Myshel's house . . . swam for about 5 hours, ate yummy hamburgers and hotdogs . . . chilled with some popsicles and roasted a few mellows and made s'mores.
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| Noah |
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| McKaylie using her noodle |
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| Just hanging . . . |
Later that night we headed back over the bridge to Virginia Beach and went to the Dam Neck Navy Base to watch fireworks. It was nice and relaxing with a cool breeze coming off the water and really no crowds to speak of.
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| Sitting at the beach waiting for the fireworks to start |
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| Saw a whole lot of these little guys . . . |
Noah was especially excited to see that the sand crabs had come out and spent most of his night chasing them around. He actually got brave enough to catch one. They were fun to watch, but when it started getting dark, the bigger ones came out and ventured pretty close to us . . . I was a little worried they'd come pinch at my toes. :) Just a great day, appreciating the freedoms and rights we have here in the country and feeling very blessed!
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| McKaylie and Noah . . . Crab Hunters! |
Vance was determined to catch a fish in Wyoming. We made several trips without a lot of luck. The conditions were working against us because of a late runoff, but we had a good time trying. It was beautiful there and except for some wind (go figure--wind in Wyoming!!) the weather was great!
McKaylie, our little fishing-girl
Vance--trying to be patient
Myshel--our not so fishing girl
Vance--still trying
Noah--trying his luck
Chad--showing them how it's done
I love this picture of the 4 of them
Vance was very determined
He was even willing to get wet
All his hard work paid off in the end. On the last morning out he caught a nice fish! Yay!
Just over 15 inches
Here it is, with my very proud boy, getting ready to go in the pan . . . . .
Grandma Jo helped cook it for Vance. We all got a little taste, which was plenty of trout for me! I'm proud of Vance for hanging in there and not giving up! I'm also
very glad he caught at least one fish!
Wow, this week has just slipped right by. I've have an interesting new job-I guess you could say- coming up, that seems to be taking up a lot of my thoughts and time, but I'll post about that a little later. I thought I'd go back to our Wyoming vacation for a little bit.
We had to take the kids to the
Cody Nite Rodeo.
I always liked going to see the rodeo when I was younger and knew the kids would enjoy it, too. We all had a really good time. The rodeo clown made it lots of fun.
Here he is before the rodeo started.
McKaylie and Noah sat on bull before the rodeo.
They were very brave~~even though the bull barely moved a muscle~~ha ha
Here's a few other pictures that the kid's liked.
These are of the kids waiting for the rodeo to start.
Myshel
Vance
McKaylie
Noah
I thought that for fun I'd just post some miscellaneous pictures today.
The dogs are always using the pillows on the couch as their own personal pillows (or beds). It doesn't matter if the kids are using them, too. That just makes it a little more cozy!
Just call her our wolf-girl. She's into anything that has to do with wolves. The blanket she's wrapped up in has wolves on it, too. She got them both for Christmas.
This is another Christmas present. It's Noah's. He is loving his legos and was so excited to get the Pirates of the Caribbean--Queen Ann set. McKaylie helped him put it together. It is pretty cool and even comes with little skeleton pirates!
Chad and I went to the ship's Christmas party. (We totally went for the door prizes--came home with nada) We've decided we're much too old for that kind of scene--Truth is, we've never been much for that kind of scene! Chad's ship is the USS Ponce and it's nickname is the Proud Lion and it's colors are purple and gold. This was the ice sculpture they had that night. It was really cool and never melted, which I haven't figured out how yet.
It's really not unusual to see Vanilla laying on the floor like this. If she wants attention, she'll paw at the air, too. It's quite comical and apparently, it's a corgi thing.
Grandma Jo sent the kids their names in vinyl lettering for the rooms. McKaylie and Noah were nice enough to pose for pictures.
Noah
McKaylie
Another Christmas gift was nerf dart guns. Vance, McKaylie and Noah all got one, with extra darts. I really think that Santa should have thought this through a little better, because the kids are always trying to sneak up and shoot someone, resulting in a dart war.
Chad has been in on the wars, on many occasions and now has his own nerf gun, that shoots discs. So, I find little darts and discs ALL over my house . . . in my purse . . . on the bookshelves . . . in the dogs water bowl . . . everywhere!
