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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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| These little guys are all over the beach in the evenings. |
We decided to go for a walk on the beach tonight. I'm so glad we did. It was the perfect night for it . . . a nice cool breeze, gorgeous sunset and crabs running around like crazy.
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| Ready for a fight |
These guys are pretty big, but most were tiny little things running around. At times it looked the the sand was moving because the little ones are spotted and look just like the sand. The kids love it.
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| Gorgeous sunset tonight |
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| Watching the waves roll in |
Chad and I couldn't help but feel a little sad that this might be our last summer here in Virginia. It's never been our favorite place to live, but there are things about it that we love and the beach is one of them . . . walks on the beach, watching/listening to the waves, the breeze off the water, enjoying the kids while they play and the amazing sunsets. If we do leave the East Coast, we will so miss the beach!
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| McKaylie and Noah catch crabs. |
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| They caught a lot of them, let them go and then caught a lot more. |
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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! |
Back to our summer vacation . . .
There's a small group that puts on a gunfight show every night throughout the summer, in front of the
Irma Hotel -- they even have Buffalo Bill!!
We felt like we needed to see the show again to get the whole "Cody" experience. It had been years and years since Chad and I had seen it.
They saluted the military before the show-even had Chad come stand up front [he was the only active duty service member there that night (no picture---darn!) while everyone applauded his service--it was nice and really doesn't happen very often]
This was a lot of fun, although, it was
very loud.
Noah loved watching the Cody Gunfighters.
He insisted that we get
all of their autographs on his poster and now his poster is hanging on his wall!
We felt like we needed to see the show again to get the whole "Cody" experience. It had been years and years since Chad and I had seen it.
They saluted the military before the show-even had Chad come stand up front [he was the only active duty service member there that night (no picture---darn!) while everyone applauded his service--it was nice and really doesn't happen very often] 
This was a lot of fun, although, it was very loud.
Noah loved watching the Cody Gunfighters. 
He insisted that we get all of their autographs on his poster and now his poster is hanging on his wall!
