Road Trip to Ohio

We packed a lot in this trip. We usually do, actually. Mom and Dad worked some while we were there, so that allowed us to have leisurely mornings of sleeping in later and pokey breakfasts. But our afternoons were busy. I took almost 400 pictures while we were in route to or in Ohio, so it is a little overwhelming to sort through them. Here are the highlights...

Neighborhood Park

Helping Grandpa get ready for a cookout

Butterfly Garden

This was a beautiful garden area that had a house of butterflies. The girls really enjoyed this since we had recently hatched out own butterflies.

Canoeing
Some of my great childhood memories are of going canoeing. I am happy that my girls have a chance to have those same type of memories.

Webster Street Market
This was kind of like our Farmer's Market, but better.

Riding the Motorcycle
I think this year Grandpa got up to about 25 mph with Brenna. Last year it was about 4mph.

While there we also celebrated Brenna's 6th birthday and Josh's 33rd birthday. Really, the whole trip was Brenna's celebration. We had a partial family reunion which included a pinata. I momentarily lost my camera that night, so I am hopeful that AUNT PAT will hook me up. hint hint.

We also went swimming and had a fantastic time. I do wish I had picture of it, but the water is not a prime location for our camera, so we will only have the memories...

It was a great trip and I miss my parents already!!!

make that THREE posts in one day...

I added these because two grandparents were concerned about how sad Brenna looked in her last picture.

She was putting on her "model" face. We were taking pictures of her flower and I thought it was the best one of her hair. Maybe these will show her hair and happiness a little better.


She does like her haircut and is thrilled Daddy let her choose.

2 posts in one day. On Thursday

God blessed us with very silly girls!!!

Here we are killing a little time before getting our hair trimmed.

I made these shirts for the girls on Wednesday, while my machine was out.

I told Piper to go stand by Brenna for a picture.

Then I told her to stand where we could see her.
Ugh.

So, if those were "before" shots, these are "during" and "after"!

Thursday was a good day.
What will Friday hold?

On Wednesday....

We got to go meet this little cutie! Welcome, Carley, we are glad to have you around!

Brenna had a dentist appointment. Cool sunglasses, lots of rewards, and a clean bill of health made it a successful visit. AND she didn't even pull those two wiggly teeth.

So, we converted Piper to the shoulderstrap version on her carseat. It was COMPLETELY self serving for me. We are driving to Ohio soon and if Pipes isn't locked down with harnesses, she can her own junk from the back of the van and allow me to continue reading my book. We are driving to Ohio soon and it will be so much easier on her little delicate bottom to have some wiggle room while we are traveling. Not to mention (except I'm about to) that the harness was getting too hot in this ridiculous heat we are having.
Anyway, I took off the harnesses and Piper was not so impressed.
Turns out the plastic brackets get hot too.

So, we took a little trip to our favorite Hobby Lobby (I fell off the wagon...I need a sponsor!) and choose from fabric to "personalize" Piper's carseat.

I think it was a success!
Wednesday was a good day.

It is just too hot to do anything worth documenting on our blog, so I will just
leave you with a few great shots of the girls.

A new do

This was taken at Cici's Pizza. I just love the lighting.

Ready for the Father/Daughter Princess tea party

The girls and I had a great time yesterday. We went to see The Tale of Despereaux at the movie theatre (for $1 each!!!). After playing on the rides for a bit, we headed to the car to discover a TORRENTIAL downpour! We couldn't even see the buildings across the street from the mall!! So, we had a little change of plans and ate lunch in the food court. Coming back from a potty break, we found the photo booth and decided to get our picture taken!

The whole day was relaxing and fun! Not bad for an ordinary Wednesday.

Rubber Baby Bumper

Whatever that means.

Fourth of July

We decided to go spend the weekend with Grammy and Granddaddy. Because we could.

Their church were having fellowship at the parents of some friends of ours who have spent the last 2 years in Vienna. It was so great to be able to spend some time with them and are excited to see them again in a few weeks. I only took pictures of the fireworks really. Here is the best of what I got. Josh was part of the crew shooting off the fireworks. Other than one minor fire, all went well.Bunch of adult men standing around looking at fire.
They loved it!!

I need to get back in the habit of taking pictures.

Happy Birthday, Chressen Nora

Yesterday was my sister's birthday.
She would have been 40 this year. Wow.
I spent a lot of yesterday thinking about her and what her life would be like. Since she was only 16 when she died, it is hard to even fathom what she would have decided to do with her life. She loved to read and was creative. She was stubborn and loyal. She was smart and ornery. She was faithful to her family, her Father and her friends. She could have gone a thousand different directions in life, and exceeded at all of them.

Instead she has spend the last 22 1/2 years praising God and enjoying streets of gold.

Good for her, sad for us.