RAIN!!!

Rain!!! I never really realized how much I appreciated it until it was absent for MONTHS. (no joke.) We haven't had a really good rain scince around January. I mean sure its sprinkled a couple of times, but it never gets harder than that, and its only for a couple of minutes. Today however, it rained pretty good for a half-hour and now, an hour later, its still lightly raining.

The weather reporters have been predicting rain FOREVR, but the dark clouds always go away by about 10 or 11a.m., so this time nobody really got hopefull. But when the clouds just got thicker and darker instead of disappearing, we started getting exited. Then, at about 4:30 while we were running errands, we could see sheets of rain in the distance and wondered if it would hit our house at all. Sadly, when we got home, it didn't look as if it would keep raining. Then the heavens surprised us and i sarted lightning, thundering, and raining!!! I happily danced in the rain for 5 minutes and came inside, DRENCHED. Hopefully, it will keep raining for long enough to pull us out of our drought!!!

POSTED BY KATRINA COLEMAN :)

Watermelon Overload...

I love summer and I love watermelon. This year was unlucky for us in the watermelon cultivation department. I tried three times and failed three times to get it to grow. After the bunnies taking the entire vine the last time I decided "three strikes - I'm out". So this summer I have relied on the grocery store for our favorite summertime treat.

Last week I was very blessed. A good friend gave us an extra watermelon she had purchased for a church event. Then the girls carved watermelon at YW. Wish I had a working camera and had snapped a photo - a visitor said - hey, is that like a watermelon jack-o-lantern? Abagail carved a swan and Katina did a fancy name plate. However, three watermelon in one week is a bit of an overload - even for a family of our size.

What to do? Get creative.

Today I tried a recipe I found for Summer Fruit Gazpacho. Pureed watermelon topped with various berries and a yogurt/honey mix. The reviews were not real good. So I poured it all into the blender with more frozen berries, added more yogurt and PRESTO - watermelon smoothie. Same ingredients - different texture - REALLY good. I poured extra into a freezer bag for another day.

The good thing is next time I get my watermelon patch growing I'll have yet one more outlet for all that delicious, juicy, red goodness.

Survival Week

As if my life isn't crazy enough...

The 3rd week of June we had three different activities taking place at the same time each day.

Gabriel attended driver's ed from 8-10 a.m.
Abagail attended tennis camp from 8-10 a.m.
Katrina, Simon and Oliver attended Art Camp from 8-12 p.m.
Now to make things more complicated Gabriel would return to town from 1-4 p.m. most days for driving time with the class.

That meant 4x's a day I was running round trip to town...while also trying to study for my class and entertain Amelia and Joshua. Sometimes more if we also had an evening activity thrown in the mix. Needless to say we were all quite exhausted by the end of the week - but the kids had a blast so I guess it was worth it???

The kids had a great time at the art camp. They had classes in Mexican arts and crafts, dance, theater, and creative writing. The last day was a mini-recital for parents. The kids performed the dances they had learned. I have a couple of photos and video clips of them.





Oliver's group prior to the "Dance of the Old Man". Oliver is third from the left.

Video clip of Oliver's dance. He is third in line.

Video clip of Katrina and Simon's dance. I thought it was interesting that they placed Simon in the oldest age group; Simon was the youngest and Katrina was the oldest in their particular group.

Bribery? You Betcha

So...earlier this spring my sister, Lysa came to visit us. As part of her visit we invested in tickets to Sea World. The idea was that if we got Sea World passes Lysa and Laine, her son, would want to come back a couple of times throughout the year to use the passes and "get their money's worth".

Fast forward to June. I get a call one day from Lysa. She asked if we were busy that weekend. After a bit of shuffling of plans we became available and Lysa and Laine came out for a really quick weekend visit and day at Sea World.

Did my bribery work? Yep. Will it work again....hope so! Remember Lysa, the park is open all the way until Christmas...hint...hint.

(Disclaimer: unfortunately during this trip my camera finally died. So some of the photos are terrible quality from my cell phone. Anyone have a suggestion for a new camera???)

At the end of a really hot day with Lysa and Laine. (The wheelchair was just an extra ride we picked up for the photo.)

We unknowingly picked an EXTREMELY busy day to visit. A really large grocery chain was sponsoring an employee day. I am so glad we got into the water park when we did...the line to enter the water park in the afternoon had an hour + wait.

Following are some photos from the water park...lots of wet fun:

As a side note: it is amazing how much editing/cropping I had to do of the water park photos. There were lots of bikini clad rear ends that were less than photogenic sharing the frames with my children. What I ended up with still has some people in the background but it is WAY better than what I started out with!

Having a blast at the Shamu Show! It was so packed that each show was closed when there was only standing room left. We snuck into the night-time rock and roll show. That one was very fun to watch. The photo with Simon and Oliver looking like they are bored to tears is from the evening show...they really did like it...

We went to a gift shop to get out of the heat. I came around a corner to see Amelia embracing a huge pile of whales. She loves whales and was loving each one. I finally had to get the kids out of there - they were touching everything and driving me crazy!

Before heading home we made one last stop at the Sesame Street Bay of Play. Laine took Simon and Oliver on the Shamu Express. He was BY FAR the biggest person riding. All three boys had big grins when the ride was over. Katrina and Abagail took Amelia on the carousel. Technically Amelia was too young to ride without a grown-up but she was buckled in so I hoped she would be safe. She sure loved it.

One last parting shot with mom.

Ugh...

Oh the absolute tedium of getting photos ready to post. Edit...edit...edit... No wonder I never get any new posts done.

Hopefully I'll get through a photo batch soon and be able get back on track. The kids love checking out what I post about their adventures...maybe I should just let them have a crack as "guest" posters.