Happier Birthday, Daddy!

To celebrate Steve's birthday, we let him sit at home and relax, take an afternoon nap, and fixed him a fabulous dinner....NOT... We did make him a really good dinner, but there was no resting involved! We made him canoe! It was great family fun, although really not relaxing :) We love you daddy and know you love to have fun with us!

Here's daddy's boat AFTER we had to carry it down a very steep hill to a portage where the river stopped in one area and started in another.




Here's mommy in the comfy kayak--much comfier than the canoe!



We pulled up to Island Park to have a little cookie snack...
...and a drink of water...



Hope you had a Happier Birthday, Daddy! We love you!

Note: One of Steve's cards was a hoops & yo-yo card. It was similar to this one and why the cake says "happier", in case you were wondering!

"The CLAAAAAAWWWWW..."

I can't tell you how much we love Toy Story in this house! We had to make these cupcakes when I saw them in the Family Fun magazine!

Eating Local

Here is Abby enjoying some of our *local* produce :) our cucs, green beans and broccoli has been amazing...I can't imagine if Steve had a few acres to work with!!!

Hair Cut

She did it! She agreed to getting her hair cut! Abby officially has shoulder-length hair now! We were both done with the knots!

Before:


During:


After:

End of School Year Wrap-Up

Last Day of School!!!!!

I think I am going to print this blog for my school records, or create a snapfish photo book...not sure which one to do yet...but I thought I better add these remaining pics from our school year if I do choose the blog print! Too bad I can't really remember what we were exactly studying/doing for each photo, but oh well, here it goes! :)

These photos were from our study of Russia...I absolutely cannot remember all the stuff we did for this country, but I'm sure it was enriching and wonderful :) Here was our version of nesting dolls...nesting boxes painted and decorated with stickers of authentic Russian outfits on them. They are still on the card table in the school room awaiting a coat of decoupage so the stickers won't fall off...ah, real life is refreshing to hear, isn't it?




Antarctica was our last continent in ECC. We had fun studying it, I think. Here was our iceberg experiment, showing how most of the iceberg floats under the water.




Zeke and Abby took an art class for homeschoolers in a nearby town this year. I think it was great for them to learn some of the basics, since I'm not very good at teaching art, music...all those extras...I loved all of their work. And yes, their portfolios and pieces are still sitting on that card table in the school room waiting to be showcased somehow!




And here are Zeke and Abby at their piano recital. I was so, so proud of then both! Zeke was amazing playing his piece at the recital! They both learned so much this year! Abby is not fond of being the center of attention, so she did not want to participate in the recital, but she still did all the required work to earn a trophy!

Summer Dare Devils

Here is what we did practically every day at the lake with Steve's fam. I wish every week could be so carefree and fun :) The kids really surprised me with their brave acts of tubing and jumping off the boat swimming! We are all very tan, tired and water-logged; and we are continuing this trend with swimming lessons this week! Here's Eli on the tube with grandma, Micah clinging to mommy in the deep water, Abby doing a cannonball off the raft while her favorite dog Herschel is protecting her, and Zeke having the tubing ride of his life (so far at least) with his Uncle Jeff! Look at the air they got!

Summer Fun

Wow! Well, I really didn't mean to stop blogging for that long, but I have not had a minute since getting back from Disney back in MAY!!!!! The last few months have been FULL of LOTS of stuff, apparently.....I'm going to just skip the last few months...who wants to read all of that catch up anyway, and I don't want to write it! Here's a very short overview: we wrapped up school the second week of June, had a week off, went camping for 2 weeks, and then to Steve's mom's house for a week with his family. Here's to having LOTS of summer fun!