Dear Dad,

No one else has a Dad like you!  You were crazy fun to grow up with!  (Riding bikes in the ditches, catching animals, riding in your lawnmower wagon trains, putting tape on cat feet, Pinderella and the three Sad Blisters....and this list comes without even thinking hard)

Thanks for feeding my passions...literally :)  (i.e. my dog, my cats, my turtle, my rabbits, my bird, my 3 tanksful of fish...)

And for the insanely shocking gifts you thought up and worked so hard to obtain...we were always stunned silly....so creative.

Thanks for uncomplainingly finishing all my crazy projects... (i.e. hanging a hammock in my room, building my tree house, ripping my carpets up, rebuilding antique violin cases, turning the small hole I tried to dig into a fish  pond..etc, etc....)

Thanks for giving me passions and talents I never would have developed on my own. (i.e. violin, trombone, GOOD music in general, using power tools)   i couldn't find a pic with you and i in the same band for some reason

Thanks for showing me what a good man is. That was helpful.

Thanks for always keeping me in a church family, so that I could learn to love God, and how He loves me.

Thanks for being such a good GrandDad :) and showing my kids some of the same stuff you showed me.

 I love you, Dad.  You're better than a moose.

Do Things Like This Happen To Other People???

I packed up the twins we're watching and my 3 and drove 4 hours to where sweet Stephen is working this week.  We had a very pleasant ride up.

Guess what happened when we got there??

Wellll, I'll tell you.  This happened to be the only trip in the history of our marriage where I haven't packed food. We tried to go out for dinner, cause we were oh-so-hungry, only our card were denied.  And no we didn't bring cash, cause we never dreamed that our Credit Union's server would be down and that we would be incapable of buying ANYTHING!

My quick thinking hubby, however, remembered that we have credit on our Sam's club, drove to Sam's and bought food.

THEN, Lucy started hurting...badly.  She started looking a little allergic.  We put her to bed.  20 Minutes later, the sweet child threw up all over herself and 2 hotel rooms.  So now we're trying to majorly restrict her diet.  And I didn't want to be out of town with her this way, so we turned right around and came back home. 

So, yes.  I did indeed drive 4 hours  yesterday and 4 hours today and WAS IT FUN!  (read with hint of sarcasm)

Music Camp Week

Clyde and I hung out all week.  We ate at restaurants and bought lots of mystery lego men.  We had a great time hanging out at Learning Express, playing wii and jumping on the trampoline.

Then on Friday, I brought Clyde to the end-of-music-camp-carnival, so I could keep and eye on my sickly one.  

Here she is looking REAL sickly ;) while racing Meg in the obstacle course.

 and more fun.

Then for the REAL fun...Sherry kept the kids all night, so...

Spray and Play

The kids have been BEGGING to go here again.  And though the last few days have been scorching, once we got around to playing in the water, the clouds rolled in and the wind started blowing.  

Most of these pictures are of Iris......

because the other two got chilly and did alot of THIS.....

A Family Heritage Field Trip

My Mom goes annually to her mother's and her grandmother's cemeteries to put out flowers with her sisters.  But due to high work load at the Red Cross lately, she missed her regularly scheduled trip.  So THIS time, Sherry, the kids and I got to go with her.

Here's Lucy doing a crayon rubbing of Grandma's (HER great-grandma) name and birthday.  She was fine for a while and tried making the picture of Grandma's name pretty with flowers, but then she got very sad.  She's old enough that she still remembers when she was alive.

Here's a picture of my Grandma with Iris back in the day.

Then we went to the other cemetery where my "Granny" (or great-grandma) was buried.  Clyde did a crayon rubbing of her name with my great grandfather's name also. 

Here's a picture of my Granny (who I remember) and my great grandfather....Ida and Henry.

Here we are where their house (in the above picture) used to be.

Here we are in front of the old store that these little girls (my mom and my aunt Sissy) along with their 5 siblings used to walk to to get penny candy.

So that was our family history lesson.  The kids were not nearly as impressed as they should have been ;)

Play Date with the Coffee Mates

Today we had some friends over to play...and it was OH-SO-overdue!!

The best part, of course, was the little bit of adult conversation we managed to squeeze in, but....the kids managed to have a good time too!

Agent M and Agent C building a fire with magnifying glasses, apparently Agent C finds the smoke a little stinky.   After they got tired of smoldering the leaves and wood, they moved on to melting chocolate chips!

Here's E with Lavender!  Oh my, does this girl love her anything with fur!!!

 No ferrets were harmed in the making of this post.  Affection is actually much more gentle than it appears on screen. :)

Love you, Agent A!!!

Water Day....cause it's SO HOT!

We hung out with my Mom today, as we do on most Thursdays.....and here's my photo dump.....

Iris skipping ....

Lu got out and sat with Mom....she gets cold in the water pretty easily, poor girl!

Clyde enjoying the cascades...

Lucy standing in the "waterfall"

Iris pondering her long rule over her kingdom from her pinnacle rock....

Sherry and Mom laughing...

Lu chillin in the water again...

Who knew ending up in 5 inches of water could cause this much anticipation??!!

Silliness...

My boy's sweet face.

Lu's smirk ;)

Clyde practicing his opossum hanging techniques

Um...this is a cute pic, but is that a gang sign or what??

Mom took us to Sweet Cece's AFTER we ate at Ghenghis Grill (the kids' fave!)  can you say YUM!

It was a lovely day!!