TLEB in Texas: July 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

It's HOT outside!

So for the past 10 days we have had some members of Tom's family in town...and I didn't bring my camera except for maybe one night!!! Bad me!!

Before Tom's family got here we headed to a Jump Place to burn off some energy in the air conditioning.

I love Elizabeth's expression - pure excitement!!

Love the red socks?! :)
Ben was getting air down this slide - he was making his mommy nervous!

Amelia, Zach, Josh, and Drew met us there.

Our friend Baylee met us there, too. It was a great, cool afternoon.

Another day we invited all of Elizabeth's Daisy Scout friends over to play, with their siblings.

The girls had been to our house twice - once for camping and once for a meeting, so the girls didn't get to play. I think they had a blast playing with everything!

We're running out of things to do in this 100 degree heat!! Fall can't get here soon enough!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

This isn't the biggest news, but it's pretty cool. When we were on vacation Elizabeth's fish had babies! By the time we discovered them there were 11 left. I don't know how many got eaten by their mother :( but we have a lot left! I was cleaning their tank so we put them all in the bowl so you can see them easily. They are so good at hiding in the tank, we thought we only had 10! We're going to need to give some of these guys away or we are going to have this problem again and again!!

The biggest news is my baby girl got earrings!

She has been wanting them so badly for a really long time. She has debated back and forth for a long time whether she was brave enough to do it.

Yesterday when we were shopping with our family Elizabeth decided to do it! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera :( so I didn't get any pictures of the actual event. She didn't even cry! I was very proud of our brave girl.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

End of our Trip

We had a great end of our trip in Wisconsin. We had a campfire,

and did lots of fireworks. Here they are playing with the snappers, they love them!

About to snap!

We also did silly string - our kids favorites. Our friends Katie and Kellen came to visit with our friend Nikki. They hated the silly string! I guess we should have explained that sticky string was going to be shooting out at them...we didn't really think to prepare them!!

Get 'em Ben!

We like to see who gets the messiest!

Then they chased each other around throwing more of the silly string at each other.

Later, the kids enjoyed the cabin crunch Grandma always makes.

Fireworks time!

The crowd watching Grandpa do his work.

Sparkler time! (By the way - did anyone else get new sparklers this year, some wooden ones? I think they were supposed to be safer (not as hot) as the metal ones, but these just dropped the hot ash everywhere! We didn't like them!)

2 at a time!

The 2 girls, Katie and Elizabeth.

Sparklers are my favorite thing to do over 4th of July! I love them!!

We also enjoyed cupcakes,

boat rides,

(Coop looks a little worried about something! :)

and paddle boat rides!

The girls also enjoyed lunch on the porch, away from all those boys! :)

And that was our trip! We drove home the 16 hours with Janet and her boys who were still in the Twin Cities. It was a long car ride, but we made it home safe and sound. No more long car rides for us for a while!!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Part of our Birchwood, WI trip

The trip at my parent's cabin was filled with lots of fishing.

The kids were so lucky because they would put the fishing line with bait in the water and in about 30 sec they would catch a fish! They caught over 100 our trip. Since my dad was the only one who would take the bait and fish off the line he was very busy!

I thought this was so interesting I had to take a picture. I realize it doesn't show up very well but there are 3 circles in the dirt where the dirt has been pushed away and there are rocks showing. The 3 circles are where a fish layed eggs, and there is a fish swimming above each circle, protecting their eggs. It was so neat to watch, and I never saw the eggs unprotected.

This is the view of my parent's cabin from the lake. It is full of wildlife and trees, it's so beautiful. The entire lake is like that, you can't really see any of the cabins from the water.

Ben with one of the many fish he caught.

My parents got this fun raft for the lake. I liked it because I am not much of a lake swimmer, the thought of fish coming to touch me kind of creeps me out! :) This raft has mesh in the middle so water can come in, but nothing else. It made me much happier to be out in the water! Plus the water was pretty cold so it was nice to have something to sit on to be out of the water. Ben, for some reason, was so nervous to come out in the water! There he is watching all of us out in the water.