4th of July

Chris got up REALLY early and went with a friend to run a 10k in Manchester. Once he got home we made our way over to his parent's house for some lunch. After some good food and fellowship the kids were ready to play in the sprinkler! They were all a little hesitant at first, but most of them warmed up to it after a few minutes.

I think Ben definitely enjoyed it the most!!

This pose cracks me up... I'm not sure Samuel even got his little toe wet!!

Double trouble turns to...

TRIPLE trouble!!!

Gracie had fun cooling off in the sprinkler too!

Caught in the act: mean 'ole dad holding Alexander in the water!

Sydney kept a safe distance and MAY have gotten one foot wet.

too cute :)

Russy's turn... we had to stop him before he broke it!

Josh giving Ben a good hose down before calling it quits.

Mimi brought all the kids ice cream treats so they left the sprinkler to water the grass (and it did a pretty good job!)

Treat time-- I think it's safe to say they enjoyed them, as I am sure you could tell by the chocolate ALL over their faces!!





This is one of the best pictures I have EVER gotten of Ben, he usually avoids the camera!

Sydney VERY slowly ate all the chocolate from the outside and then decided she was through; a girl after my own heart!


A trip to Mimi and Paps' house is not complete without blowing a few bubbles... I love the concentration Alexander has as he was trying to demonstrate to Samuel how to blow the bubbles properly!


Colin mostly hung around inside where it was nice and cool, he is getting too big!!

Josh and his girlfriend Nikki playing a little soccer while the little kids ate their ice cream. Aren't they sweet...

Brian's mother was in town to visit and spend some quality time with her grandchildren. She has a picture similar to this holding Alexander so she wanted one with Colin too.

Ben and Alexander decided to join in the soccer fun!

Chris' uncle Wayne came up to visit too but I didn't get any pictures! He doesn't get to come very often, so I know everyone enjoyed chatting with him. We had a great time visiting and watching the kids play.

After leaving, we loaded up and headed to Matt and Allison's house down by the lake. Matt and his family have had a 4th of July fish fry for as long as I can remember! It was always so much fun to play with Matt, his brother, and all my cousins out on the farm. They have a beautiful waterfall on their property and everyone takes turns making trips back there. It is fun to see the next generation (I can't believe I just said that) enjoy it like we did. Since we got there pretty late (and since I knew Allison had taken 1,000,000 pictures), I only pulled out the camera for the fireworks!

This is my cousin Jasmine (she won 1st place at her local 4th of July beauty pageant-way to go!!), she was really waving that sparkler (and REALLY scaring her grangi {grandmother})!


Ethan playing with a sparkler.



I thought this picture of Jana and her sparkler turned out really neat!!




As always the guys put on a great fireworks show! I hope everyone took time to remember how lucky we are to live in America and have the freedom that we have!!

Happy Birthday Christa!

My sister-in-law Christa celebrated her birthday this week.

I hope you had a good one!!

RC Cola and a Moon Piii-iie

That just makes me want to sing! Chris and two of his buddies ran the 10 mile Moon Pie Festival race. It wasn't just a 10 mile race, it was 10 miles up and down some pretty big hills in the 90 degree heat!! Boy was it HOT!! I didn't get there is time to see David finish, but here is Brent about 10 yards from the finish line (and crazy for wearing black!)

And there's Chris just about ten minutes later!

Great job guys! Maybe next year I will join them! (don't hold your breath though)

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion on my dad's side for the first time in eight or nine years this month! It was great to see the usuals and ones we usually only see at reunions. My grandmother and grandfather:

My grandfather and his siblings (and spouses minus one):

We enjoyed some good food, potluck style. Lovely face, Jade!

My cousin's daughter Blair, she and Jade had a great time together and didn't want to split when it was time to go!

We also celebrated "Aunt Polly's" 89th birthday, I think she is the oldest family member! Her real name in Sara, not really sure where Polly came from...


Here is Allison holding our miracle cousin (10th cousin, 15 times removed-not really, I have no clue how to figure that stuff out) Jack. He is about 18 months old and about a cute as they come!!

Every country boy needs their John Deer!

Lose the hat and the pacifier and we're in business!

It was just a little difficult getting off... but he made it!!

Someone stole my camera to take one of her many infamous portraits.

Then we sat down to take some of ourselves... wait, where are you going?!

Ah there we are, sisterly love!

We all had a great time at the reunion and are excited for the next! We hope it wont be eight or nine years from now though!!

Happy 30th Birthday Chris!!

If you read my last postsss you know Chris turned 30 while we were on vacation in Montana. Alexander called to sing "Happy Birthday" to him and was VERY concerned that he have a cake and get to blow out the candles (and noise makers too!) Well when we got back, Chris talked to him on the phone and he was STILL talking about the cake and noise makers! So I decided we should get a little cake and take it over to his house, that way he could SEE Chris blow out the candles. The little cake/big cupcake:

Alexander got so excited when we opened the door he popped Brian in the mouth... oops!

We sang "Happy Birthday" and Alexander helped Uncle Chris blow out the candles!! (not once)

(not twice)


But three times of course! (And he would have kept going if we let him!)


Then we all (minus Colin, of course) had a good time eating some of the cake and turning our mouths blue...

Alexander and Uncle Chris, the birthday boy!!

After the cake we just enjoyed each others company while Alexander played... in his Thomas underwear. Look at that outfit!

Oops... Guess someone had to go! (click to enlarge)

Just kidding! It's a watering can, haha!!

I sure am glad Alexander can rest at ease now over Chris' birthday! Look out Christa, yours is next.

Vacation to Montana-part 1

One of Chris' best friends and his wife live in Montana and were kind enough to let us come spend a week with them. We were welcomed by them at the airport and they had a little surprise for us, they are expecting! After the three hour drive back to their place, plus a stop for dinner it was pretty late, so we all crashed. Sunday we got up and John and Whitney cooked us a great breakfast, then we headed out for a wildflower hike. There were lots of beautiful wildflowers and a great view of the mountains all around.