A good start to our summer

 We've gotten off to a busy summer start.  I'm thankful the boys didn't want to play baseball and T-Ball, it's given us every one of our weekends to do, well, to do whatever we want!  Plus Andy's doing another 1/2 IronMan next weekend in Indiana and he spends a lot of his time training.  To add a busy schedule of sports would be over the top for him.  

Andy got a new digital camera for Father's day...here he is practicing close-ups on the boys.  He captured a tear on Drake...I think it was because he didn't want his picture taken.

and now Drake's being silly

 Now Dane's turn

 He doesn't even know he's being watched; Andy was sitting across the room from his checking out the zoom capabilities.

I have wreaths for every season/holiday.  Here it is June and I still have my Easter wreath up...but I can't take it down, check out the nest and bird eggs in it.

 Here all 6 of them are hatched...

 Mom and Dad birds learned to ignore us and took care of their young chicks even with us sitting on the steps of the porch.

 Just about to burst out of the seams of this nest.  

So far this summer we've done quite a bit of horse back riding.  Here's Drake on Boogie, the horse I ride.

  Me (on Boogie), Emma (Ruby) and Dane (BullsEye).  That was officially the last ride he was led by a lead rope on.  Now he's riding solo!

 Even bare-back...

 And so is Drake, though his attention span is under 10 minutes.

 Our beloved horses got out of the pasture a few weeks ago.  They wandered to our neighbors.  We went and got them, but it was a stressful few hours.  Here's Andy walking them back in.

 Our neighbors cat had kittens and here's the one Dane wanted soooo bad.  Since Andy doesn't "do" cats, they said we could call it ours, name it, etc, but it would stay at their house.  Dane named it Mittens.

We went to a small carnival with our Aunt & Uncle & cousins at their church.  Here's Dane and Drake waiting for the parade and then walking to the carnival. 

 Here's a great example of how good the zoom on the camera works.  These two are at the top of a 2-story slide and Andy took this picture of Dane helping Drake.

 We spent a long time here and made several trips back to this slide.

This is a stomping game.  Stomp the board and get the bunny in the bucket and get a prize.  See how supportive Dane is while Drake is playing.  He's trying to help out...that or practice for his turn. :)

 Notice Dane is on his own, and putting a lot of effort into this as well.

 Drake is checking out his prize.

Another close-up taken from afar on a Ferris wheel

 There were lots of little rides for the kids.  Makes me nervous letting them ride rides that are put up and down several times a week.

This is probably the ride that looked the most fun..."I'm flying!"

We currently don't have any foster kids and this bedroom has turned into another play room for our kids and their friends when they come over.  Here it's a restaurant with the kitchen below and the dining area on top.  

It has been a little warm...just a "little warm"....:) around here, so we've done some inside stuff.  Here they are painting fish for our aquarium mural.

 finished product.  The fish were tiny clothes pins and we glued google eyes to them.  

And they made critters of some sort, using pom poms, pipe cleaners and googlie eyes.  We also painted ceramic bobble head cats and dogs (in the background).  Honestly these indoor things don't last long, I'd rather be outside swimming.

They got bored in the pool so we made up some water balloons.  It takes 40 minutes to fill and 5 minutes to throw at each other.

The next day we invited 5 neighbor friends over and had water fights.  Not a speck of the concrete is dry...it was a good day:)

Dane and Drake made a tepee in the woods below our house.  I wasn't home for this, but I got the grand tour and even got to meet their "pet", the grass hopper and sat in the rock chair. 

While sitting at the breakfast table Andy noticed a deer right below our house.  I wasn't able to step out onto the deck, but I got this picture on my phone.  Should have used Andy's new camera and we could have had a close-up...

  

A few weeks ago (before it was too hot and dry) we had a bon-fire and put WII up on our garage.  It was fun racing and playing tennis.  Great idea Andy!

 Seriously, the cars were almost life size!  That's the whole 2-car garage side filled up with game.

We've also been to California to visit my Uncles, Aunt and cousins.  That's another blog entry....because we have a new above ground pool and I'm the only one not it it...see ya later...Ima goin' swimmin'!