Birthday Weekend

Sorry it's taken so long to do another post. Hard to get in the mood sometimes.

My favoritist bro' and I celebrated our birthday last Saturday. And no, I wasn't in Alabama to take this picture (unfortunately), so thank you to Erika for taking pics and sending them!! Hope it was a great one, Donald! Oh, and happy birthday to our little cousin Janina over in PA! She was born on our 6th birthday. Oh yes, can't forget niece Molly Jo in AZ who also shares our birthday! Happy, happy one to her, too!! Wow - May 17th is a very special day, isn't it?

We had a great time camping at Millersylvania State Park. Wow was it HOT here last weekend! It has since cooled off. We don't make a habit of cooking our children on campfires - ha - couldn't resist taking this picture. (No children were harmed in the making of this photo, I promise.) Jaeden and Brooklyn as well as neighboring children had fun using this stump as part of their playground. King of the stump!
Jordan and Jenny - waiting for s'mores???
Saturday morning hike - had to work off those breakfast burritos.

Can you see the beaver dam?

Nothing like a hike in the beautiful woods. So much to see...
Wow, I thought trees like this were only in the Redwood Forest.


My in-laws, Fern and David, surprised us. They showed up at dinnertime bearing birthday cake. Or rather, birthday torte! It was absolutely deelish! Graham cracker crust, rhubarb, whipped cream and marshmallows, and vanilla pudding. It was the perfect combination of sweet and tart. What a great birthday surprise! Especially since we neglected to bring a birthday cake. Thank you.
Jordan spent a good amount of time driving his newly acquired remote control rock crawler. Lots of tree stumps and whatnot to drive over.
Team effort by Jordan and Jenny to disassemble the little tent.

Happy campers

The lake. We rented a couple of paddle boats. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that little adventure.

We're already looking forward to our next camping trip!

Newest Member

Meet the newest member of our family...

Miss Maddie

She's an 11 month old Beagle. She is a rescue dog. A friend of ours, Diane, got her a month ago after she had been found dumped in an alley inside a pet carrier. Maddie had been abused and had broken ribs. Diane worked with Maddie and doctored her till she could find a new home for her. Diane thought we were the perfect family for her. We weren't sure we were ready for a new family member, but when we saw Maddie, we couldn't say no! She's the sweetest little dog a person could hope for. VERY well behaved and even potty trained. She minds better than our other three kids! Maddie soaks up all the lovin' that we can give her. We're happy to have her!!

This-n-That

All you lurkers out there (you know who you are) make me want to post a little more frequently when I notice on the visitor map that you've actually been here. However, our lives are rather mundane right now. We won't mention that last week wasn't so with Keith wrecking his truck (for another post). And because of us leading rather ordinary lives, we'd prefer not to bore you with pictures of lawn mowing, dish washing, house cleaning, going to school/work, etc. The following pictures might make you wish we had though. ; )

Yesterday, it was a balmy 70+ degrees and today it's a chilly 50. Heard on the news this morning that we're to expect light rain, drizzle, and sprinkles today. Ummmm....yeah. Isn't that all pretty much the same? Nope, not according to the forecasters. Drizzle=mist and sprinkles=raindrops.

A more appropriate title to this post would probably be Summer Revisited. Some of these pics are not new to a few of you. Anyway, with having cold weather but knowing summer break is just around the corner, we've enjoyed warming up with some of the pictures from last summer.

Without further ado, here is what we're looking forward to:

4th of July & fireworks

visiting lighthouses and beaches summer fruits snow cones at the zoo
gardening
long hikes
county fairs
building sand castles
camping and picnics
flea markets
Keith is working again this Saturday. Mother's Day weekend is a busy time for the nursery and his boss welcomes Keith's extra help. I'm just glad he has Sunday off, unlike years past. So we're hoping to take off the following weekend and get in some camping. Yay for the coming of some warmer days!

Planting a Garden

It's a family affair today.

We have cute gardeners. Cheap, too!

We're getting a bit of a late start with our garden this year. With Keith's work hours and the CRAZY April weather, it couldn't be helped. We'll still have yummy, yummy stuff popping up. Anyone coming to visit the first of July??? We'd be happy to share, ya know!

Love,

Last Weekend

Goofin' around in the car...

We decided to check out our local history museum on Saturday morning.

It's located in the old train depot. What a great building!

Some fun displays.

I saw several things in this kitchen that I'd love to have now!

Brooklyn & Jaeden checking out the schoolroom display.
The best part for the kids was all the interactive things to do. They would've played for hours. We were the only ones there at the time so we did let them play quite a while. After visiting the museum, we went home and Keith, Brooklyn and I went for a bike ride. We have some great trails not far away. Keith and Brooklyn decided to keep riding and I'd go back and pick up Jordan and Jaeden at home and meet them in the city (we were meeting friends for Jordan's b-day dinner). Keith and Boo ended up riding 14 miles before they called me to pick them up. Brooklyn was quite the little trooper. Dad was more sore the next day than she was!

On Sunday, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa for birthday cake. When we pulled in, this was what we saw by Grandpa's pond. Wonder if there will be ducklings in the near future... The cousins enjoying some good old-fashioned root beer floats before pizza. Yum!

Can't believe how many birthday candles are required now!
Happy birthday, Jordan!

Remember that milestone of getting a driver's permit? Yup, that's what we're looking at in our near future - yikes!

We had a great weekend and can't believe the next one is almost here again!

Where does time go???

Hugs to everyone,