Feeling beachy?

 

All good things must come to an end, including camp. I arrived early and played on the beach before pick up. Since rocks and shells seem to be irresistible, I collected my share and snapped some shots. I claim to know nothing about light or anything, but I like how they turned out.

 

I picked up Thing Two, Aunt Sherri joined us for dinner, and we headed to Grandmama and PaPa's house to stay the night. The next day we visited Lainie and Nana, brought home a dresser and a headboard, and drove through incredible ickiness for the last hour of the trip home. But we made it and the water has already receeded since yesterday.

 

And now you're all caught up with June. Whew. Oh, and happy anniversary today to Grandma Barb and Pap, and two days ago to Grandmama and PaPa. We love you all!

Happy Father's Day. Drop off a kid!

 

The time had come to drop Liam off for his week at summer camp. We arrived a little too early for check in, so we visited the neighboring park to kill some time before the inevitable trip to the candy store and registration. 

 

Warning: Just because there is a Newfie in the immediate vacinity, DO NOT ASSUME said Newfie is a lifeguard. This one in particular would gladly knock you into the nearest body of water and not necessarily drag you back out.

 

 

Showing off natural monkey skills:

 

Where do you go when a Newfie weighing more than you is tied to you?

 

Wherever the Newfie wants to go!

 

After running off some energy, purchasing candy (credit cards accepted on tabs larger than $10- nooo problem), and checking in, Thing Two was ready to get wet and wild!

 

Still one of my very favoritest places on Earth.

Summer Shenanigans

Carrie is a big nature fan. She's our "capture and release" person when a bug enters the house uninvited. She scouts for Todd the Toad by our pond. She collects mosquito larvae in jars to watch them squiggle around. Where Liam is more into birds, she gets a kick out of the squirrels, chipmunks, and baby bunny who frequent the front yard. She took these:

 

She may or may not have also had a hand in the following. I took the pictures. I mean she could have been an accessory in shenanigans. Oh, to be the youngest:

And then there were birthdays

School ended at various times this year. Carrie and Damon were done on Thursday, the 4th of June. Preschool had the closing picnic and playground date that day, and the 6-12th grades finished. They'd gone to school one wintry day and then it was discovered that the fuel lines on the buses were freezing, so they cancelled the elementary school day. Hence, the elementary kids had to make up one extra day, June 5, Damon's birthday. So while Liam was at school for his very last day and the other two were home with me, we baked Damon's cake.

He wanted Stuart, the minion with one eye and NOT stick-uppy hair. So, hello Google images, and voila:

 

Stuart was devoured in days, and he was mighty tasty.

 

Grandmama had sent minion napkins and banners (which are still up... hey, it's still the birthday boys' month!) and she'd also ordered black party favors featuring 40 and Vintage Dude since there was another birthday boy in the house.

 

Yes, Dada turned the big 4-0.

 

So we did what anyone does. We threw a party.

 

A big party.

 

Since Damon turned 5 on June 5th, it was his Golden birthday. Dada turned 40, so it was his Oldie party.

 

Hence, a Golden Oldie party! About 50 people from karate, preschool, work, family from far away, the neighborhood, college, and the rest of our lives showed up to help us eat the cookies, homemade ice cream, burgers, hot dogs, rice, veggies, watermelon, chips, Buffalo chicken dip, homemade lemonade, and other drinks we had out. Needless to say, we still have pop and chips and crackers and stuff leftover from the party.

 

WE WILL NOT BE DOING CHRISTMAS IN JULY IN 2015.

 

Just throwing that out there. Big party for the year, done. Check.

 

We were apparently too busy chatting and stuffing ourselves to take many pictures, but this might give you a general overview:

 

 

 

Thank you all for coming, for eating and laughing and playing with us, and for blessing both of our birthday boys. We really enjoying having you all over. Thanks for doing life with us!

Fancy Big Sucker at work

 

Well, our resident Big Thing got busy and churned up enough dirt for a garden. These were taken the last week of May. Dada put our Fancy Big Sucker to work and still had to rent a rototiller to finish the job. But now we have a garden plot:

 

 

And now we have a moat:

 

 

Haha! Okay, this was taken today- June 28. You see tomatoes, a pepper plant, a watermelon plant, and a canteloupe plant. We'll see who likes having a lot to drink, that's for sure!

 

The apples are coming along and some are blushing rosily. It'll be a fun fall of applesauce and apple chips in the dehydrator, methinks.

 

This is the moat creek behind our house. I don't remember the name of it- I'll have to hunt it down. The cattails in the middle of the picture are usually in the middle of the creek and the vegetation you see on this side of them is where the creek bed starts. This is almost a whole day after it's stopped raining. Every time I glanced out the window yesterday to watch it rise higher I thought of Anne of Green Gables and her "Lake of Shining Waters."

 

We're supposed to have rain again tomorrow and much of the week, but as you can tell from the last photo, it's a gorgeous and sunny day here today. We'll take it!

 

 

 

 

Chalk Artist

 

Way back in the day, PaPa used to tell my BFF Lisa and I that we needed rain. I may have told this story before. We'd dutifully get out our sidewalk chalk, decorate as much of his front walk as we could, and then wait. Sure enough, within three days it'd rain.

 

 

We dug our sidewalk chalk out of the toy bin and got colorful. The driveway was covered in rainbows, hopscotch, numbers, flowers, suns, clouds, and everything else you can think of in no time. Damon even modeled this rainbow (below) after the one I did (above) with no prompting.

 

And yes, every chalk artist worth his salt does his best work while wearing pajamas, right?

 

For those keeping track, yes, it rained within three days.

It takes a village

Oh dear. This is why I should never get behind on the blog. Now I have to do a month and a half review. Let's see...

We hosted Grandma Barb for a week while Pap went on a fishing trip. We had lots of family members in and out that week to help supervise the Thingz while we ran here and there and everywhere. Uncle Kelly and Zach stayed for two nights, Aunt Sherri stayed for two nights, and Aunt Evelyn stayed from Tuesday until Saturday. Everyone was so much fun to have and we love that we got time with them! There was some of this:

 

And some of that:

 

And a little of this:

 

There was also quite a bit of this:

 

 

And plenty of love, see?

 

 

Aunt Evelyn LOVED that Damon came in from school, kicked off his shoes, and launched himself onto her. He then proceeded to go straight to sleep!

 

When I hauled him upstairs to deposit him in his bed, some Stinkwad had stolen his spot: