Swimming

We have been doing a lot of swimming this summer.  When we go to our neighborhood pool we usually stay for about 4 hours.  So everyone is getting a tan and Emily is getting so good at swimming!  I'm so proud of her.  She runs and jumps off at the deep end and swims back to the side.  At a friend's party she spent the whole afternoon jumping off the diving board:

Abigail spends most of her time wanting me to throw her in the air or "just do something with me".

I have also enjoyed spending time on the side of the pool getting some sun.  This has been the first summer I've been able to do this.   It's nice.

One afternoon Abigail was so tired after swimming that she fell asleep after her shower before I had time to get her dressed.  Now that's tired:

 

A few weeks ago Abigail and I took an afternoon nap and Emily made this for me:

 She cut the letters out with fabric and used pins to put this on my chair.  So sweet and so creative!  She made a trail for me to walk to the chair from my bed and had a sign that said look up:

 

She also made a dress for her Barbie one afternoon:

Love that girl!

Visit to PawPaw and DeeDee's

Last weekend we all drove to Montgomery to see PawPaw and DeeDee.  Our 18th wedding anniversary was on Mon, June 24th so Mom and Dad kept the girls for us on Saturday and Joe and I enjoyed an evening at a local hotel and enjoyed several meals together and saw 2 movies at the movie theater. 

I can't believe it's been 18 years!!!

Enjoying sushi on Saturday night:

 

 About to head back to mom and dad's to see the girls:

On the way down on Saturday we stopped at the Braves stadium to pick up tickets for a game we will go to with my sister's family in August.  The girls enjoyed walking around the stadium while I got tickets:

Joe went back home to work and the girls and I stayed for their VBS.  They had a great time:

We also got to go swimming at their neighbor's pool.  DeeDee took the girls to Build a Bear and let them get a new bear.  They also enjoyed playing and coloring.  Emily enjoyed taking pictures:

We had a great week together!

Six Flags!!!!!

Emily got a ticket to Six Flags this year for reading 360 minutes last March.   So I took her today.  We got there before it opened at 10:30 so they let us in to stand in line at a ride where we waited for the rides to open.  The park closed at 7:00 and we stayed until then:

 

 Our first ride was the log ride and then we went to the Monster Mansion (used to be called Monster Plantation).  Here we are coming out of that ride:

 We also rode the Mine Train but Emily hit the back of her head on the ride.  I had forgotten how bumpy that ride is.  It's been probably 15 years since I've been here!After that incident we stopped and ate a pretzel and a coke.    She really enjoyed the Wyle E. Coyote roller coaster in the kids section so by the end of the day we had ridden it 4 times.   She rode most of the kids rides and played at the new water park.  I didn't bring her goggles so we didn't stay there long.  We also rode Thunder River and I got soaking wet.  So after that ride we rode the sky buckets:

 and then headed out to the parking lot for a late lunch:

 Emily got her second wind after eating lunch so we went back in and rode several of the rides a 2nd time and continued to do so until the park closed at 7.  We had a few bumps along the way but enjoyed our time together. 

While we were at Six Flags Joe took Abigail to Catch Air and to a park to play:

 

  

We each had a fun time with the kids!

Joe is 40!!!!

Joe turned 40 today!!!!!!!!!!!

We surprised him with a scheduled 1 hour massage.  We then took him to lunch to eat sushi.  The girls told our server that it was their Dad's birthday so he surprised Joe with a treat.

 

Happy Birthday Joe!  We love you!!!

Zoo with Friends

Today we went to the zoo with one of Emily's classmates - Isabella and her brother Garrett.  The kids had a fun time:

 We introduced them to the bird show that we have enjoyed seeing before:

 The girls also had fun finding rolly polly's all over the zoo:

Haircut and Bracelets

Last week Emily asked me each morning if she could get bangs.  After discussing it with her and mentally preparing myself, I took her on Friday to get bangs.  Here is before and after:

 

We think it turned out super cute!  She loves them!

She has also been busy working on making bracelets.  So on Sunday we watched a few tutorials online to learn how to make different ones.

 

She did a great job!  She got a little frustrated but it's teaching her that sometimes you have to fix mistakes and that learning something new isn't going to always go right the first time.

DeeDee also made these dresses for the girls and they wore them on Sunday:

Abigail has been a big story teller lately.  She has been talking about all the things she does at her Grandfather's house. She has a dog named Early and a sister named Kayla (sometimes Hayley) and sometimes she talks about a brother Jack.  They have all kinds of adventures at her grandfather's house.  When we go shopping she points to drinks and food that she has eaten before at her grandfather's house.  Yesterday afternoon she told me that on Monday she died at her grandfather's house and then Jesus jumped out of her heart and raised her from the dead.  Must have been her wild imagination after her Bible lesson Sunday.  She is too funny!

First week of summer vacation!

After school was out last Wednesday we spent Thursday afternoon at the new swim park near our house.  It's a new facility where the girls took their swim lessons.  Thursday was their last swim lesson and the first day the outside was open so we stayed afterward and broke in the new park until dinner time!

We had a snack with friends before their lesson:

 

The park  has two slides, a playground area, and a lazy river with another pool area for swimming.  The older girls enjoyed going down the blue slide that ends in a small water shoot and not into a pool.  The yellow slide is enclosed and goes down into a pool so Rachel and I went down that one : )  Abigail loved the playground area:

 

Afterwards we went to Sonic to eat dinner together.

On Tuesday we went to our neighborhood pool for the first time this season:

 

After the pool we went to Harper and Hayden's house for dinner.  Joe met us there after work and the adults enjoyed some yummy food and the kids enjoyed playing together:

 This week Abigail has also started sleeping without her bed rails!  Yippee!!!!

 

 Emily received a summer packet from her teacher that gave her math games to play.  She has enjoyed working on those and has also started reading chapter books at bed time.  Joe got her a book light so she can read:

 It has started off as a wonderful summer of sleeping in and playing in the sun!