Summer Pictures

Hans' new ride. Pretty sweet, right? Not sure what he's going to dream about now...Kids waiting patiently for their turns on the bike. Mia and Katelyn are the adrenaline junkies.

Kate's new bob. She kept insisting she wanted her hair short to her chin. So I obliged. It's so cute on her. Ashley's is an inch shorter. She's trying to grow her hair longer then mine. Us making cookies....again.

Painting and making a bike parade tied together with jump ropes. We somehow managed to make it to the park like this.

Our nightly backyard fun with the Sauters. They single-handedly made my decision for me to try and persuade all our children to go to the Air Force Academy. It turned out wonderful people in them. Not only was Jenny a working mom in uniform, but she also sewed and baked bread and did projects. Never ceased to amaze me.

The old motorcycle has been replaced.



Justin taking Mia for rides. She loves this. Ashley on a ride behind Justin. I think we like doing anything that involves riding.

Making more cookies, playing with oobleck, and Justin crashed from all the summer fun.

End of Summer and goodbye to wonderful friends

Summer has flown by for me this year. It's been so great. I love being outside and just being lazy and doing whatever we want whenever we want. We've been to the zoo, pool, hiking, biking, running. We've gone to the park, collected bugs from the reflecting pool (and ridden on a canoe there too), jumped on the trampoline, painted rocks and pictures. We've made bread and sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. We've had a great time. Mostly, we've spent a lot of time at the swimming pool. I love that we have a swimming pool. Hooray for summer! Thankfully we have a week left, but I'm getting sad thinking about it already, especially as I watch the neighborhood kids walk back and forth from their school, which started last week...poor kids.

The highlight of this summer has been spending so much time with our awesome neighbors, who moved last week. Sigh. I will miss them incredibly. They lived right behind us. Our kids thought they had two homes. We will miss making smores, lighting rockets, going to the park and pool together, eating dinner and many desserts, playing games after the kids are in bed, and just their overall excellent company. I am sad. I cried. But I'll be okay. We get to fly to London to visit them Thanksgiving of 2010. I've always wanted to go and now we have a place to stay!!!
Thanks Sauters. Love you guys....

Pictures to follow.