4th of July (on june 27th...)

we had a blast celebrating the 4th of july a week early this year. there's a HUGE celebration in my parents home town, so we went up and had a great time swimming, eating, and playing at the park where we had a really decent view of the fireworks (which only scared the girls for a few minutes).

just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

at the park, waiting for the fireworks to start there was plenty to do, dance, run around, play frisbee, etc... (rayna singing/clapping/dancing her favorite song "if you're happy and you know it") and did i mention they had fire trucks at the park? real ones! and afton got to climb in and sit behind the wheel of one! she was ecstatic!

and grandma got all the kids (we were there with our cousins and aunties) glow-in-the-dark necklaces... sooo cool

rayna was a little tired of waiting (the fireworks didn't start til 10pm!)

but in the end it was worth it, we were all pretty content to lie back and enjoy the show!thanks mom, for remembering your camera :) and for inviting us to share the day, we had a blast!

happy father's day

well, i've never been great with sentiment, but i do make a great pie. happy father's day!

before and after

from this:to this:
funny how that takes so much getting used to...

Rayna

rayna finally had her one year check-up yesterday, and i just want you all to know she's perfectly average :) but that's good. for anyone interested in stats, that's 21.5 lbs, 29.5 inches, and i forgot the head measurement, but all three measured just above the 50th%ile, and the nurse said she's a little ahead of average with her motor skills and she's super good (i knew that already). rayna's regularly a sweetheart. she barely cried despite getting blood drawn and four nasty shots.

GO RAYNA! give yourself a big kiss!

does this sound familiar?

i sat there with rayna, we sat there we two, and i said how wish we had something to do

the sun did not shine. it was too wet to play. so we sat in the house all that wet, wet, wet day.

and then something went bump! (okay, not really, but the rain did eventually stop)









how that bump made us jump!

SPLASH!

and in related news, my garden got pummled--oh well.

ps, if anyone missed it, we LOVE the rain :) this storm came through june 10-11 :)

paul's bike log, part 1

just to let you know, for those interested, paul's decided to be a biker, and he wanted me to post about it so he'll feel guilty if he gives up (okay, i really don't think he's going to give up, i think he just wants to show off, and i kinda think he's earning the right too :) anyways, he's been biking to and from school since august, usually riding the bus part of the time, but averaging 6-15 miles a day on his bike. he's also been upping his miles for the last few months, and yesterday he did his first race. it took him 5 hours (that is a LONG time on a bike, if you ask me!) but he went 100 km (roughly 60 miles)! he felt great after the race, but he's been sore last night and today. i guess he earned that too. he's getting ready to do a big race in august called hotter than hell, 100 miles in the heat of the summer--NOT my idea of fun, but his advisor is a biker too, and he's encouraging paul to join in too, so at least he'll have someone to commiserate with :)

school daze...

well, now that all our friends are posting about the end of school and the beginning of summer, i've just gotta say. summer was nice and paul's back in school already :(

okay, i'm not really being fair; he's taking a summer term class, so he had most of may off, and now he'll be done again around july 4th for another month til school starts in august.
(he just bought his books though, and i can't believe it, they're about $700! EEEK!)



ps, having nothing to do with school: as soon as i had my massive melt-down potty-training post, it seems afton's changed her mind... she's only had two accidents in the last week, one camping (late at night by the fire, who can blame her? not me...) and one at wal-mart (this one may even qualify as my fault, we were literally in the process of checking out, when she told me she had to go, and i tried to get her to wait the 2 minutes necessary to finish... that was about 1 1/2 minutes too long! fortunately, there was a janitor at the end of the next aisle already, so they had it cleaned up for me about as fast as we finished check-out :)

if a picture is worth a thousand words...

i'll try to be brief :)



first we went camping

yes, this picture caught me mid-sneeze, attractive, huh?

way to go grill-master :)

near a lake

then we went to the aquarium

with the sharks (there is a really cool walk-through tank where the sharks swim all around you)

and of course we went to the zoo again too

this is a little parrot (i forget the exact name)