Meg left us

Meg went home today. We miss her already. Thanks James for letting her come and stay with us for this past month. We really enjoyed having her here. We are already looking forward to next summer. We love you!!!!

Birthday at the zoo!

Luke wanted to go to the zoo for his birthday. He invited one of his good friends from school and we spent the day at the zoo. We had a good time.

That night we had cake and ice cream (he wanted his head for the cake and he wanted to decorate it). I got those candles that relight. It was so funny he kept blowing and blowing and they kept relighting and relighting. It finally took everyone to give a great big blow before they finally blew out. We had a good laugh.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!!!!!

We celebrated Luke's birthday today. It's been a wonderful day with details to follow.
We love you Luke!!

Shop til you drop!

Saturday morning, Christina, her mom and Meg and I went school shopping. Just the girls took off for the day and shopped until we dropped (which wasn't hard because we were still tired from partyin the night before) we enjoyed lunch at Fridays and got lot's of really great clothes!

Girls just wanna have fun .. .

Meg went to a birthday party on Friday night. The title was project runway. They started by designing their own shirts and flip flops. They then made two different kinds of hair clips one that looks like buttons and one with flowers. They were so cute. After that and yummy pizza, they were each given tote bags. Inside the bags were scarey (meaning funny looking) clothing that they had to model. They had a lot of fun creating there outfit and showing it off. It wasn't like the boys parties that I'm acustomed to. But it was a lot of fun and the girls had a great time!

Happy Birthday Christina!!!

The Orchard House - Concord

We ventured to Concord today, mainly to go see the "Orchard House" which is the home of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. We all (mainly Meg and I) have become Alcott family scholars since Meg has been here. I have read a couple of books about the Alcott family learning about some of their experiences. Last week we watched the movie "Little Women" so we wanted to make sure we toured the house before Meg left. It was so cool. Luke and Josh loved the art all over the house. The youngest daughter was an artist and her paintings were hung throughtout the home, including all of her pencil drawings that she would draw directly on the walls of her room. They really liked that. Ben loved the history and Meg and I loved seeing where their lives began after learning so much about them from the books and movies that we've read and watched recently.

We also stopped at Sleepy Hollow Cemetary, which is where many authors were burried. Including Louisa May and the rest of the Alcott family. You should have heard Meg and I spouting out facts and dates. It was a little scarey, we were starting to sound like family history goo roo's!

We also stopped at Walden Pond and had a little picnic. That is such a beautiful and peaceful place. I can see why Thoreau chose to live there for a couple of years.

This is Josh! He is my little climber. There are very nice wide steps but he chooses to go up the steps by way of the railing. Anything that he can climb on he is there. He struggles with walking on normal paths when there are so many things he can climb instead.

Liquid fireworks

After Concord we drove up the road about 15-20 and went to Jordan's Furniture Store. I know wierd why would we go to a furniture store, but these furniture store's come with so much entertainment along with the furniture. We have been wanting to go check this store out, but with the gas prices it's hard to justify a trip all the way over there just for this. So it worked to just add it on to our Concord trip. At this Jordans they have a Jelly Belly Beantown. Everything in the entry way is made of famous sights in Boston all out of jelly beans. They used more then 4 million jelly beans to make all of these sights. There is also a trapeze school and a stage where they show a liquid firework show every 30 minutes. The water show was pretty cool the kids loved it.

Here are the ducklings in the "Make Way for Ducklings"book.


A HUGE ice cream sundae all made of jelly beans. It's also an ice cream parlor. And of course, Wally the Green Monster eating what else but a Yankee's player.

Dancing in the Rain

It has rained all day yesterday and so far most of the day today. So the boys decided if they can't swim they might as well play in the rain. They got their suits on and out they went. They had so much fun. Meg didn't want to go out so we took pictures from the inside and sanded a table that we are working on (pictures coming soon). The playing in the rain ended with a huge water fight and now hot chocolate on the couch while they watch a movie. I love summer!

Our Yummy win!

Look at what showed up on our door! The Menzie's had a giveaway on there blog. If you could guess what kind of random part broke on there car the winner would win this Chocolate Heath Bar Cheesecake. This same cheesecake was sold at an auction to earn money for girls camp, for more then $100. Since the giveaway had to do with cars, I put Mike in charge of winning. He came through. The cheesecake was delicious! We finished it off for breakfast. THANK YOU!!!!!

Luke's writings in the sand . . .

more beach pictures

If you go to www.beantown.menzie.org you will find the complete photo album of the beach trip yesterday. They got some great pictures. THANK YOU!!! We had so much fun we might go again next week!

to the beach . . .

It was a hot 95 degree day so what better way to spend it then at the beach. Our good friends the Menzie's came with us.

After we all got over the initial shock of the freezing water temperatures, or should I say after our bodies were completely numb from the water temperatures it wasn't so bad! We had a great time. We used the skim and boogie boards, played football and built sand castles. It was such a nice relaxing day.

About 30 minutes into the day my battery died on my camera so these are all of the pictures that we have. But the Menzie's took a ton of pictures so when I get them from her I will load some more on here. I know she took some great pictures.