The Ray's Days: fun, fun, fun, fun, gross

last week was seriously fun. we were out and about doing fun things every day.

we did minimal work at home, and just played, played, played! it was the kind of week we will look back on fondly during the cold winter months. :)

on thursday we went to the wildwood pool to hang out with alecia and shelly and crews.

it was only about 81° and had rained the night before, so the water was super cold too. doesn't phase us, we had tons of fun! addie was nowhere to be found because she was out snorkeling around, and then when she realized she could jump off the 'surf board' (diving board), that's all she did. she jumped in and out for at least an hour, and would have kept going all day, i have no doubt.

after the pool we came home and the big girls played with abby while delaney rested. that night i broke our spending fast to get a pedi. you have to have at least one summer pedi, it just looks so nice. :)

on friday we met up with the regular crew (alecia, shelly, sarah, and meredith) at the wooden park for more frolicking.

shelly was sweet and pushed the kids on the tire swing - one of my least favorite things ever.

but just look at the sheer joy on this face.

#happysummer

and one more, cause i just can't stop.

then things got super cray.

#howmanykidscanyoufitonatireswing

after park time we came home for rests and cow prep. 7/11 marked our first ever cow appreciation day, and i'm sold! a little bit of work and a free dinner? yes please.

delaney had just woken up from her nap before we left, and she wasn't thrilled about dressing up like a cow. i even loaded her in the car with just a diaper because i knew she needed time to wrap her head around it. about half way to chicfila she said she guessed she'd dress up like a cow for chicken nuggets and french fries, cause i told her she couldn't get them otherwise. we got there and she got dressed just fine, but the picture was just too much. insult to injury, seriously.

it was really fun! tons of people decked out in cow attire, games, and always playtime.

and this picture cracks me up!

it wasn't until around 2am that night (morning) when i finally went to bed that i realized that cow ears don't stand straight up, they lay down! i just didn't even think about it. just never crossed my mind. hahahaha, i am so genius!

after our cow appreciation, we headed to the church to load up the jolly green with chairs to help a friend, dropped them off in callaway, and then off to pick up aina's for a blue crab game. we got free tickets for our summer reading, but sarah and i had been back and forth on if it would be too late to go, what with all the cow appreciating and chair delivering. finally sarah said, "it's just one night, let's do it!" i am glad she did because a) it was fun, and b) even though there were 2 more games we could go to this summer, something else probably would have come up and we might not have gone at all.

ps - these kids do have dads, but matt had an early navy weekend and tony had a project to finish. thank goodness for good friends to keep us sane and happy while daddy's aren't around!

love these baseball lovers.

and abby, who, after being at the game for about an hour said "when's the game gonna start?" :)

that's a whole lotta kids.

when we first moved here we each had one little one, except for shell who had two. we could easily pile into one or two cars, carseat moving wasn't too bad, watching each others littles was pretty easy.

now, it's another story.

sarah and i have loaded and unloaded carseats into my truck so many times it's not even funny. the good news is, i think we've finally got the puzzle figured out. (the carseats all have to be just so to be able to fit all 6)

after the game they had an awesome fireworks show.

franks looooved it.

delaney liked it better than last time.

the game would have been perfect if it weren't for a certain seat nazi who wasn't very happy about our free range children milling about. he especially seemed to have a thing for me, as i got reprimanded thrice and watched like a hawk until we left. we'll settle for a pretty perfect game, cause it was a great time. and our blue crabs won, score! :)

and after our busy day of parks, cows, chairs, baseball, and fireworks, we were pooped!

thankfully i get my second wind after kiddies go to bed, because i stayed up making wedding chicken salad till the wee small hours. :)

on saturday i got to go help my friend as she married her favorite beau.

she's been through so much and it was such a happy day.

lexi watched the girls for me, and it was so cute how excited they were. as soon as lexi came down they were on her like white on rice. it was "sissy, guess what?" and "sissy, do you know what i did?" they just love their sissy!

that afternoon we hit a milestone. ma baby got her first ponytail! it's not my best work, but she's still a slightly reluctant ponytailee, so i didn't want to push it. we made a big deal about how beautiful she was and she'd touch her pony and say "yeah, cause i'm beautiful." it's not the most important thing, but i love when my girls feel pretty. :)

alexis and christian are dog sitting millie, but there was one outing that neither of them were home for, so frankie and i walked over to let her out. on our way we found a little gardner snake laying belly up "sleeping."

then we went to a neighbors house for an outside showing of little giants. it was so cute and the girls had fun playing and watching. and i fell in love with their yard. thinking we might look at a stamped concrete patio.

cuddles with my tired babe!

towards the end of the night she was so sleepy.

she just kept trying to get comfortable on our blanket and asking me to rub her back.

it was such a jam packed fun week! chris got home from seabase around midnight saturday night and spent another hour telling alexis, aubrey, and i all about his trip. he had soooo much fun and he's so glad he went.

so.

fun, fun, fun, fun, gross.

we've never had an underground basement with a sump pump and grinder before. we've had a few little issues with hurricanes and last year we had our grinder repaired. but it's been running a lot, so as a quick fix we just unplug it. while chris was gone, since he's the main basement bathroom user, we just left it unplugged. only somehow we didn't lock the bathroom door.

duh, duh, duuuuh.

one of the little girls did a doosey of a twoosey and the toilet had overflown, just in the bathroom though. so chris tried to flush, and plugged in the grinder, which then overflowed with dirty water. he called me down, we quickly unplugged, but we still had a decent puddle of horrifically smelling water in the basement storage - where we store our food. thankfully we only had to throw away two boxes of noodles that had fallen. we made a train (alexis, chris, matt, and i) and piled all the food from the affected shelf into the hallway, moved out the shelf, and bleached/baking soda'd the tar out of the floor. matt and i finally headed up to shower at 2:30am. then he had to be in dc by 7, my poor, hard working hubby.

he is so good at diffusing tough situations like that. he's always like "let's not stress about it, let's just get it done." it's such a nice contrast to my spazzy "oh no! this can't be happening!" that i tend to exude during situations like this. oh, the joys of home ownership.

today was an easy sunday. i do love 1:00 church, in spite of this.

#everyweek