friiiiiiday

friday morning was the big horse show. we all got up nice and early and got all ready to go. we dropped addie off at 8:30 and headed down to the beach.

they loved walking along the little shore.

and playing in the sand.

delaney (the worlds slowest eater) had brought her half eaten pop tart (breakfast of champions) with her and set it on the table, where a dog promptly came and ate it. she was sooo mad! she was trying to yell across the water to the dogs owner "your dog ate my pop tart!" but i held her back.

from the beach we walked to the dock.

of course they had to walk on the rocks which made them even more slooooow.

the dock was super fun!

there were 2 nice ladies out there fishing and crabbing, and they were so sweet to us.

they caught a crab while we were there and showed the girls their loot. i don't know anything about crabbing, but i think that's a pretty good haul for one morning.

then they caught another crab, but he was too small, so they had to let him go. before they threw him back though, they let the girls take a picture with him.

franks wouldn't get anywhere near him, and this was as close as lanes got.

then it was time for the big show. alexis and tito came, and when laney saw lexi coming down the trail she got all excited and ran to her.

addie was the third kid up. they had a little routine that each child did.

big girl addie on her horse, achansee. (like i-can-see, but with an 'ah')

he was a little bit of a spirited horse, and on monday, as she was riding him bareback, had galloped into the barn with her. she said when she got into the barn they told her to pull the reins and tell him "whoa." that made a big impact, and she told over and over again how achansee had said "i don't want to be out here, i'm gonna take you back into the barn," and then galloped her back to the barn.

jumping position.

such a big girl!

she loved her week at horse camp! she kept asking why it was only one week. she would love to take lessons, so we shall see. one of her other favorite things was that one of the horses, jackie, had just had a foal named summer. addie got a kick out of the fact that jackie and summer are two of my activity girls. and little summer was soooo cute! she also thought it was so funny that their tornado shelter was the little outhouse. some of the counselors joked that summer was so little, they could take her in with them in the event of emergency.

horse camp craft. don't worry that her head is cut off. it adds to the charm.

after the horse show, we met up with darlaina and lana's crews for one last swimming date. it's been so nice to be surrounded by church members in our neighborhood, but now there are just 3 active families. we will miss the utzingers so much! :(

in happier news, frankie was able to borrow a mermaid tail at the pool.

she was in heaven! if they weren't so darn expensive i might think about buying one for them to share, but holy smokes, $$$.

i left frankie at the pool with alexis and tito and came home to let delaney take a nap. then they even picked up addie for me. pretty sweet! we invited them to come to the river concert with us, but they ever so politely declined. we headed out around 6. i looked back and delaney was making these goofy faces. love her.

the kids ran around playing hide-and-go-seek. i told addie she should hide under josh, so she ran up, told him her plan, and without skipping a beat, he threw her under him and gina rolled closer to cover that half of her. of course, she got found pretty quickly, but it was a cute encounter.

our small crew for the last river concert. this was our 4th time this year and i loved every one of them. i'm sad they are over!

such a beautiful venue, i just love st. marys city.

colleen and crew showed up after myers and mc's had left, so we hung out with her until the crowds had died down sufficiently enough, and then headed home. another wonderful summer day.

thurrrrrrrsday

*it's amazing how much you can get done when you are waiting for a child to return home for the night. i'm all the way to thursday!

day 4 of horse camp was another rousing success. they started off every morning with horse lesson time and riding, and then in the afternoon they would do other activities. on monday they did ground driving and carriage rides, tuesday was soap carving and braiding, wednesday was nature time and "away day" (which was games at the cabin), thursday was archery, kayaking, and smokes, and friday was the horse show, paint a horse (wherein they actually painted a real horse), and tie-dye.

my little cowgirl.

on thursday i stayed for a run at greenwell after i dropped her off. i ran all along the water and back up to the main area, but that was less than a mile, so i decided to venture onto some of the trails. duh, duh, duh! i am not smart enough to be a trail runner. i have no sense of direction, and i'm a chicken. i don't like running  alone in secluded areas. at first it was ok, but then as i got deeper and more intwined in the whole maze, i started to get a little worried. i seriously had no clue where i was or which direction i needed to go to take me back. i finally realized i could look at the map on my cycle meter (which i use to map my run) and find my way back to my original trail. it only took me 4.5 miles. oh well, there are worse ways to spend your morning.

chris went to youth conference on thursday.

i believe this is his third, and final, year of yc (i think he missed his first year?). i can't say i'm sad about this aspect of him growing up, because i really hate the fight that going to any church outing entails. mama's of youth talked about this at length, and i think my theory is a) all kids are different and some don't fight each and every thing, b) it's hard to impress affluent kids, and c) this generation is so spoiled with their technology, food, etc.

he looks like he's having fun here, even though i got 2 "this sucks." texts from him. they were early, so maybe things were looking up by this point.

i called amy and she was laughing at the picture she has for when i call. little nerds!

we met up with the myers at the pool as soon as it opened at 11.

it was reaaaally bright.

she has decided she likes inching along the edge of the pool, deep end and all.

poor rosie broke her elbow, so now she's got a non-waterproof cast. she was a total trooper though and kept it dry the whole time!

when i picked addie up, i signed her out and talked to her camp crew, and kept looking around for her, but she was nowhere to be found. i finally asked where she was and heard a little voice say "i'm up here!" she's been all about the tree climbing lately.

since greenwell park is part of our more to explore program, i brought a blanket, snack, and book to be able to spend some time there and really feel like we've "done" it. it was so nice out, and i so love reading with my kids, it was perfect.

alexis and tito wanted to take the girls to the pool, (second time for frankie that day) so they got their suits on, and then we heard the magical sound of the ice cream truck! since that is an item on our summer bucket list, we all got our shoes on and ran as fast as we could to track him down.

this silly minion ice cream caused a lot of drama. frankie and delaney both wanted one, but franks got their last one. the horror. then franks ate half of it and decided she didn't want it anymore. sorry, frankie, it doesn't work like that.

addie informed us that "the red part of my firecracker tastes like heaven." a girl after her own dramatic mama's heart!

this one had to get a choco-taco.

summer bucket list item - √

little miss hates-fun decided she'd go to lowes with matt and i instead of the pool. she regretted that decision about halfway in, but what are you gonna do. she had gone to lowes with matt last week, so she was excited to show me the fountains.

after our lowes trip, matt replaced our front door knob, the one that broke last week. whenever people would knock at the door, we'd have to point to the garage and hurry to meet them out there. #keepinitclassy

and finally, one more from youth conference. there's chris on our far right, white shirt with his arm around scott. again, looks to be enjoying himself, right?

wedddddnesday

*why mess with a good title pattern?

Wednesday morning was spent cleaning and prepping for treasurer trade off. i haven't touched my treasurer bag since school got out, so i had lots of organizing, some copying, and a trip to the bank to do after i dropped addie off. carolee came over at 10:30 and we did my last les treasurer report together. and we laughed and laughed at my ineptitude at this job! i'm so glad to turn the position over to someone i know! it would be even more embarrassing if i had to explain my ways of doing everything to a stranger. carolee just thinks of me as even more quirky than before. :)

that night we had our water safety/pool party/goodbye to grace party at our pool. chris, the former lifeguard and eagle scout was our surprise guest speaker.

look at how cute he is leading the water safety discussion. :)

sun-tues was craaaazy hot, but of course wednesday was cool and pleasant. a little too cool and pleasant for the pool, imo, but the girls pushed through the pain.

we ordered pizza and served lemonade, and everyone had a nice time.

love these girls!

tuuuuesday

bright and early and off to horse camp! addie had a blast and lamented that it only lasted a week. but i just kept wondering why anyone would want to send their kids to a million camps? totally put a cramp in our summer style for the week. all about the balance.

greenwell is so pretty! i've never been big into horses, but they really are a pretty animal. and the cute white fences, green rolling hills (albeit small ones), water down the hill, the whole place is just awesome.

tuesday was a party prep day. darlaina and i threw a little going away dessert party for the utzingers. can you tell we're going to miss them? :( our neighborhood church family has been shrinking and i.don't.like.it.one.bit.

we had the open house at our club house. it was really nice. and delicious.

chris showed up after work. then the teen crowd headed over to darlaina's to watch some movies. i hope these friendships continue to grow, it would make life so much easier.

menfolk visited.

and babies pranced.

laney was enjoying being the big girl. :)

it was a nice night with great friends. :)

after, everyone stayed to help clean-up and it went so quickly and smoothly. then lexi brought a friend over to our house, which was still upside down from a day of laundry, cooking, and party prep. all i could do was offer him some desserts, of which i had plenty. i can't even say to visitors anymore that it's not usually this messy, because i think when you say that 9 times out of 10 that people visit your house, its probs not true. season of ma life!