Soccer and more

Alex drew this one day. I love how Luke Skywalker looks like a stick character but Darth Vader looks pretty good.

Soccer! Alex is in green in the front.

Go Alex!

Family Camp!

Our family went to family camp again at Trout Lake. We had the most amazing week. It was so fun.
I tried posting all of our photos in one post, but Blogger was giving me issues. Finally, I gave up and decided to post via Picasa, which is great but only lets me post 4 photos at a time. Therefore, we have several Family Camp posts.


Molly and Alex

Molly making a friendship bracelet.

Molly really likes kittens. There were 3 living in the tack room at the horse stable, and Molly loved holding them.

Family Camp

Alex with his shy/proud face as he walks up the isle for the kid's program.

Tired Alex at chapel.

Carpetball! The kids LOVE carpetball.

Family Camp!

More sailing

Cory and Alex, ready to launch the rocket that Molly and I made.

Family photo at the rocket launch

After all the rockets are launched, they give the kids time to retrieve them. Molly ran to get ours, and she ran right into a huge mud puddle. She thought it was pretty funny that her toes were that dirty. See the book in her hand? Dr. Dolittle. This kid always has books with her. :)

Family Camp

Sara and Emily on the pontoon ride.

Emily climbing!

Cory climbing

We tried sailing for the first time this year. We loved it, and will definitely do it again as soon as we are back at Trout Lake Camp!

Family Camp!

Cory flying at the Flying Squirrel

Canoeing!

Kids on the pontoon ride. They love this. We get to ride across three lakes to Crosslake, and then we walk to a great ice cream shop. Molly and Alex always get bubblegum ice cream. They pick out the bubblegum and save it for the end.

Cory and Chris on the pontoon.

Family Camp

Emily and Cory going down the zip line!

Molly and Alex with their awesome babysitter Kyle. Yay for Kyle! He was incredibly helpful. I wish he didn't live 3.5 hours away. We'd have him come babysit for us often!

Emily ready for Flying Squirrel

Cory, about to take off at the flying squirrel

Family Camp!

Alex LOVED the kittens at the stable

Cory and Alex at the petting zoo.

Alex at the carnival. If you look closely, you can see the foam dart he just threw about to fly through the hoop!

Molly getting a ride on a horse

Family

My (Emily) parents had a BBQ on July 3, and several relatives and friends were able to make it. It was great!
Here are Sally (my sister), me, and our cousins Tina and Megan.

Siblings! Sally, Emily, and Nick

Molly and Alex with their cousin Tyler. My parents were attempting to get a photo of their three grandchildren together. Guess which one was NOT cooperating? Yes, the oldest. This is the best photo I got.

Alex loves riding this pedal tractor around Grandpa's farm.

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On the way to South Dakota for this trip, we hadn't even gotten a block away when Alex asked how much longer it would be until we got there.

About halfway to SD, Alex asked where we were. We told him we were in the middle of nowhere. Then a while later he asked to talk to Grandpa on my cell phone. Alex told Grandpa, "We are in the middle of a place called nowhere."

Happy Father's Day!

We went bowling for Father's Day. We had a bowling pass from May-August, and it made a good Mother's Day activity so we went back for Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, Cory! You are the best husband and father, and we are so thankful for you!

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Strawberry Picking

I don't have any photos from this, but it's a funny story.
In late June I took Alex strawberry picking at a berry farm. We went with my friend Rachel and her children, Ru and Isaiah.
Alex picked about three strawberries, saw that his hands were messy, and told me that he needed to have a bath. Ha!
The plants had recently been watered, so they were a little wet, and a tiny bit of dirt and straw stuck to some of the berries and leaves. They were generally really clean, but there were some moldy strawberries and slugs around. Alex won't even eat pizza without having it cut up so he can eat it with a fork and avoid the possibility of getting his hands messy. Picking the strawberries just wasn't going to happen.

So... I am picking away, and Alex starts eating strawberries out of my bucket. Ru and Isaiah were picking their own and eating some too, but they weren't eating any that Rachel picked.
Alex and Ru were talking to each other about the strawberries they were finding, and Alex kept holding up the biggest and best (from my bucket that I had picked!) to show her. Silly kid.
When we decided we had picked enough, we had to weigh our berries to pay. Rachel ended up with nearly twice as many berries as I did, since she had help and I just had an eater. :)

Molly is at summer camp!

Molly (left) and her friend Eliana (right) are at Trout Lake Camp through Saturday morning. Christa and I brought our daughters to camp yesterday, and they were incredibly excited. I'm sure they are having a great time.

Molly was so silly and excited when I dropped her off. I asked her to smile, and this goofy photo is the best I got. :)
The camp is 3.5 hours away, so it made for a long day of driving to take her up and drive back. Thankfully our friend Jason watched Alex for the day. Thanks, Jason! Alex had a lot of fun with your kids!

When Alex and I got to our house, he looked all concerned and asked why we were at our house. I said, "We were going home, Alex. Where did you think we were going?" He said, "But what about Molly? Don't we go get her?"
The poor guy didn't understand that she was staying at camp until Saturday. When I told him, he actually started crying! He was soooo sad, and said, "I want Molly here with me!"
He loves his sister. :)

Alex's preschool wheel-a-thon and more

Alex's preschool wheel-a-thon was actually back in May, but I just uploaded photos from my phone today and found these.


Here's the crazy scene. They are all supposed to be riding in circles following the chalk lines... but it didn't always happen that way.

Here's Alex (in front in the red coat)! The kids raised money to help build a water well for a school in Guatemala through this wheel-a-thon and a silent auction earlier in the year.

On Wednesday, Jamba Juice had $1 superfruit smoothies, so I took the kids all there for smoothies. Yum! When we got back in the van, I asked them all to lean toward the middle so I could take their photo. I think it's funny how far they are all leaning!

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Fruit Tooth

Tonight at dinner Alex ate a lot of grapes and strawberries. Cory said, "Wow, Alex, you at a lot of fruit!"
Alex: I know! I have a sweet tooth AND a fruit tooth, because I like sweets and I like fruit!