Frogger

A Poor Wayfaring FrogWe had Sister Bradford (who was a missionary in our ward) come to dinner tonight with her sister and friend.  They all had a bit of a blast in the backyard with a poor unsuspecting frog.
Emily's frog just wouldn't turn into a prince.
They all had PILES of fun.

A poor wayfaring frog of grief hath often crossed our path tonight.

Tooth!

Alex has one really visible tooth and another on the way up. 

Life's A Beach . . . and then you have a birthday.

Becky finally turned 25 this week . . . and she doesn't look a day over 35.  We had a family celebration at the beach as Mark and I had already snuck out for a lunch in town while the kids were at school the day before.  We kind of like this two kids at school thing.  Too bad Mark has to go back to work now too.

Saturday we got away for a little beach trip to escape a hot afternoon at home.  We had a lovely time just pottering around and feeling the wind.

10 years in 3 minutes

I realized recently that Mark and I have now known each other for ten years this August.  Isn't that strange to think that it's so short when it seems like we must have always known each other. We sure have packed a lot into those 10 years though.  I got a bit dizzy watching it.  I think I need to lie down and relax.  It was all a bit much. 

Surfer Girl

Surf's Up

Mark decided that a family living on the beach in Hawaii must have a surf board. He got a neat beginner board for the kids last week and we finally deemed the kids well enough after their colds to have a go today.  Kiffer decided he'd had enough after his first fall, but Emily was up and off on her first few turns.  She was great and we had a lot of fun watching her.  I had to giggle at Mark's teaching technique with Emily standing up on the board grasping his head for support.  I gave him a few pointers from the absolutely nothing I know, and surprisingly we made progress. 

Dress-Up

After Church today, Christopher had a little dress-up party.  Alex was the only invited guest.  He was pretty tolerant of the host for the most part and it kept them both entertained for about 15 minutes.  Kiffer giggled the whole time he was getting Alex dressed.

After our Trip to Kansas, we flew to Denver on the way home to meet all the cute cousins there.  The kids were best friends from the first minute and played hard all weekend.  It was so fun to watch. Below are pictures that will tell the story better than words.

The Denver Cousins!

Kansas and Denver Trip

The kids favorite thing this Summer was flying to Kansas to visit Grandma and Grampa and then on to Denver to visit the Cousins for a weekend.  Emily and Christopher just loved doing everything with the Grandparents and thought their house was Grandkid paradise. They loved to play with the neat toys, try out Grampa's Instruments, and stick as close as possible to Grampa and Grandma all day long. 

In Hutchinson they loved getting to visit Great Granny and played the Ukulele and sang songs to her.  Daddy got to show us a Drum Corps show and Grampa had all the old T-shirts and gear from the 90s when Mark played.  We really loved the amazing drumming.  The kids also loved the space museum and the spray ground there. I was so glad to be in civilization for a bit (i.e. they had a Target and stores handy). We had a great time just all being together. What a fun family time it was.

Our site is aptly named. Our photos seem to all have splashes and water in them.  Here is Alex being a little fish in the bath the other night.  He just lay there and kicked water in his face and even out of the bath.  He loved it and didn't even seem to mind that he was getting it in his eyes. We had quite a good giggle watching him.

Alex loves to pat and bang on things.  When in the water this means lots of splashing. Here is a rare shot of Alex with his head up.  Most of the time his face is plastered to the side of the boat so he can splash more and then lick up all the salty splashes that land on his boat.