SUMMER

At bedtime, Avery tries to sneak into bed with Wyatt.  She thinks we just won't notice if she stays in their room.  She definitely notices that her brothers get to stay together.  

We got Jack to squeeze in.

 Like brother, like sister.

 She found and tried on my shoes one day.  I have pretty small feet and my shoes look HUGE on her!

 She looks like she is about to cause some mass destruction here doesn't she?

 They all came home with balloons after a fun birthday party.

 This picture makes me laugh...watching the balloons go up, up, up to the ceiling.

 A nearby golf course hired a new golf pro and he started a mini golf camp for kids.  Just a few days at  the end of each month.  It is funny-he has the kids call him Bubba.

 We went to a "Kruise" of cars they have downtown every summer.  We have never been before.  Vintage and really interesting cars...and even more interesting people. 

  

Avery was having a ball.

 She puts her hands together like this when she is really excited.

Here is another demonstration of her happy hands...she gets excited when we go into a kid's store downtown and finds this baby doll.

  The boys have been setting up all of their dinosaurs on the deck in the a.m.  

While Avery greets the dogs.

 We had some smoke lingering in the air one week...Geoff said it made flying tough...but it made some crazy purple sunsets!

 We rode bikes to the farmer's market last Saturday and they had amazing berries from a farm a few   hours from here.  Raspberries, marionberries, blueberries, and cherries. The cherries were amazing.

Almost Two

A has been happy to have the boys home from school.  They get her out of her crib in the morning and sometimes even get her breakfast!  We don't have to wake her up to get them to school or interrupt her nap as often to pick them up.  She doesn't use words much but is very good at getting what she wants when she wants it.  She doesn't hesitate to use the word "no" though.

  

Congratulations Geoff!!

We had another big event in June.  Geoff pinned on 0-5.  He had a casual ceremony during a night-flying week.  It was actually the same day as the boys' last day of school.  

 15 years went by in a flash!  Seriously, I remember being second lieutenants and thinking how old the 0-5's were!  Congratulations!!  We are very proud of your accomplishments and of all you do and we love you so much!

End of School and Our Garden!

I received a "your memory space is critically low" type message from my Mac last month so I was nervous to upload the pics off my camera.  I thought it would crash my computer!  It forced me to go through my 2012 pictures and edit.  I deleted enough last night I felt comfortable loading my May and June picture onto my computer.  Now it's time to catch up!

I feel like we are just starting summer - our boys didn't get out of school until almost mid-June.  Then their t-ball season went another two weeks after that...then the 4th of July showed up!   I feel like summer is almost over and we haven't done many summer-y things yet.

The day before their last day of school pic with their teacher Mrs. Williams.

 During their end-of-year program.

 Our almost-first-graders!

With their sweet friend H.

Last day of school pic with their friends.

We became good friends with two families who rented houses right down the street from ours and happened to be here for several months for training at the base.  My friend Erin's son is the same age as our boys and also had the same food allergies!  They have already moved back to their house near Portland and I will miss our walks to school to get the kids and our play dates.  I took a few pics during their last play date and asked them to act surprised in this pic.  As you can see, James was the most animated.  :)

How cute are they?

 I was excited to get our summer planting gear and get started on a garden (if I can call it that) this year.

We planted some plants in pots on the deck and some in the ground.  We planted a mini bell pepper and a green bell pepper plant, three types of cucumbers, four types of tomatoes, zucchini, basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme.

The tomato plants in the ground haven't done as well as what we planted on the deck. There is so much wind...can you see my sad attempt to block the wind we had the night after we planted by safety-pinning blankets to the fence?  The wind broke off a big branch on the tomato plant on night two.  Geoff said "this seems like a lot of work for a few tomatoes."  I don't have high expectations this year...but we have to try and see what works and what doesn't.

Fast forward a month...and the zucchini pictured above is huge.  The tomato plant on the deck has doubled in size and has a dozen tomatoes on it.  It has been really fun...the kids like to go out with me in the morning to see if anything changed overnight.

Katy is hard at work guarding the plants and herbs.  The dogs have left it all alone except for eating all the roots and dirt around one of the mini bell pepper plants about 15 minutes after I planted it.