Blue Harbor

Eva had a great time with all her loving cousins at Blue Harbor.  They played with her endlessly and they taught her how to go down  a water slide and how to jump into the deep water.

After this trip Luke asked if Daddy could stay home all day every day.  They had some great time to bond.

Luke and Boden working on a huge hole in the sand.

Here Luke is flying a kite. 

My sister couldn't help herself at the latest rummage.  She came with two bags full of clothes for Eva.  Eva is certainly loved.  Trish might have wanted a grown up version of some of the clothes.  Thank you Trish.

We always go out to dinner on Saturday night as family of 16 for my mom's birthday. 

All the cousins at the harbor.

Firefly

Seven days of mosquitoes, no baths, pit toilets, sippy sups with accumulated sour milk, and sand in almost every diaper.  Who would ever think that would be so much fun?  Every year we flood the Reserve America system to try and get four sites at this lake.  We had so much fun with the Kostners, Van Dixhorns, Sieberers, Johnsons, and Krauses.  We swam at the beach every day.   When we went for a bike ride with two bike trailers, Luke and Jake yelled, "Faster Dave Faster," the entire time.  Dave put the bike into the lowest gear to give the impression he was speeding along and then would do accelerations down hill.  We watched a water ski show and both boys had to have new toy boats to match.  Luke's favorite was the hot flair boat.  We enjoyed sharing meals with the extended family and playing in the forest.

After a trip into Minoqua both kids got their clothes completly wet so here they are sitting with no clothes on eating doughnuts on the way home.  What a great trademark of summer.

Pamela Therapy

Every year our friend Pamela helps us capture our favorite things about our kids. We love how they play together. If we had to define their interaction in one word we would have to use a word Luke created, Rabbly.

 

What's and oreo?

We camped with 16 adults and 19 kids at Governor Dodge State Park and I only have pictures of two... We didn't get out the camera much. We do have much video of the kids riding their bikes, scooters, and push toys on the road. There were only two injuries even when the men convinced Austin (4) to go to the top of the hill on a pink scoot toy and descend the entire hill with no brakes. We also may have set a record for time at the beach, we spend from 9:00am-3:30pm at the beach. Luke had the most fun he has had at the beach as he is now floating on his tube and running in the water. I had a great time at the beach too. It is so much more fun when your kids are having a good time. We used our tent and new cots for the first time and it was a large improvement from the 20 year old 3 person tent on the backpacking mats. The tent did well in the rain storm on Saturday night. We had a great time bonding with friends while our kids did the same. Camping also always teaches you something new about your old friends that you never knew (Bud, Brad, Matt, Andy). I don't have pictures of all the great food, the airplane contest, Gretchen sleeping with her son in the pack and play, Caleb's bloody lip, or the jiffy pop made with bare hands. We can't wait for next year.
One of my favorite quotes from Luke was after I gave him the list of dessert choices, rice crispy treat, chocolate chip cookie, or Oreo, he looked at me very inquisitively and asked, "What is an Oreo?" There are so many great things to learn from camping. He choose the double stuff Oreo with delight.

Red, White and Blue

The Fourth of July is a great time to spend with friends.  We are so thankful for our friends that feel like family.  We enjoyed a parade, band concert, swimming, and a carnival together.  Eva loved the Bucky Badger 5th quarter.  You can see her dancing with Daddy.  Thank you Gretchen and Joy for the fun birthday celebration!

This is the best picture that I have of Luke and Eva at Big Cedar Lake on the third of July.  I just loved her dress that day.

On the second of July we got to celebrate with all these cute kids... Paeton, Riley, Bradey, Eva, Matthew, and Luke on top.

Jenny, myself, Leslie, and Marlaina, women that I am so thankful for.

Peace begins with a smile

You could not possibly bottle up more hope and love than a 20 month old. Today she was wearing a shirt that said, "Peace begins with a smile." I think Eva's smile can put the world to ease. I feel like it brings about greater peace just for a moment. I think she has a powerful way to make everything that is wrong right. That is something that is just a special gift to a mother.

Race writing

Every so often Luke goes through some new stage. He used to be Mr. Puzzle or Mr. Line up. Now he is into doing everything fast and doing everything to completion. He will do one 368 page coloring book in one sitting just so he can wear down the crayons and so he can color on every page. He went through one box of the wide crayons in 3 days. He has a similar obsession with sidewalk chalk. It took him less than 40 minutes to use an entire case of sidewalk chalk. We have now switched to dry erase materials so I do not have to buy 300 pages for every day he is home in the summer. We are working on slowing down when he is writing. He also loves getting data on any distance or speed he can obtain. He keeps a running log of Dave's odometer every time he gets home. Right now it is over 221,000 miles and it is winning. My car only has about 140,000 miles. He needs to know the distance of every place that he loves to visit. How far to Minnesota, Chicago, Eagle River, Sayner, Sheboygan, Madison, Watertown, etc. He needs comparative data on the velocities of every car, plane, helicopter, golf cart, horse, bird, cheetah, and person. He does love looking at how big the number will be in the back of books. He still will collect all the largest books in the house, including the bible and make a two foot stack and ask me to add the total number of pages. I also included a picture of a missing piece to my car. Luke likes to play in the car and he got this from somewhere. I can't find where it goes and I was wondering if anybody knows. It is not the ash tray. You would think I could figure it out.