Ardenwood Farm

In July, our neighbors invited us to go to Ardenwood Farm with them.  That's a historical farm on the edge of Fremont.  It was a lot of fun.

Jessie loves to look at animals.  This bunny was perfect, because it's cute, but she couldn't touch.  She doesn't really want to touch the animals very often anyway.  Perfect for my little Jessie.

Josh is petting a goat.  What fun!

Emily is absolutely the animal lover in the family.  I think she would love to live on a full blown farm.

Emily even found a cow to pet.

The farm has a few blackberry bushes that they let people pick from for a little snack while at the farm.

This is as close to the action as Nick gets most of the time.  Well, at least he can enjoy it.  What a cute smile.

July 4th Remnants

On Independence Day this year, we went and watch a really spectacular fireworks display by a family just outside of Bartlesville.  The next day, my mom had arranged for us to help clean up the mess from the festivities, so part of our family reunion was spent on a service project.  I thought that was really great.  It was truly amazing that with all the people that had attended, there wasn't much mess left behind by the spectators. Most of the mess was from the fireworks themselves.  That's awesome that people were willing to take care of their own stuff at the end of the celebration.  Somehow, I ended up with only one photo from the effort.  It is cute, though, so I had to share.

My nephew Wyatt, pulling his sister, Sammy.  Jessie's in the background with her little green skirt on.

My mom had bought some glow sticks for the kids, and we left them at the house that night.  Oh well.  So, we got to bring them back to California with us.  The first Family Home Evening that we had after the kids discovered them, we used them for the activity.

The three kids playing with the glow sticks in the dark.  The pictures didn't come out quite like we'd hoped.

So, we tried it with the flash.  That made things a little too bright.  But they had so much fun anyway.

Camping

We love to go camping.  But we usually don't make it out more than once a year.  This year, we had a chance to go camping as a family the first weekend of August.  It was our best camping trip ever...  or least complicated at least.

The kids all getting ready to go to sleep.  Sleep is so exciting when you are anywhere but your own bed.

Nick was even excited

About the "least complicated" part?  Yeah, that's our backyard.  :)

It was kind of nice not having the travel and all the preparations, and the fire to keep the kids out of, etc.  Oh!  And there was a nice crib for Nick to sleep in.  He was so mad when he had to go to bed in his own bed.  Not so exciting.  :(  Poor little boy.  

Did you notice how HUGE our backyard is?  Don't let the tent filling it up fool you.  It's just a really large tent.  ;)

Voting?

After taking these photos of Emily, I realized she looks like she just participated in voting in Iraq.  (Unless it's really some other country where they get purple fingers for voting)  Anyhow, Emily had a little mishap on her scooter.  She was speeding along, and attempted to make a turn a little too sharp and too fast.  She caught herself with her hands, but somehow landed in such a way that badly bruised the tip of her finger.  I thought maybe she had broken it, but she could bend it and everything.  The doctor's office, when I called, suggested that it was probably just a bruise.  Sure glad I didn't take her in to find out she had a bruise.  :)

Sure is a pretty color of purple

I seem to remember seeing pictures of people like this just after voting in Iraq(?).  Except they were generally not trying to pretend to frown.  It was a good effort, though.

Pushing the Stroller

So, I was going to share a video, but I apparently don't know how to do that.  Instead, you get a picture.  Nick's favorite activity now a days is pushing the toy stroller.  He's getting pretty good at it.  Will he walk soon?  Who knows?  But, to keep up with Josh, he'd have to start walking this week.  I think Josh's Family Record is safe. 

One more try at the video...

 

I hope it works for you

Spiderman

On July 27, Josh's friend had a birthday party for his 6th birthday, and we were all invited.  It was quite an experience, to say the least.  There was pizza, a Spiderman bounce house, and a real live DJ to get it all started.  (I missed the first half of this because Nick was taking a nap.)

After it all got going, a couple pinata's were brought in for the kids.  The first one was Woody from Toy Story for the youngest kids.  Apparently, there were only 2 kids there for that one, and neither of them knew what to do.  Jessie was second, I believe, and got some help.  After a moment, she gave it a real good whack.  Everyone cheered, and she stopped.  She had no idea what was going on.  After that pinata was done, they brought in the one for the big kids.  It was a Spiderman, of course, and it was bigger than Emily.  This was a bit too much for Jessie, and she started crying.  So, Peter got to hold her for a little bit.  When she saw the other kids start to whack this thing, she really started to freak out.  At that point, Peter took her with him to come get me.  She didn't realize it wasn't a real person, and all these people were hitting him.  Poor girl.  At least she got a nap in the car, and we had a talk about the pinata when we got a chance.  But we shall never be able to revive her relationship with the hero again.

Later, the "real" Spidey made an appearance.

Emily was the only one of the three who was willing to go near him

Jessie wouldn't even look at him.  Poor girl.

   

At the beginning of July, my family had a reunion in Bartlesville, OK.  On July 3, we took a trip to visit Woolaroc.  It was a nice place to visit.  The kids got to pet some animals.  And there was a nice little museum to explore.

Emily is always excited to see animals. She would have been more than happy to get IN the pen with this little guy if she had been allowed to.

Jessie's a little more cautious, but she still loves to look at the animals... leaving a little more distance between herself and the creature whenever possible.

Here's a random picture from in the museum.  I'm not sure who had the camera at this time, but it was obviously not me.

Here I am, holding Mr. Nick.  He was a bit tired, but very happy to be out of his stroller for a few minutes.

After taking those couple pictures, my Dad asked me if I'd seen the sign that indicated they'd prefer you not to use flash photography.  Oops!  Totally missed that one.

But, the most exciting part of this visit happened just before the museum while we were exploring outside.  We found a nice tower above a building, so several of us climbed up to get a view.  I was lagging behind, so I decided to pull out a camera to get a picture of everyone up there.  This is what happened next.

I looked up to try to get a picture, and heard Jessie start crying.  If you look close, you'll see Jessie's head sticking out through the bars.  Those are Nathan's hands above her head, trying to push the bars apart to help her out.

After several minutes, and with the help of a real firefighter, (my brother-in-law, Travis),  and several other grown men, (Peter, Nathan, and my Dad) Jessie was freed from her captivity.

She came down and sat in my lap after the whole ordeal was over.

  By the way, so you notice how red we all were?  That's the product of super low temperatures in the upper 90's that day, and nearly 100% humidity.  I guess I just need reminders why it's okay to live so far away from home. We have great weather here in the bay area, even if we have to fly to get to see grandparents.

Swimming Lessons

During the last couple weeks of July, the kids got to take swimming lessons.  The pool was nice and warm.  Thank goodness for that.  Who'd have thunk that the highs during the middle of July would have been in the 60's?  And I thought it was cold when I took them as a kid. 

Joshua hanging on the side of the deep end of the pool

Emily about to jump off the diving board.  Emily is like a fish in the water.  She loves the diving board, and by the end of the class, she was able to swim back to the side without help from her teacher.

Jessie was so happy to be in swimming lessons.  On the last day of class, she even went off the diving board, too!  Go, Jessie!

I was going to try to tell a little more, but this new format on blogger is really confusing.  It will take a bit to get used to.  Until then, I will try to at least get a few more pictures up.