Camping, Boating, and Eating

We took a camping trip with Lauren and Sandy to a lake not to far from here. The campsites were great...lots of room in between, right by the lake, and they even had water and electricity! Our first time camping w/ hook-ups! The weather was so nice...the kids didn't even step foot into the trailer during the day. They played games outside, played in the water, and waited for the next boat ride!
The kids were learning to play Rook this time!

Much of the fun of the whole boating thing is watching the thrill of the kids as they tube, ride, or try to water ski....Trent, Kelsey, and Kyla all tried to ski....(ok, so did I but without success!), but Robert and Lauren were the only 2 who made it up!
Robert catching some air!Sometimes, the afternoons get long when you are riding on a boat, and when you normally take a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon! We just left him on the boat....Robert would stop, let some kids off, load on other people, and he slept right thru it! He was the only one wide awake at the campfire that night!
One morning, after taking Chloe for a walk at the water's edge, I decided we should eat our bkft down there...so we put our pancakes and smokies and all our stuff in a big bag and went to the shore for a breakfast by the lake! Was great! This was one of our most fun camping trips ever!

Piper Healey

Our niece has arrived! Kelvin and Leila had their baby girl!
Piper Healey
7lbs 10 oz.
22"
Monday, June 18

I think she is SO precious already! I can't WAIT to see her and hold her!!!! And I can't believe my "little" brother is a daddy!!! Congratulations, Kelvin and Leila!

Father's Day

Father's Day!!! Robert opted to not have the usual breakfast in bed this year, since he's usually the first one up anyway! But he did get the typical cinnamon roll bkft that has become our tradition. Then we went out to a nice dinner....this is our first year we've gone out for Mother's Day and Father's Day. Typically, we've stayed home and made the "guest of honor's" choice....but now that our kids are all at the age where restaurants are actually fun, we decided to go out...and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Notice Jared's arm up on Robert's shoulder! So wanting to show he belongs to Daddy! :) Of course, Chloe had to be in the picture now, too!

And....the lineup as usual!

The Ol' Swimmin' Hole

Trying out the pool before it's even filled up! I missed the picture of them swimming w/ their goggles in 2" of water!

It is hot here!

The boys are making good use of the little kiddie pool we just bought. Notice that it is so deep and big that we have to use an inner tube to get around in it! Ha!

Ah, but don't those goggles look comfortable?

Our Waterfall

Our yard is coming along. We are almost done. Here is our waterfall. The plants are starting to grow and will soon be filling in and hanging over the rock some. I'll post pictures of our completed yard as well as the "during" photos.....sometime this summer anyway!

A new and improved (?) Chloe

From this.....................................


...........to this! As you can see, we had Chloe groomed....(these pictures were taken about a month and a half ago)...What a change! We could hardly recognize her! At first, Byron thought she looked ugly, but by the time we came home, he liked her! Jared liked her right away, but Trent did NOT! I felt quite "detached" from her for a few hours until her eyes kept telling me she really IS Chloe! Robert was on a week long business trip, so he had a "new" dog when he came home! In one way, her disheveled look just went right along w/ her personality. And now she looks so dignified! Not sure she acts dignified, however! The only trouble is, the spot we took her to did a terrible job..uneven lines (high on one side, low on the other), no blending between the close cut and the longer "skirt", razor burn from cutting so close....skin actually showing on her head and behind her ears, etc....so we took her to another spot that we heard about....and they tried to fix it as best they could...but we realized time would have to do the rest! And we MISSED our black dog! The people at the "good" place said sometimes those black guard hairs get damaged the way the other place shaved her down, and she maybe would never be black again...she looked so funny being part black (where they left the skirt without even trimming it!) and then tan where they shaved her. At this new place, they actually hand strip the dogs, so their original color is maintained. They'd not seen a schnauzer cut this bad/short for a long time! So now we've taken her back again to the "good" place, and YES, her black hair has started to grow out again, and she is looking SO pretty now! They were able to even her out some, although it was so short, it probably won't all be evened out till next time.Here she is now..... we think she's so pretty now that she's turning black again!

Reading in Bed...one of the Great Joys of Summer Vacation!

Well, here are our two boys, at 10:20 p.m., reading up in J's bed! It may LOOK light in there, but it was completely dark, save the glow of the flashlight..(the light is just from my camera's flash). I soon went to bed....I have no idea how long they stayed up reading before Trent headed off to his room!

On the Mound

Trent really enjoys baseball. This year he got to pitch, and he loved that! It was his favorite position!

Rust In Peace

Well, the time has come......we got rid of our 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra. We bought it 17 years ago. We've had a lot of memories...........our honeymoon, taking Grandma Trafelet to Sea World, getting dents from golf ball size hail, bringing Trent home from the hospital, enjoying special visits w/ Walter and Mae, etc. etc.

I don't have any pictures of when our car was new!! Can you believe it? Not even any w/ our car on our honeymoon!

63 oil changes, 13 transmission fluid changes, and 288,139 miles later...here we are, taking it to drop it off. The kids loved it. They always wanted to ride in "Daddy's work car". It's been a good car, giving us very few problems until this last year or so. Robert wanted to get it to 300,000 miles, but the last few weeks, it's been quitting on him, in spite of what he tried to fix. The last straw was when it quit for 20 minutes before it would start, and Robert thought it was a goner then. The 2 youngest kids were with him and they entertained him w/ suggestions as he tried to start the car. "Put it in drive, that'll work!" "Open the hood" "Call 911" "Can we push?" "Are we going to have to get a wrecker?" "The security guard can fix it!" etc. We weren't even sure what we'd do w/ it, b/c the donation companies that like your cars wouldn't take it, even the junkyard refused! But it all worked out in the end!

School's out!

School's out! How better to celebrate than w/ an evening around the fire! It was a beautiful evening, the fire was pretty, and the s'mores were yummy! It wasn't long before Jared and Byron got sleepy and went up to bed! And now the R & Rin' can begin in earnest!

Kelsey's 8th grade graduation

Can it be that Kelsey is really graduating from the 8th grade? It doesn't seem that long ago that I would grab her from her mom the second they walked thru our door...and I'd keep her the entire evening if I could! That, of course, was before we had our own kids to love up! ;)

Kelsey w/ her sis's and dad.

4 Fingered Pianist

This is an amazing 10 minute video worth watching. It is about a 20 year old Korean girl who was born severely deformed, but did not let it stop her from becoming an accomplished pianist. You will thoroughly enjoy this clip!

http://dopejam.multiply.com/video/item/6