Back to School

I don't think he wanted to go. He wouldn't smile. (But he had a great day)
Samantha, on the other hand, was so excited.

Derek was just his goofy self and his homeroom teacher likes the Steelers, so of course, he had to wear his jersey the first day.

And our freshman--scary. He was fine. The hard part is going to be swim team.

I just know that when they came home, the noise was driving me crazy! I am just so proud of all of them.

Summer Fun

We've tried to have some fun this summer. The kids decided to have a campout in the backyard. We made smores over the bbq.

Surprisingly, they stayed in the tent all night.

Jeff's birthday, but since he doesn't like cake, his candles were in his ice cream.

Here is our 8 year old going on 16. She decided to take over the bathroom with all her make-up. Don't worry, she still can't wear it out of the house.

And, Sea World

This is under the killer whale, if you can see it.

These were some acrabats on poles. They were good. There are a lot of Sea World, but I didn't want to put them all.

The highlight was probably the roller coaster ride for the kids. Nicholas is the only one that has ever been on a roller coaster before. They loved it!

And the beach was awesome.

Jeff's highlight was seeing this air craft carrier come into port.

School starts in 2 weeks. Hopefully the kids are all partied out.

You can tell school's out when....

So, after strict instructions to not call me every 10 minutes just to say someone was bothering them, they only called me 3 or 4 times and Jeff twice. And, all afternoon I don't hear from them and think Jeff got home early. Well, not the case. You can tell school is out when you find this...

and this, including the poor boy that is going to be hurting big time from using sunscreen while his shirt was still on

and this,

and this (after effects of a Nerf gun war)

and my favorite was this gift I found on the porch. "I love you Derek Austill. Will you marry me? From your secret admirerer." But then she gave her name.

I told him not to date until 16!

Birthday Boy

14 Wow! And he starts to dress up for occasions like this! He wanted an ice cream cake, so needless to say, I didn't make it.

He actually opened his presents a couple of days early

(What a mistake we made giving him a Touch)

He had 8th grade Promotion the night of his birthday. Here he is and Jeff yelled out happy birthday to him, but he didn't hear. Darn, we wanted to embarass him.

He was the second one to walk in.

They started this cool 8th grade wall. His is the bottom one with the sports ball face.

And here he is with most of the guys he hangs out with. They are a good bunch of kids.

Baby Steps

First we started with a lot of weeds. This is just a small pile of them. We had this whole side of the back in dried up weeds.

This was last year after clearing out the weeds.

Then Jeff put a nice border of tiles and we tried planting grass. It didn't work.

And, believe it or not, we had a lot of rain this winter and it kept flooding. Even to the point we couldn't get to the garbage cans.

So, this year, Jeff and the boys layed sod.

Then, yesterday we had a lot of helpers come to "rock on."

And, yes, some got dumped in the pool.

Oh, and our tile paver path. It all looks great!

And, here is our garden with our lovely path and those are tomato plants that are taking over. We have eaten several zucchini already.

BASEBALL

Kade's school class got free tickets to a Diamondback's baseball game. We jumped at the chance to go.
Ok, so Samantha and Kade got a little bored, when they weren't eating something.

The roof slides back and the sides of the building twist, so it was completely open. It's a pretty neat place.

They lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, but oh well. It was fun.

Sunday Drive

Last Sunday we decided to go for a Sunday drive. While we were enjoying nature, we had Derek
and Nicholas do our family home evening.

We found snow!

The boys, well Jeff, started a snowball fight.

We came across this pretty lake.

Jeff fed the squirrels right out of his hand.

I took this picture because I was trying to get Jeff to hold up his finger. He cut him with a butter knife, but he didn't want to show it. Strong butter knife!

We had a nice little picnic and just enjoyed the scenery.