A bit of rain, a bit of sun; No matter what, we still had fun!

I'm back and trying to catch up with everyone. Here's a small sampling of some of the fun we had, in spite of the rain. We managed to have a few good days where we could enjoy the beach and pool. No matter what, we always seem to have a good time camping.


Big discussions at the playground
























Face painting at the carnival

























Loving the beach


















































Family sand sculptures

And We're Off!

I just returned from getting Shaelyn at Heritage camp today. They had a great program for everyone to see. I got a few pictures that I'll try to post later. Tomorrow we leave for a week of camping. I will not have access to my computer, so don't look for any posts from me next week. I'll try to catch up the week after next. Hope you all are enjoying your summer. I am - but it's busy!

Heritage Camp

We've been busy this week. Shaelyn is going to Heritage Camp this week. Monday night she stayed over at a friend who we went to China with. She got to go to Bible School with her at night. Tuesday was the start of camp. There are kids from China, Guatemala, Eastern Europe, and Korea. I think there is something like 400 kids attending. She has painted a rock with Chinese words and is learning the lion dance. Camp starts at 9 every day and goes till 2:00. I found a neighbor who also goes so we're doing some car pooling. (It takes about 25 minutes one way)Tomorrow night, she will be staying over at Ellie's again. Friday, there is a special program to go to.
It's been incredibly busy but I thought I'd at least update you on what's going on!



Ready for bed?












Heading to Bible School












Recess time at Camp











Enjoying a eastern european lunch - beef stroganoff, pierogi's , vegetables

Cinderella Camp

Here is my little Cinderella after she went to camp last Thursday. The Gymnastics place has all kinds of different camps throughout the summer. Every Thursday is Princess Camp. Thursday's princess was Cinderella who is Shaelyn's favorite. Camp is from 11:00 - 3:00. They are given lunch, make a craft, learn a princess dance and get to play on the equipment. The crown she is wearing is what she got to make. She had such a good time. She wants to go to more. Later on is Diva camp where they got to have nails done and hair styled and do makeup. Can't get much more girly than that but go figure - she also wants to do Gladiator camp where there is obstacle courses. There are competitions against boys! We'll see. This week from Tuesday through Friday is Heritage camp. This is for adopted kids from different countries. She will get to learn about different aspects of China and meet about 150 other kids from China. I'll be letting you know how that goes!

First Year of Tee-Ball

Shaelyn played teeball for the first time this year. Dave was her coach. She really enjoyed it. One night, she had cheerleading and teeball so she decided to go to teeball because (in her words) the cheerleading team didn't need her! I guess the teeball team did. She loved making new friends and or course - snack was the best!


Shaelyn doing what she does best - hanging out with friends.
She is with Katiana - a friend she made at teeball.










Warm up exercises are crucial to winning the game!












Can you do this? You won't see me warming up for my games like this!












Dad helping adjust the tee












Made it on the base!

























Good game, everyone!

Festival Time

Saturday we headed downtown with some friends to check out Festival. For those of you not around here, every June we have Festival of the Arts. There is something like 30-40 food booths with everything from Chinese, Mexican, Greek, Ice Creams - you name it - it there. Then there are different areas with singing, dancing; all kinds of different art forms that you can watch. For the kids, there is painting, balloons and different crafts; all for FREE!!! Shaelyn had a great time doing the crafts. She also got her face painted and a balloon dog. It was warm but actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Anybody that lives near here, should really check this out if you haven't been there before. It was a fun time!



Here we were, sitting under the shade enjoying a bit
of Chinese food. It was delicious!












This gives you an idea of what it looked like downtown.













Weird girls - the heat must be getting to them!











There was a big area for kids to paint. They would
get a sheet of paper and go to work. Shaelyn always got
distracted and was busy talking to the kids next to her!












Working on making her hat at the Mad Hatter.
Look at all the cool
stuff they had to use!












Here she is with her finished hat.

We fought the water and - WE LOST!

Most of you know about the bad weather that went through Saturday. We were watching "JAWS" (go figure) around 9:00 and I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Water was pouring in through our sliding door. Dave and Katelyn went outside to try to put a barricade in front of the door while Chelsea and I searched for the hose for the wet vac. Meanwhile, water is continuing to pour in. There was about 3 inches of water on our cement slab that continued to come through. They finally managed to stop it from the outside while Chelsea and I vacuumed up the water on the tile floor. The water had seeped right into the carpet and into Katelyn's room. It is a horrible feeling to walk across your carpet and feel and hear squishy sounds! I used our vacuum carpet cleaner to try to suction the water out of the carpet but it really was not much good. There's just too much there. We were up till 1:30 cleaning. Dave was the only one to make it to church in the morning. The really awful part is that insurance will not cover water damage. That really stinks because we never claim anything. I wonder how much we've put into insurance and never gotten a dime out of them!
We got 5 inches of rain just on Saturday night. We got some more on Sunday afternoon. They are predicting storms for this afternoon and into tonight. Then we get a few days of relief with more predicted from later in the week. Our ground really needs time to absorb all this moisture. Pray that we get some relief!
Here's some pictures so you get an idea of what happened.


YUCK! This is the tile in the area in front of the slider door. Thank goodness
that we have that there! This is what I vacuumed up with the shop vac.
To the right a bit further than you can see, is where we have the carpet start,which got soaked.






This is coming into Katelyn's room. You can see our footprints
that are soaked with the water in the carpet.











This is our barricade. The water was coming down the hill to the
right. These are our bricks and wooden pieces set up.










Close up of the torn up grass. The cement pieces are
where the creek usually is.











Some of the trees falling into the water.












Here is the creek rising again on Sunday afternoon
You can see the patch of green grass that got ripped
away Saturday night. Usually, the creek is about 1/2
the size of the bridge.






Here is how our bridge is looking.
The creek must have risen right over top
and carried the railroad ties about a 1/2 mile
down the creek to the neighbors house.

Last day of School

The girls both finished school last Wednesday. I am a "bit" behind posting.
It was kind of a sad day for me. Shaelyn has finished her first official school year and is moving to 1st grade next year. She will be attending a different school (she is transferring to a Christian school which is what we always planned on doing) She had a great year and a wonderful teacher.
Chelsea has finished her sophomore year and is preparing for the junior year. I think that is one of the tougher ones so it could be more of a challenge next year.
Farewell school year 2007-2008. You were a great year!

I Love You This Much!

UPDATE: I have received a complaint from someone who shall remain anonymous. Someone was not feeling love so I'm going to also have to include:
Ginger from Just a Thought!
I hope she knows I love her!!





I received this award from my sister, Mari. Since all of my blogging family members have received this, I'll give to it a few bloggy friends. These are people who's blogs I read every day and love to hear about.


Jennifer from Nickernoodles Nonsense
Sheri - from Super Sammy!
Cheryl from Cherdecor
Bonnie from Simple Beauty

So I'm sending love across the US and even across a few oceans. Hope you'll catch my hug!

Outdoor Discovery Center

Shaelyn had a field trip last Friday - to the Outdoor Discovery Center. Do you remember that it rained on Friday? Well, it turned out okay. We were inside a building for the most of it while the kids were taught about wetlands and pond animals. You can see that there were a lot of stuffed animals to look at. Some of the animals they got to touch were a snake, frog, toad, painted turtle and snapping turtle. After the weather cleared up a bit, we went outside and got to eat our lunches under a picnic area.
We had a lot of fun together.


See all the animals.











Touching a toad.











They got to scoop up pond water and use a magnifying glass to check it out a little better.




Here are some of the elk in the woods.








We got to stop at her teachers house and pet her dog. What's more exciting than
going to your teachers house?



The weather had cleared up so we ended at Timbertown to play.