Six Little Girls

...That's what you get when we get together with our good friends, Brad and Melynie....

...but they sure are cute!....

Once everyone was feeling better, we had a great time together! Well, Melynie and I had a great time after dinner on Friday, when we sent 5 kids home with Brad and Ryan and she and I went shopping! Crocs outlet - need I say more?! Sunday morning the guys took the girls on a hike down to a marina and enjoyed a half hour of pedal-boating. Melynie and I packed up our fish (I'll explain later) and headed down to meet them. Families where the moms are friends, the dads are friends, and the kids are friends are such a blessing! We're so glad they're a drivable distance for the next two years!

Smithsonian Adventure

Saturday, we ventured out on our own from Melynie's house. We planned on doing this for a little while, to not interrupt their day too much. But when Baileigh and Brooke both had 103 fevers, we decided to really make a day of it! We parked and took the Metro all the way downtown. The girls thought the train ride was fun.
We started at the Natural History museum because the girls wanted to see dinosaur bones. It was cool, despite the countless exhibits on evolution (insert eye roll here). Lila kept telling us, "Yesterday we saw alive animals, and today we're seeing dead ones!" Yup. Pretty much.

We left the museum and strolled the streets for while - saw the White House, enjoyed a sit down lunch, and rode the Metro. We ended up back at the Smithsonian Castle Gardens, and, of course if you know my husband, the Air and Space Museum.
The highlights of the day were the butterfly exhibit, a hands-on bones exhibit, American Idol desk, great lunch, riding the Metro, Daddy's teaching moments :), and the family timer photo shoot. We got back to our friends' house just after seven and found healthy children and a wonderful dinner waiting for us!!

National Zoo

We had a super weekend visiting friends in the DC area. We stopped at the Smithsonian Zoo on Friday on the way down. It was really hot (we're not accustomed to summer weather yet in NJ!), so lots of the animals were resting, but we had fun.

Finally Summer!

After living in, what seemed like the Seattle area for the past month, the sun decided to reaquaint itself with us. Welcome back, sunshine! Oh, how we've missed you! It's finally summer!

Frankie-Pie

We've been watching one of my mom's dogs this week while they were away. It's been a non-stop dog-fest over here, which is sometimes fun, and sometimes really annoying. Trudy and Frank get along splendidly. They love to play together, perhaps too much! :)
Frankie's been good (for the most part), but I'm ready to not have dogs wrestling and tumbling under my feet (literally!) 24/7. Lila has sure loved having him around, the cute little fella!

Rough Week

Emma has had a rough week, but we're so proud of her.

First, she had the Closing - Bridging Ceremony for Brownies. Emma is the only one in her troop of 15 girls that is not continuing on to Jr. Girl Scouts. This started out as my decision, but she understood and came around. She's so involved in soccer, chorus, church choir, and wants to start piano lessons, so we decided that something had to give.
She's done Daisies and Brownies for 4 years and enjoyed it. Two weeks ago, after the last real Brownie meeting, we had major tears. She felt so left out. ALL of her friends were moving up, and all they talked about was how great next year would be. Her troop leader didn't even do anything to make her feel more comfortable about her decision. :( She didn't want to even attend the Bridging Ceremony (which was totally fine with me - one less thing!). But this week she decided that she was still OK with not continuing in GS, and she wanted to finish her year properly with the ceremony. What a great decision! We were really proud of her. Lila and I attended the dreadfully long event. Emma was the only one wearing her brown vest - the others all had their new green ones on. She smiled through it all. Watching her be able to stand alone was awesome. We're raising a strong young lady who knows who she is.

"...crossing the bridge..."

I LOVE this one of her watching her friends move up.
She's living up to her middle name - Grace

We got home from the ceremony and Ryan had just gotten home and was on the phone.... with Emma's soccer coach.... she didn't make the team. Come on! Could the timing be any worse?! I'm happily reinforcing what a great decision she's made because of all of the other things she has going on, and the biggest thing gets taken from her?! We were pretty shocked. We knew it was a possibility, but try-outs were so long ago, we figured we were all safe. How heart-breaking to tell your 9-year-old that she got cut from the team she's played on for 2 years! She was tearful at first, but again, we're so proud of her! She talked all evening about the things she wants to try this year while she has more free time. She asked if we would help her work on her soccer all year so she could try out next year. She even went to school the next day and, with grace, told her teammates on her own, so they wouldn't be wondering about where she was. And she wanted them to know that she was OK with it and not to feel bad for her. What a strong kid! I heard that the other girl that was cut ran to her room, threw all of her Warriors stuff in a box and dumped it in the trashcan. I think we had a much better reaction.

Ryan and I prayed for a long time about our soccer involvement for next year, so we're happy with the outcome. And, we were able to tell Emma that we had prayed about it. We talked about how her identity isn't in Girl Scouts or being part of a team. God made her special on her own, and her identity is in Him and with her family. These are great lessons in the middle of what's been a tumultuous few months of school-girl drama. It's been a hard week to be a mom, but oh so rewarding!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Happy Birthday to my super-terrific husband! He's even more handsome today, than the 17 year old I fell in love with 20 years ago!! (That's my hint at how old he is!) We celebrated with coffee and presents on the new patio furniture before he cut the lawn.


And there's nothing like a little baseball in your underwear to celebrate your dad's birthday...



Then we went to the End of Year Soccer BBQ - talk about a wild Bday party! The girls insisted on putting candles in their "Warriors" cake for "Mr. King". You can't get more enthusiastic than 15 9-year-olds singing to you! (My beautiful soccer cake melted a bit.)


We gave Ryan a Badminton set for his birthday, and we've all played quite a few rounds today.

Meet Lenny...

He's a toad that lived in Lila's critter box for about an hour today. Boy, did we enjoy having him around!

Kingdom Kids

Our church kids' choir was invited to sing at an outdoor festival on Saturday. They did a great job and made Jesus proud! :) Little missionaries - that's what Miss Julie calls them!

Lining up, ready to sing

Lila and Ben:
This picture is not crooked on my computer. I tried to upload it several times, but it keeps coming out sideways! My only explanation is the two personalities photographed here. If you know them, you can understand that maybe, if anyone could, they have the will to twist a picture if they decide to!

Emma's the second in from the left

Art Show

It was a busy week here, last week. We had something to do almost every night. I guess that's another sign that the year is coming to a close. Ahhh.. I can't wait for summer! I'm sure I'll change my mind after I have both girls home for a week, but right now, I'm excited to do nothing. To not have to wake anyone up, and maybe have a few quiet moments to myself in the morning would be great! To not have to shuttle anyone back and forth to activities - even better! I'm really looking forward to some down time with my girls!

Anyway, Emma's school Art Show was a fun way to spend an evening. Here she is with two of her pieces. A cut paper landscape, and a self-portrait:

Hers is the one with the brown island, on green background paper.
Can you see the tiny island girl wearing a coconut bra?!

Can you find her self-portrait?
...middle left - green background

They always have fun hands-on art projects in the cafeteria for the kids. Here's Lila doing a stamp painting.

Spring Concert

Emma had her school concert last week for Orff Ensemble and Chorus. She's in both groups, and they were combined in the same concert (thank you!). Emma loves being involved in the music programs. She's very talented, we've recently learned, and we very proud of her.

Here she is, "Orffin'" it up...

...And the crowd goes wild! ...

Her music teacher does a great job with all of those kids. They don't just stand and sing 10 songs, there's something different and fun going on with each of the songs. Each child gets a "special part" of their choosing, and they participate in dance routines, making props, singing solos, reading poetry, writing songs, and acting out lyrics. She even gets the boys to love being in Chorus! The songs all centered around a Going Green theme this year.

3rd and 4th Grade Chorus

2nd row, on the right

This is blurry, but here she is singing her solo part (on the left).
She sang a verse from "The Tree Song", which, ironically, I sang when I was in elementary school chorus!!

Some of the happy spectators, Ryan was busy videotaping.