Summer celebration

You've seen a version of these pictures for the past three years now. The regular school summer celebration once again featured the train in the parking lot!

John was all tears last year. Smiles this year.

Snow Cones.

A tad bit wary, but very excited with the end result (a basketball).

4 years, 9 months & 2 years, 6 months

Happy half birthday to John today!

It was a bit wet and gloomy out this morning, so we tried to find a brighter spot on campus for our monthly pictures.

After our exciting trip to Montana earlier in the month, the past few weeks have fallen into a nice relaxing routine. Swim lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays with some fun sprinkled in on the weekends. We've got another adventure planned starting next Friday, though!

This next week is my last week at Family Star. On August 21st, I'll start in a preschool program at our local elementary school. I may not have grasped that I'm leaving Family Star, but I am certainly aware that I get to go to Centennial Elementary and I'm super excited!

John will continue at Family Star so that means this will be the first time Mom and Dad have had to juggle two separate drop offs and pick ups. Welcome to the real world, I guess!

John continues to use many more words. And even strangers can grasp quite a bit of what he's saying now. Although when Ryal and Owen were here last week, Dad and I still had to help translate.

Monthly questions:

Asked to Tess:

1. How excited are you to start at Centennial? A lot

2. How excited are you for our next road trip? A lot!

3. What are you looking forward to doing on our trip? Coloring!

4. What is your favorite thing to cook? Pasta

5. What is your favorite thing to eat? Pasta

Asked to John:

1. Favorite color: Blue

2. Favorite book: This one! (he walked out of his room holding Little Blue Truck)

3. Favorite movie or TV show:  TV show!

4. Favorite dessert: Cake

5. Favorite dog: Hmmm...Keillor

6. Favorite sport: My owl is coming!

And then I also insisted on answering John's questions, as well:

So more asked to Tess:

1. Favorite color: Purple and pink

2. Favorite book: Frozen! (I was reading it as Dad was asking the questions)

3. Favorite movie or TV show: Daniel Tiger

4. Favorite dessert: Brownies

5. Favorite dog: Keillor (with an eye roll)

6. Favorite sport: Volleyball

Church

Bluegrass church service at the local park.

Library art

Dad and I stumbled upon an art petting zoo at the local library recently. They encouraged us to paint with all sorts of different items like pine cones, tennis balls, and ourselves!

Applying a rainbow to the bottom of my feet.

Human stamp!

Golfing

We had so many Montana pictures that we've back up the regular blog posts a bit. Today's content comes from Zoё's birthday party a couple weekends ago!

We were fascinated that one of the golf holes went right through this little house!

Dad and I lost Mom and John near the end of the party, but these two gentlemen offered to come home with us instead.

After dinner entertainment

Ice cream

Erin was in charge last Wednesday night and our big adventure was a trip out for ice cream after supper. Erin also demonstrated her veteran moves by taking us to a playground right after the ice cream to burn off the sugar!

John described this as chocolate in vanilla the following morning when Dad asked (it was Oreo).

Thanks to Erin for the photos!

Fries

One last one from Montana.

John had his own fries in front of him, but insisted on helping Uncle Jeff finish his!

Heading home

Random mix of pictures to wrap up our Montana trip...

The boys decided to close their eyes through this one!

Dessert!

Relaxing.

Back to work!

Lunch at a rest area in Montana.

Beach

Lake Como's beach just south of where Grandpa and Grandma live in Hamilton. It was very hot, but that didn't seem to bother the kids. We stayed for hours!

Making sand cake.

Even cousin Ollie wanted to get in on the fun.

The only way the adults could endure the heat was to stay in the water!

Cousins

7 kids. 8 adults. One house.

Evening routine.

6 out of 7.

7 out of 7. Best shot of about 30!

 
Dad said, "Look right."

"Look left."

"Look up."

Moana.

Fearless

There's no holding this kid back. John stood at the top while everyone was talking about the best technique. Finally, he couldn't take the talking any longer and just went for it. Dad got the camera out for his second attempt:

4th of July

Continuing with pictures from our Montana trip for the next few days!

John and Dad met a new friend just hanging out in the middle of the road. They helped him to the side for safety.

At the ranch in Darby.

Cousins in the tree.

John was in heaven with the amount of heavy machinery sitting around.