Ethan's Big Hit

The following clip is a favorite of Ethan's. He want's to watch it over and over and over, etc. We are so proud of him that we want to share it with all of you.

More Flowers

Okay, so I got carried away with my sunflowers. (You should see the rest of the photo's I took of them.) There are other flowers growing around my house as well, so I snapped some photo's of them as well.

This is for all of you who enjoy flowers:

Sunflowers ~ Funflowers

Okay, this one has nothing to do with my children (except for 2 photo's). I like flowers. I really like sunflowers. So earlier this spring I planted an assortment of sunflowers (the really huge ones to the little multi-colored ones). I watered them daily to keep the ground damp.

I weeded. I watered. I waited.....

Finally they started to grow. When I had a bunch grow in the same spot I sepreated the stalks and replanted them. They continued to grow. Unfortunatly the only sunflowers that came up were the little multi-colored ones and really small yellow ones. Fortunatly I got some (I think) really cool photo's.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have:

Yup, that's a quarter. Yup, that's a very small sunflower.

Cowboys

Tim wasn't able to do much with the cowboys this year, but he did make it to Bay City. We always enjoy the Bay City show a lot. After being at the Renissance Fest. and then going to Bay City, WOW the difference. Bay City hosts an event called The River of Time. They have various reinactment groups from come in and do different time periods (the Revolutionary War, fur traders, WW1, WW2, Civil War, early boyscouts, Aberham Lincoln, etc.). This event is set up next to the river in a large park and you can walk around and watch different battles, and other stuff. At the Renissance Fest it felt cramped and a whole lot dirty. Both events were fun, and very different.

Here's some photo's of my favorite cowboy and the crew:

The crew of Christian Cowboys

Ethan was able to crawl inside this sniper nest WWII and put on the helmet and pretend to shoot the gun. He didn't want to come out.

Renasance Festival

In September we were able to go to our local (almost 2 hours away) Renasance Festival. Wow there were a lot of people! It was pretty cool. We went with a small group of people and because one of the guys we went with works for a DJ company, they let him rent their party bus for us to go in. It played music, and had lights, and even a fog machine. The kids really liked it.

There was a movie being filmed at this festival, "All's Fair in Love". I believe that Jack Black & Hillary Duff are in it. I think that's what some of the radio stations were saying. They were telling people that if they went in costume, they could audition for extra's in the movie. How fun. No, none of us went in costume. But it would have been fun.

Our driver bought an arrest warrent and had Tim put in jail for Falling Out of the Ugly Tree. One of the workers came and arrested him and then paraded us thru the street's all the way to the jail. We did stop in front of a group of visitors so that Tim could plead to them for his release. He was sent on to jail, they took no pity. It was fun and Tim did it up good.

We watched the royal parade go thru the town, complete with Queen Elizabeth (?). Later on in the day we watched a jousting match and that was fun, we had seats right at the rail. Ethan loved watching the horses and it was pretty cool watching a "real" jousting match. We even saw a guy dressed like a pirate that looked like Johnny Depp as Capt'n Jack.

Here are some fun photo's:

Merrick & Ethan parting on the Party Bus. You should have seen us on the way home.....

Half of the crew was sleeping.

Prince Merrick

(now he can see how he'd look like w/really, really long hair)

Prince Ethan

Princess Sophia

King Tim

Queen Christy

Johnny Depp

Look-a-like

Tim being presented his "Arrest Warrent" and then led off to jail

Tim pleading with a group of people to be kind and spare him the fate of jail. They denied him.

Tim enjoying the view from jail

In order to be set free, the prisioners had to do everything the guy in the kilt made them do. Including this silly song and dance. It was fun to watch Tim.

A shot of some of the construction for the movie they were filming

Jousting match. It was really cool to watch

The fighting after they've been unhorsed

Good Family

It's always nice to be able to get away from everything at home and go visit family. We had been trying to get away to Indiana most all summer, and it never worked out. We had family that hadn't ever seen Sophie and we wanted to get down to see them. Well the last weekend of August we were able to get away. So Merrick missed the first day of school, it was 1/2 a day anyway. We were able to be gone over Labor Day and it was wonderful!

It also happened to be Conner's 16th Birthday that weekend. And being the wonderful, thoughtful, loving, awsome cousin that I am, we bought him a car....A Hotwheel car, but a car nontheless. Conner wanted to spend his day on the water, so they borrowed a boat and away we went. (So I'm humming the theme song to Gilligan's Island, just for fun. We stayed afloat.) The kids had a wonderful time in the water and with all the candy! Conner had a great birthday.

After leaving Andy & Lori's on Monday morning we went to visit with Tim's Aunt Faith & cousin JeanAnn. That was a good time. It was great to be with JeanAnn for lunch and talk with her and then go visit Aunt Faith. It was one of those good, but hard visit's. When some loved ones age it's not always easy on them. Aunt Faith has Alzheimer's. It was good to see them both, and I hope we get down there again soon.

From there we went to my Aunt Vera & Uncle Max's house. It was rough to only spend one day at each place and then only a few hour's with JeanAnn & Faith. But family is family and love is love!

Enjoy these photo's:




Conner & Merrick. Big Smiles!

Merrick & Carter.



Conner's wonderful candy art.



Are you suposed to feed the wildlife?
Our captain thought so, he's throwing them M&M's and other assorted food items.

Our little fish, Ethan and his daddy. Ethan spent ALL of his time in the water. Okay, maybe 10 or 15 min. actually in the boat, so daddy could rest.

Christopher helped out with his little cousin, so that daddy could take a break.

Sophie and her cousin Lori.
A couple of cool girls, catching some ray's.

One of Sophie's favorite spot's was with Cousin Andy.

As we were packing up to leave, we lost Ethan. We found him in the horse pasture with the horse. He was just short enought to walk under the electric part of the fence. Good thing the horse likes kids.


Sophie actually petted this horse.

It's a Sophie Sandwich. Lori & Conner tell her goodbye.


Big cousin Kyleigh was a big help!

Saying goodbye after our stay with Max & Vera.

Ethan usually has a photo of him crying when we are trying to take a nice photo of him.