My Favorite Summer Activity

One of my favorite summer activites is to take the kids to a nearby creek and let them play. Some of the creeks have lots of critters to find....crawfish (with hatching eggs attached to the mothers tail), salamanders, fish and any other such things that the kids can find. We havn't been out much lately this year, but here is one such fun afternoon. The kids didn't find many critters....just lots of rusted old broken car parts. (Ryan didn't come with us--he was at scout camp having a great time. His favorite part was the biking merit badge. He's still working on it, but I think he's found a sport to love. Yeah)

Of course no outing is complete with out a picnic. Yummmm

Liam showing me a treasure he found....and wow, a somewhat descent picture of me, I'm so NOT photogenic.

Ryan's Youth Temple Trip to DC.

This year as the youth temple trip approached Barry became very excited to attend the temple with his son, Ryan. They had a great time. They left early Friday morning. Their session for baptism work was at noon. Afterwards, they went to the visitor's center for a testimony meeting. Then it was off to find food.....Mmmmmm pizza, and some down time at a park. Off to the Davis hotel (Bro. and Sis. Davis' family live up there and often let people come for the night when they visit the temple) This is were Ryan and Barry stayed.
The next morning they meet up with the girls, who had stayed in a different home, for breakfast. Then off to the Manassass Civil War Battlefield. After this brief stop, it was time to head home.
Here is Ryan's point of view of the trip:

July 4th Celebrations

This year our 4th of July was quite busy. In the morning we attended our ward pancake breakfast. Connor's cub scout troop was in charge of the flag ceremony. Connor got the position of 'caller'. This is where he instructed the other troop members to come forward and post the colors. With the flag in it's rightful place the food and games began.
We all enjoyed the food. Pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit, juice and milk. The High priest group made wonderful egg casseroles in dutch ovens. Barry and Ryan were up at the crack of dawn and off to the church to help get these under way. Mmmmm, these were delicious too.
After breakfast the games began. An egg toss, and three legged race were among the fun. Delaney and her friend Janet--although slow-- completed the race and had a great time. Connor ran the race with his friend Finn and Cailin was with Clarissa.
After a brief nap for Liam....and me, we were off to Blackburg to watch the 4th of July parade. We attended the festivities with the Brame family. Yummy fruit popsicles were purchased by Ms. Beryl. Clearly Liam enjoyed his!! Mmmmm strawberry.
This summer Cailin is participating in the Blackburg Summer Musical Enterprise's production of 'Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'. She loves it. She is a member of the children's choir.
Here, Cailin and rest of the cast are a part of the parade. This is Cailin's second time being in a parade. She obviously loves it.
After the parade it was time to go home and grill the steak, burgers and chicken for Risa.
My brother, sister, and sis-in-law came this weekend, not to join us in celebrating the 4th, but to do an extemely huge service to me. Deep clean my house. Morning sickness has been....well, normal. I can't do much of anything at all except lay around, hating pregnancy, (yet loving the end result :) Of course the kids are helping quite a bit, Cailin's good at getting some laundry done, Connor has cooked quite a few meals lately and Ryan is good with general cleaning. However, the house is just not getting clean. So my siblings came to help me out....I never knew mop water could get so dirty....and oh, a clean oven and counter tops--the fridge, it's clean again too. Yeah!! The biggest moral booster was seeing the mess in the upstairs vanity area clean and orgainzed again. Thanks, thanks, and thanks again!! You are the greatest.
After dinner all of us headed off to the fair grounds for a spectacular fireworks show. I forgot the camera, darn, but it was great. We had fun playing in the grass sitting on blankets waiting for the show to begin. Rough housing with Uncle Brian was the favorite passtime of the night. Lucky for us, although Barry had to work, he was there too and we got to see him.
Home again....and Liam fell asleep in the car- the rest of us were soon to follow.
We had a great busy day. Happy Birthday America.

Oooh a Snake!

A few days ago we spent the day at the Mattson's and while the kids were playing Jen discovered a black rat snake in her front yard. She loves snakes and couldn't pass up the opportunity to check this one out. She found that it was calm and so we gathered the kids around to show them this snake too. They learned that the white coloring under it's belly told them it was young. They learned where the musky smell that the snake was emitting was coming from and how it used this as a defense against preditors. We also learned that you must remain calm and move slowly....or you will get bit! Poor Cailin, she was holding the snake when the little ones got a tad over antsy--this unnerved the snake and it struck. Cailin was bit three times on her forearm before Jen was able to get the snake away from her. She cried brave silent tears, it hurt! Yet, she was quite the trooper, after the washing, cleaning, and bandaging of the bites she said that it hurt worse than a cat's bite, but not too much more than that. I asked her if she'll hold another one, "Sure, as long as no little kids are around!!" she replied.
The snake is using it's tounge to smell Connor and check him out. He is the first of my crew to hold the snake. At first he was a bit apprehensive and then he replied "yah, I'm going to hold it, after all I'm going to be a wildlife biologist, you know, I'm sure I'll have lots of other snakes to hold."
The snake kept wrapping it's body around their arms and even tried to slitter to some of their necks and backs.

Cailin with Jared and Clarissa before the strike!