Summer Hobbies

We've been enjoying our last few weeks of summer. Many of our friends' kids started school today, but we still have 2 weeks. We're trying to squeeze in all kinds of fun things. The most exciting thing is that Kayla has started swimming! It happened all of a sudden. She can go about 10 feet before needing to come up for air, but for a child who hated to get her face wet a few months ago this is amazing! She swims one handed because she has to hold her nose. I bought her a snorkeling set so she would have a mask that covered her nose too, but she doesn't even like the few drops that remain in the mask, so she's still swimming one handed for now.

The girls really enjoyed dance camp. This was Macy's first time dancing and it is so cute when she shows us the things that she learned. She is so excited about starting classes next week.

I have been on a mad dash to get caught up with my scrapbooks. I pulled everything down to the dining room table and gave myself a 2 1/2 week time frame to get caught up with our vacation album, as well as Kayla and Macy's albums that needed to have 8 months of pictures put in them. I'm happy to say that I only have 1 small vacation to put in our album (the Disney pictures took up TONS of time), 1 more page of Kayla's album, and about 3 more pages in Macy's album. This is HUGE. I should have all of my pictures in there this week and all I'll have to go back and do is some journaling. In the process of me getting these done Kayla has taken an interest in scrapbooking. I let her have the extra pictures that I didn't end up from Disney World and she has had SO much fun making her own scrapbook.

Lazy Days of Summer

Nothing too exciting is going on over here. We are just enjoying watching our girls grow and enjoying their summer.

Brooke is enjoying her exersaucer more and more these days.
We pulled out the high-chair. She's still a little unsteady in it since she can't sit by herself, so we are back to using the Bumbo to feed her. We also tried these neat little feeders. I stuck a slice of a peach in it and she LOVED it. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to clean them well.

Kayla and Macy enjoyed playing in the new pool with the squirting giraffe. Hopefully soon our schedule will coordinate with the rain schedule so we can have some more fun with it. It's just too darn hot to go out in the middle of the day and play even in the water!

Brooke enjoying her first taste of apple juice. She can't quite figure out how to work the sippy cup yet, but I'm sure she will soon.

Not much else has been going on. The girls had dance camp this week, but I have no pictures since I didn't hang around. School starts in a few weeks and Kayla is beyond thrilled. I'm excited for her too. I'm sure she will love it and I will love that she only goes 2 days a week and I can teach her on the other days. I'm excited about that too. We've been doing a lot of searching and decision making on the house-building front. We have a couple great neighborhoods we are targeting and a couple great floorplans we are tweaking with. We don't plan on doing anything until the first part of next year, but we are having fun starting to figure things out.

I Love My Family!

Swim Lessons and Found Camera

You'll never guess what happened. Remember the camera that was stolen a month ago? I had hung my bag in a tall locker while changing the girls after swim practice and then walked out without my bag. A day and a half later I went to get it and it was gone. I checked EVERY tall locker, lost and found, and we talked to the management. The lockers are cleaned out every night by maintenance and no one found it. Well 2 days ago we get a call from management and someone had found my bag in a locker and turned it it because they thought it had been left there. Kind of suspicious how it turned up after a month, but everything was still in the bag. So strange! So without any further ado, here are pictures from the last day of swim lessons (taken from the other side of a glass wall).

Kayla practicing putting her head under water. She's much less timid about it now.
The beginning of the end of potty training. This was the first time she told anyone she had to go potty. I'm not sure if she really told the instructor or if the instructor couldn't understand her little 3 year old language.

Practicing swimming.

The last 2 day of class Macy cried towards the end. This was really unlike her, so I asked the instructor about it. She said she pushed the kids a little those days and it was just too much for Macy. She still loves swimming, so no scars were left.

I'm so glad that all of our things were returned. We have since bought a new camera (which i LOVE) so I guess we'll be selling the old one sometime soon.

Tea Party

Last week my aunts and uncles were in town. We had a ladies day one afternoon with lunch at Tea Leaves and Thyme and then some shopping. The girls LOVE Tea Leaves and Thyme because they can dress up. They (especially Macy) insisted on all of us wearing a hat for a picture. I'm not a big fan of putting a random hat on my head that has gone on who knows how many heads, but I took one for the team. haha The food was so yummy. I'm sure it won't be long before Kayla asks to go back again.

Mercier Orchards

While we were in Blue Ridge we decided to take a trip to Mercier Orchards and pick some blueberries. First we took a tractor ride around the orchards. The kids enjoyed that and we learned a lot of interesting information.

They had such a good time picking blueberries, and Macy had a great time eating blueberries. I can't blame her, they were wonderful!

For lunch we ate at the deli inside the orchard store. We sampled some wonderful juices, and bought a few yummy goodies to bring home. Macy was tired and found a nice little ride.

We enjoyed our visit and are looking forward to returning in the fall to pick apples! YUM!

Geocaching: Attempt 3

(Somehow I added this to the wrong post. This goes with attempt #2)

Next we headed to downtown Blue Ridge and searched out another one.

This time we found it! The kids were so excited to have found one!

They took a look at the goodies and really wanted to keep a couple. Unfortunately since this was a last minute plan we didn't take any little things to leave in their place. Kayla signed the book and we placed it back where we found it. SUCCESS #1

Geocaching: Attempts 1 and 2

So today when we were trying to think of something fun today I remembered about geocaching. We have never done this before and thought it might be fun. Marc's brother, Dave, quickly added an application to his phone and we were off. Our first adventure took us down a long gravel road, past some pretty scenery, to a dead end. FAIL #1.

Attempt #2 took us to the side of a road where we pulled over and hopped out. Couldn't find anything. FAIL #2.

A Splashin' Good Time

Friday night we drove to a couple of parks to try and find something fun to do. The girls found a couple of ducks and a small playground at the first park, but the second park held something much more exciting...
WATER!!

Even Brooke got in on the fun, although she wasn't really sure what to think of the freezing cold water.

Hiking to Fall Branch Falls

Friday morning we decided to take a little hike to see a waterfall. The girls had a great time exploring on our way up. On the way back down a couple of fighter jets flew right overhead and Kayla so much she screamed and started crying. It was really loud.