June Flowers!

We’re getting used to the IDEA of using the potty

How we fill our days

Summer showed up in Ohio so we are spending lots of time in the pool. Abby has also been taking swim lessons in the mornings.  She is becoming quite the little fish.

Sarah loves to go swimming and gets upset when it is time for Abby’s lesson and she can’t go too.

Sarah loves to play with her best pal Joey. I finally caught her with her head out of the water! Micah

Lydia

All that swimming wears them out!

Strawberries!

We picked strawberries again this year.  I just love how they taste so much sweeter when you pick them yourself! 

We went to a new patch with some of Abby’s friends from school.  We picked eight quarts all together.

We (mostly I) ate several that day.  Then I froze several quarts for smoothies.   Then we tried our hand at freezer jam.  The girls helped with the first batch and it was so easy.  I ended up with 14 jelly jars full.  Now our freezer is stocked for a while.  Yum, yum!!

Father’s Day

Happy Daddy’s Day to my husband.  He is a wonderful father to our daughters and they love him so!

We started the day with gifts for Daddy.  Abby picked chocolate truffles for him. I I bought him some oreos and jelly belly candy.  Sarah helped him unpack the bag and then gave Daddy a big kiss.

Later, the girls and I got dressed up to take Daddy out to lunch.  Then we went shopping and bought him some new shorts and a polo to match.  We got some ice cream at Sonic and then headed to the pool.  We were all worn out from such a big day!     

A Bargain For Frances

Abby was assigned a First Grade reading list for the summer.  We checked out several from the library and she began reading through them.

One is A Bargain For Frances.  I remembered reading this when I was a little girl.  It was published in 1970.  The book is about two friends and their desire for a “real china blue tea set.” 

As Abby was reading the book to me one morning, she asked what a saucer was.  So I showed her one of my teacups and saucers.  Then I remembered my play tea set that is blue.  As she read the description from the book, I realized it was the exact same pattern as my set given to me by my mother long ago.

So we decided to have a little tea party of our own. Here is the description from the book: "I want a real china tea set with pictures on it in blue. The tea set I want has trees and birds and a Chinese house and a fence and a boat and people walking on a bridge."  Do you see them all in the saucer?  I was amazed!

Abby reads the page from the book.

EAC Reunion at the Cleveland Zoo

Time for the annual trip to the zoo to see the animals and our China travel buddies.

Here is our family picture on the wolf.  We do this every year.

Here we are in 2007.  Abby was three and a half.

Checking out the wildlife. These are our friends from our most recent trip to China: Mary, Maisie and Scott. This is Abby and Faith. They are from the same province in China and are about one month apart in age. We traveled with Faith's parents in 2004. They adopted Hope in the fall of 2008 from the same province as Sarah. Hope and Sarah are both the same age. How cool is that? Uncle Zhou - we love our Uncle Zhou. He keeps us sane in China! The girls got to go on a camel ride. It was Sarah's first. I think she liked it, but it was much too short. Here is one of the cool painted dinosaurs they had throughout the zoo. In the petting zoo.

Wish we could have visited longer with our friends.  Once a year is not enough!  At least there is Facebook!

Pink Up The Pace 5K

May 22 was Karen and Billy’s first 5k. They had been training for several weeks.  Rob, Timmy and I decided to join them in the race.  The race was sponsored and coordinated by a couple of high school students doing their senior project to raise money for breast cancer research.

The day started out cloudy with a chance of rain.

Me and my sis, ready to start!

We finally convinced Billy to wear the race shirt because it would be the last time he would ever wear pink in public.

“And they’re off!”  Rob is in the front of the pack – having been the only one to have an energy drink before starting the race!

Here comes me and Timmy.  I’m already shedding the jacket for our fan club to pick up.

And here is Billy and Karen coming up the first hill.

While we were in the woods, it started raining.  Hard!  Here is Rob coming out of the woods.

  Here I am, soaked. Timmy had already left me behind.

At the end.  I was glad I wore the hat as it kept my glasses dry for a while, but even that wasn’t enough.  My shoes were flooded and each step was “squish, squish!”

Timmy beat me.  This time.  He said it was his Kentucky redemption (I beat him in a race there).  But he IS bigger and stronger than he was over a year and a half ago.

My girlies were soaked, too!  And one of them was ready to go home and get warm and the other one was ready to play some more.  I’ll let you guess which one was which.

All of us at the end!  Wet, wet, wet!

All that rain left some great big puddles to play in.  FUN!

That afternoon was sunny and pleasant.  How nice.