Iowa!

We drove from Kentucky to Iowa to visit Aunt Llew. It was a long drive, but it was way worth it. We did lots of fun stuff with her. We had to go to Aunt Llew's work one day and they had this very big bear to play with. I even got a small bear of my own to take home.
Aunt Llew took us to the spillway. It was pretty fun, but they had the splash zone all fenced off so we could only watch the water splash and crash. It was pretty fun.


We stopped at Fort Dodge on our way back so Nathan could see the airplane. We sat him up on the tank, but he did not like that one bit.

Union Park had a splash pool for kids to play in. At first Nathan was skeptical (like he usually is about new things) but he checked it out and ended up having a great time splashing. He even made some friends to play with (note- the boy in red shorts was not his friend).







We went to Union Park to ride the carousel. I thought Nathan would love it because of all of the different animals it had to ride like elephant's, a cat, zebra's and the panda bear, turns out it was more fun to look at than to actually ride it. Nathan started to cry before we even got on the bear. We tried to get him to ride it twice, and he didn't like it either time.
We went to the Farmer's Market at Valley Junction. It was lots of fun, we ate walking taco's for dinner that were yummy. Nathan loves train's! They had a caboose there so Nathan got to play on it.



Nathan had a lot of fun with Taft (Llew's roommate's dog). After Nate would play with Taft for a few minutes Nathan would say "all done" and "bye-bye puppy".

3rd & 4th of July

Our festivities kicked off Saturday morning when we went to the parade in Marietta. Nathan got his own flag to wave, he got to see fire trucks, police cars and horses among other things (like every single person and their entourage who is running for any type of office in the state of Georgia this fall). It was a lot of fun. After the parade we got snow cones! Then it was home for a nap and to wait for Aunt Bonnie's family.



Kennesaw does their fireworks on the 3rd, so we went to watch them. They have bands playing (this year it was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band), lots of jumpy things and slides for kids, food, popcorn and snow cones.

To bad the tree and phone poles were in the way of the pictures.
Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Russ, Jake, Kyler and Zoey came over to spend the weekend with us (it is so nice to have them close now). So they came to the fireworks with us. Unfortunately, Jake liked the Rigby fireworks better. We had lots of fun, and on the way home we even found a fun hill to roll down.
Nathan in his 4th of July church outfit. (I got the sweater vest for $.99, so it is ok that he only wears it this once.)

Sunday night we had our friends the Buttle's join us for our own firework show. We tried to keep the kids corralled in the back of the truck. That didn't last too long though.


Kyler playing with a sparkler.
We had lots of fun! I love 4th of July, and I can't wait until next year for more fun!

Daddy's shoes

Nathan REALLY loves his daddy. He is always asking to "call dadda" when David is at work. And it is all about daddy when David gets home. Lately Nathan has been trying on daddy's stuff. Today it was his boots, yesterday it was his hat. (Also, as a side note, Nathan has started boycotting wearing shirts lately. In the above pictures he was supposed to be getting ready for bed, but he wanted nothing to do with his clothes.)

Grandpa and grandma's visit

Grandpa and grandma helped aunt Bonnie and Uncle Russ move down to Alabama at the beginning of June. After that they came over to stay with us for a while. We had lots of fun with them here. We didn't really do to much-it was too hot. We did go to our pool a lot, and played a lot of games indoors with the air conditioning. My parents have never been here in the summer, and I don't know if they will be back in the summer again. My mom and dad also took Nathan on his very first train ride, and my dad did some projects around the house that we have not had time (or know how) to do. We are glad that most of Nathan's cousins live close by now. We are looking forward to doing lots of fun things with them.

The great re-siding!

Here is a picture of our hose before we started the re-siding ( I couldn't find a better one). This picture works great though because it shows the contemplation that went on before we started the project. On Monday morning, David and my dad kept trying to figure out their battle plan. After a few hours of deliberating, they decided that our best bet would be, to hire someone else to do the work! And that is what we did.
This is the house after they took all the old siding (LP-Louisiana Pacific) off. It was so strange to see it all bare.
The house with house wrap on it, since there were some holes after they took off the old siding.
They started the work on Tuesday morning, and on Thursday by 2 they were all done. We still have to paint the house, right now it is only primed. We are trying to decide what color to paint it, we have a fresh canvas.
It looks so different! I am not used to seeing my blue house not blue anymore! We sure are glad it is done. Good job David and Dad on all your hard work!

Time for an update

Nater Nater Alligator after the pool. Super cute. Nathan loves to go swimming now.



Aunt Caitlin graduated from Brookwood High School on May 26th. She graduated with honors in French. Good job Aunt Caitlin, we love you!




Aunt Kristen Graduated from Kennesaw State University on May 13th. Congratulations Aunt Kristen, We love you!



Where to start? Lets start with some graduation pictures.