Cub Scout camp

Oh, I nearly forgot to post about camp a few weeks ago! These pics were in a different folder!

I can't really tell you much about it since I wasn't there, but Myles and Jonathan both had a really great time. Myles said they did a lot of fun activities, and Jonathan had fun with it all and did a great job. Oh, and I have to mention that Myles got a bulls eye on his very first archery experience! He just laughed and said it was an accident though! I don't think he actually aimed. Ha!!

Jonathan's best friend in Cub Scouts is Johnny (isn't that funny?), and Myles said they were inseparable all weekend. He seems like a sweet kid, so I'm glad they get along well.

He got all 10 shots on the paper!!!
They had to go through the maze without moving the cans.
They learned how to make a gurney.....then they dropped the poor kid!
Jonathan and his daddy slept in the red tent. It is just the perfect size for the two of them.
Getting set up for archery.
The arrow in the middle was from Myles' shot!
They really did have fun, I promise! They were waiting on someone here, I think.
The group that was hiking together.
Click to enlarge.....this was a waterfall!
A better picture of Johnny and Jonathan. :)

Myles took a lot more pictures of the surrounding nature. It really is beautiful there, but I don't want to post them all. Besides, it's one of those "you had to be there" type things. It's always much prettier in person! Plus a lot of his pictures are blurry. Haha!

Misc. pictures from April

In an effort to catch up a little more quickly, I'll just post the rest of my April pictures together. :)

Daddy and Jayla

Mommy and Jonathan

Park day with Mandie's kids......this is Lilly.

Jacob and Josh love to play together. They were looking for ants and attacking them with sticks.

Jack tried to imitate them. He loves playing with sticks!

The puppies at 1 week old. They were 4 weeks old yesterday!!!

One of my 4 little monkeys :)

I made Jonathan his own baby carrier when Jack was first born. He carried Jack in it a few times, when I was nearby, of course. Why is he still using it now?

For puppies!!!!

And Jack is very curious!

That's all from April! I'm getting close to catching up! Well, I still haven't blogged about Thanksgiving, Christmas and our vacation last fall, but I'll eventually get to that too. (sigh)

Track and Field

We were members of the YMCA (we just canceled due to finances), so the kids joined the Track and Field team. We have gone 2 or 3 times. Jayla wants to keep going back, but Jonathan was not too excited about all the running. He was hoping to do more field events. Plus all the meets are on Sundays! So, we decided to bow out of it. They did have fun while it lasted though!

Here is Jonathan on the far side, in last place.

Jayla on the far side in pink pants. She was usually close to the end too.

Jacob in the green shirt. It looks like another boy wanted to share last place with him. What a nice gesture! :)

And my baby, Jack-Jack. :) He'd probably get last too. Hehe!

And here are the boys, waiting to throw the softball shotput style. I had to get this picture because they don't have to stand in lines very often. They're doing pretty good, don't you think? :)

Now don't get me wrong, I am so proud of my kids and what they are capable of doing, or not (as long as they do the best they can), but let's just be honest here......our kids are NOT fast runners! They never have been and I don't expect they ever will be. But that is fine because they excel in other areas. God made us each unique and special in different ways. :)

Running fast, for my kids, is not one of them!

But they'd sure be the cutest losers of all time! :) They're really good sports about it too. We just usually smile and clap for them (especially Jack....he's totally into the clapping thing), sometimes laugh. Not AT them, of course. No, we certainly would never do that. :) Seriously, we just have a fun time. Jayla had an image in her mind of winning every race because she is generally good at physical stuff like this, but after the first couple of races she came up to me laughing and said it was harder than she thought! Ya gotta love life lessons! It's been a great experience. :)

Gardening

We've been working in our garden a little.....not nearly enough though! This was in the back yard, a different day from when the neighbor threatened me about my barking dog, which was also the same day I didn't have my camera, so I had to recreate the "snapshot moments" using language......I don't think I'm very good at that, but it will help me remember what I could not capture on camera. This one was my favorite memory!

So here we are, digging up an area for our garden. Before......

and during! We were not able to finish that day. Okay, so this isn't MY garden, but the kids had fun. :) I believe they were actually making a bug habitat.

And Jack was such a great little helper. :)

I don't care how much you try to keep kids from playing with toy guns, anyone with boys knows that is nearly impossible! Hehe! They'll make them from anything, especially Legos. One quick comment though about this second video......we were just playing. I firmly believe it is a person's corrupt heart that leads them to killing people, not guns, so this is all just innocent fun. :)

Arial view

The news station here has a good video I think I'll post here. It is short and doesn't show everything, but it gives a good picture of how the fire skipped over some houses and completely destroyed others.

I'm back!

Oh, my goodness! FarmTown on Facebook has taken over my life!!! Why in the world did I start playing that game?! I miss blogging and am getting so far behind!!!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that there were fires nearby and hundreds of homes were lost. Well, Myles had taken several pictures, so I thought I'd post a few.

My good friend Alison (she is "Ali B" on FarmTown, hehe).....her mom lives just south of here. It got her yard and back fence, but her house is fine! However, there was a lot of smoke damage, and the house behind her and the one a couple of doors down are gone. This was some scary stuff with such high winds! Praise be to God that no one died!!!!!!

This was just 1/2 mile or so south of our house!

Lots of gawkers, including my husband! He is probably in someone else's pictures from that day.

There were at least two spots on fire in this picture. It burned just at this one location for at least a couple of hours while it was continue to spread fast for miles!

They set up a mobile station here. I'm sure there were lots of volunteers handing out water to the hot and exhausted fire fighters and other emergency workers!

This picture just cracks me up!
It was so dry and extremely windy, so the fire fighters had a really tough job, and they did it so well. The very next day it rained and there was almost no wind! And since then (well, this month anyway) it has rained nearly every day and it is very wet here now. Go figure.

Jonathanism

I have lots to blog about. Jonathan's birthday was Monday, and our kittens were finally born that day! Plus lots of other things I am way behind on. So, more pictures and stories to come....

Jonathan is always asking me questions. Just now he was petting and watching our new kitties when he asked me,

"When do you think their extension cords will fall off?"