Computer Down

My trusted older computer has decided in the last week that it no longer wants to be able to access the internet.  It also decided that I shouldn't be able to open any of my Word or Excel documents.  So, hopefully, it will be going in for a check-up today.  Thankfully, we have our newer computer - the one that I haven't bothered to load Office on yet, so we cannot put any documents on it.  The one that I only have a quarter of our pictures loaded on.

Anyway, I spent two whole days last week trying to fix our computer.  I actually had a blog post started. So, that's my main reason for not writing in awhile.  I'll do my best to remember what I wanted to post.

Nicholas has had a busy June.  He had his two weeks of swimming lessons and then one week of day camp at our church.  He had a great week there.  This year his cousin, Carter was old enough to go, so he invited him.  There was rock wall climbing, dunk tanks, water games, skits, music, and of course, learning about God's word.

They missed all of the rain the entire week until the closing ceremony.  The rain did let up enough to let the kids and their families try out the dunk tank and rock wall.  There was also food, face painting and a couple of other indoor games.  It was nice to get a glimpse of what he did all week.

I made him pose at the closing ceremony.  He looks thrilled.

Since Nicholas is homeschooled, Daniel and I are never really home alone together.  At the beginning of the week, he took some really long naps, which gave me more free time than I was used to having.  We also did some introduction to potty training.  It was nothing serious.  He often tells us right after he goes, so I'm trying to see if he'll do it before.  I think he'll get it sooner than later.

Daniel did miss Nicholas though.  He did the sign for "crying" when I asked him.  Then, when Nicholas came home, I often saw something like the picture below:

Nicholas looks like this because I asked to take his picture.

The boys have also spent a fair amount of time outside this summer.  My parents have a nice little patio area set up with a water table, sand box, and small pool.

Nicholas just sprayed Daniel with the sprinkler.

My birthday was last week.  Besides, my trip to Columbus with my mom and sister, I've celebrated two other times.  It is pretty funny that we celebrated so much since this is one of the first years that I really did not care about my birthday.

Daniel is enjoying my birthday brownie!

Then, yesterday we had a pool party at my cousin's house.  She has a nice shaded patio area where those of us that weren't swimming could sit and eat.  The boys had a great time in the pool.  There were floats, a basket ball hoop and plenty of guys (very few women in the pool this time) to hang out with.

Daniel and Poppy

My goofy guy drinking a root beer float.

Today, Evan is golfing with one of the pastors at our church.  Evan doesn't get a lot of free time without us since his schedule his so limiting.  He won a gift card at work, so he was happy to find a friend to take golfing.  The boys and I will find something to do, I'm sure.

Nicholas has a new camp starting tomorrow - cooking camp!  If you remember, his Wednesday class during the school year was a cooking class.  He loved it so much that we're trying out this 3-day camp.  Daniel and I will drop him off in the morning and pick him up around lunch time.  I doubt he'll be too hungry though - although you never know with him.

So, that's some of what we've done in the last couple of weeks.  Hopefully, my computer will be revived (or at least all files safely transferred to this computer) soon.  In the meantime, I'll be getting use to our newer computer.

Summer is Going Swimmingly

Nicholas finished another session of swimming.  He’s improved a lot since he took lessons a few months ago.  I think another session in a couple of months will help move up to the next level.  Daniel and I were watching his last lesson when a surprise visitor showed up - Nana.  I was glad she got to see how well Nicholas is doing.

At Nicholas’ lessons, parents are only allowed to sit by the pool and watch for the first and last lessons.  For the lessons in-between, you have to go upstairs to the balcony.  There really isn't much to do up there except sit, so Daniel and I found our own little routine.  We would drop Nicholas off at his class.  Then, we would go to the tables at the front of the rec center.  Daniel would eat a snack, which took him 25-30 minutes each day.  Then we would go upstairs and watch the last part of the lesson.  This made the 50 minutes go much faster and smoother.

The rest of his snack is on his lap.

He wants the camera!

Last lesson

Nice dive!

The other highlight of the week was that Nicholas lost his second tooth today.  Okay, I yanked this one too.  He had two teeth where the adult teeth came up behind the baby teeth.  I pulled out the first one, so I didn't think it would be a big deal.  It was, but he’s happy it is out.  He was surprisingly not into wiggling it and getting it out on his own.  It has been loose for so long and that adult tooth needs to be able to move forward.  That’s why I took matters in my own hands.  I told him that I would like to hang up my tooth-yanking practice and have him do the other 18 on his own. 

We’re praying for any impending rain to blow in another direction because Nicholas has day camp most of next week.  This is probably one of the weeks he is most excited about.  I am too.  ;)

12 Years

Evan and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary yesterday.  I can’t believe it has been 12 years.  We've weathered the trials together and have experienced a lot of joys.  One of those joys was celebrating our 7^th wedding anniversary on a plane to bring Nicholas home. 

Evan had the requested the day off of work months ago.  Initially, we didn't really have any plans for the day, but knew that sometime during the weekend we would at least go out to eat together.  Then, we found out that my cousin’s son’s birthday party would be on the 7^th, so we decided we’d celebrate it with family.  We did get married on my grandparents’ 50^th wedding anniversary.  They would have been celebrating 62 years.

But, first, I had a facial delivered by my wonderful esthetician – my sister.  She is in school right now (top of her class!) and needs models occasionally.  She scheduled me for yesterday morning.  Amy did a great job.  I found it to be a very relaxing hour.  While I was being pampered, Evan and the boys ran errands.  Of course, they had to stop for a donut too.  J

David’s first birthday party was a fun time.  My aunt’s house has a pool, so Evan and the boys spent some time in the pool.

Daniel made sure to test out David’s presents too.  He unzipped a bag of blocks and started stacking them all on his own.

Then, we watched David eat his cake.  He looked like he really enjoyed it. 

Even though we were exhausted when we got home, we made a quick trip to the church next door to our house.  They were having a carnival all weekend, so we just wanted to check it out.  Nicholas played a couple of games and then we headed to the tent of his favorite radio station.  They had a free bean bag toss game.  Both of our children got the bean bag in the hole while Evan and I missed every time.    The d.j. even jokingly said to Nicholas, “Show your parents how it is done.”  And, of course, he got it in on the first try.

Today Evan and I are actually going out alone to celebrate.  We’re not doing anything too exciting – just dinner.  But, we’ll be alone.  One of these anniversaries we hope to go away.  We just have to pick the year and our destination.

Get to the Point

Every year Evan’s work pays for its employees and their families to go to Cedar Point.  We've only missed one year since Evan was hired and that’s because we had just brought Daniel home from the hospital two years ago.

Evan loves to ride roller coasters.  I really have no desire.  I have always been a mild-moderate coaster rider, but I have ridden some of the bigger ones in the past.  Since Evan likes the rides and we have two kids to also entertain, my parents and sister offered to come and help me out.  Evan’s company was nice enough to offer a discounted rate to any additional guests we wanted to bring.

We had a very nice day.  It wasn't too crowded and the weather was warm, but not stifling.  Daniel was old enough to ride a lot of the kiddie rides and Nicholas was tall enough to have a whole new level of rides open up to him. 

Daniel’s personality is really beginning to show lately.  He can have the biggest smile – when he wants to smile.  If he doesn't want to smile, he will fight it with everything in him.  When he was riding on some of the rides, we would wave to him as he went past.  Sometimes he would look the other way, or have this smirk on his face that said, “I know you want me to smile, but I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.”  Near the end of the day, we would wave at him and he did give us an obligatory wave once in a while.  We could tell he likes the rides though.

The carousel was probably his favorite ride.  He rode it 5 or 6 times that day.

My dad was nice enough to squeeze in the back.

Nicholas really wanted to drive all the cars at the park.  He took my dad, sister, and Evan on three different types of cars.  Since he was tall enough to be the driver, he took that job very seriously.  He told my sister that he was really driving. 

We finished the day with a temporary tattoo for Nicholas.  There weren't a lot of choices for kids.  He was going to put his initials until he saw one that he liked a whole lot better.

So serious

Close-up

I think everyone had a good time.  We were all exhausted by the end of the day.  The boys both woke up early this morning, so they must not have been too tired.  That’s good since Nicholas starts swimming lessons today.  This is the beginning of all of our summer activities, which hopefully translates into a lot more blog content.

Here are a few more pictures from our day.  Thanks again, Dad, Mom, and Amy for coming!

If you look really closely, my mom is with Daniel.

Too cool for pictures

Amy and Evan rode Snake River Falls 

There's a hint of his smile.

Being on Daddy's shoulders really makes him smile

Daniel at this cone from the top and the bottom!

He rode this one before Thunder Canyon.  He prefers getting soaked on Thunder Canyon to this one now!

How we all felt at the end.