We spent several days in Kansas with the grandparents (the older 2 are actually still there).  One of the highlights of this trip was playing Guitar Hero III on Grandma Opal’s new PS3.  Even cooler… Grandma rocked out with them!

The boys were the first in line to ride Checkers whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Grandma is teaching all the kids to ride and all 3 are riding around the ring without being led now.

There was also much frog and toad catching!  Usually it’s just toads, but they caught two frogs this year.  I swear this is McKenna’s favorite thing to do at my mom’s place!

It’s mighty quiet around here and will be even quieter by Friday afternoon!  Jay and Josh are heading out to camp for the weekend, which means I have an entire weekend to myself!  Sadly it will likely be spent shampooing the carpets, but I’m hoping to squeeze in some mom pampering time as well.

Awww!  Jay was mowing and scared this baby bunny out of the bushes.  The kids were thrilled, of course, and asked about a thousand times if we could keep it.

Kenna held/played with it for about 3 hours before we finally convinced her that it was time to let it go.

I would love to get the kids a bunny, but I’m afraid Daisy would consider it a snack instead of a play mate!  Maybe someday.  I loved the bunnies I had as a kid!

It’s been a pretty lazy few weeks for us.  A little bit of swimming, a little bit of soccer, a lot of hanging out with friends.  I’ve really been enjoying our unscheduled time this summer, although I know it’s coming to an end soon.

We said good-bye to an old friend this evening.  We sold our little Sentra to make room for a new vehicle.  It’s hard not to be a little sentimental about it.  We bought the Sentra when I was pregnant with Kenna.  We knew that a carseat was going to be difficult to fit in the backseat of the Talon and my pregnant belly was getting harder and harder to squeeze behind the wheel, so we traded it in and bought the first new car either of us had ever owned.  It’s been a great little car and so incredibly reliable!  It served us well for 11 long years.

Isn’t that pretty?  I love when these coneflowers start to bloom!  Soon the butterflies and bumble bees will start visiting, which is always fun to watch.  I find it so interesting to see how the bees collect the pollen.  Their little back legs are so loaded with pollen that it’s amazing they can still fly!

The roses out front are in full bloom and these are my favorites :)  I love how the scent greets me as I walk out the front door to get the mail every day.

S’mores cupcakes made for Kenna’s 11th birthday. Yum-my!

Yes, folks, another soccer filled weekend has come and gone.  It wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination… the boys were out played and lost all of their games with scores like 11-2 and 13-0.  Then there’s a bunch of team drama on top of that and the vibe was just weird all weekend.  We did have fun hanging out with 2 other families and the kids had a blast swimming and playing with their friends, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Check out Jake’s new ‘do!  He decided he wants his hair to be like Cristiano Ronaldo , so he’s been sporting the "faux hawk" look for a few weeks.  We told him he could keep it as long as he brought the attitude to match onto the field!

There was a big storm that moved through on Saturday and delayed the boys’ first game a few times.  When we came back for the evening game, one of the kids sitting next to us pointed out this cloud formation.  Do you see the dragon?

Totally unrelated to soccer, we did a little moon watching last week.  We were trying to catch the solstice moon illusion , but it was either too cloudy or we were too late.  I did manage to get a nifty pic of the moon after it came up though.  The size of the moon in the sky and the details you could see were just amazing.  I think we’ll try to catch the illusion again next year, but we’ll need a new strategy!

The big kids are out at camp this week.  They were so excited to go, especially Jake since he missed out last year due to Grandma Mary’s passing.  After I walked him through registration, I turned to help Kenna with something and when I turned back, he was gone!  He’d grabbed his stuff, boarded a wagon and took off to his cabin!  No good-bye for mom or anything!!  I did catch up with him after I’d gotten Kenna settled and I could just tell he was at ease and ready for the week of fun to begin.  I hope they’re both having an amazing time!

With the big kids gone, it’s been super quiet around here.  Joshua reminds me so much of his big brother when he’s by himself… non-stop conversation!  He’s such a character and I’m really enjoying our time together.  We’d made big plans to do lots of swimming this week, but those are on hold since he hurt his toe at the hotel on Saturday and it’s now infected.  Don’t worry… I promise to spare you the photo journaling on this one!  He’s a trooper though and it seems to be healing well now that we’ve got him on some strong antibiotics.

We’ve got a big weekend coming up… a birthday and a baptism.  Hard to believe my big girl is getting so big!

My friend, Tammie , posted this evil little site on her blog - Type Racer . You can add the app to your MySpace account and it’ll keep track of your average score and number of games played, if you’re so inclined. My average score right now is 85! The highest I’ve gotten is 91wpm and you can be sure that I’ll be trying to improve on that nearly daily!

Yesterday, we ventured out to the Kids Fun Festival at the rodeo arena.  The most popular display by far was the reptile display.  There was a tank with a few frogs, several tadpoles and a salamander and a tank for garter snakes that the kids could just reach into to grab a critter to hold.  There were also tubs with crawdads and several turtles, including a big snapping turtle.  I wouldn’t want to run into that dude in the water!  (That’s one of the many reasons you won’t find me swimming in the lake!)

The kids had a blast handling all the creatures, which led to several requests for snakes and turtles at home.  Uh, no… not happening.  They’ll just have to be satisfied viewing them once a year at the festival!

(I promise he wasn’t squeezing the poor ‘mander even though it looks that way!)

Now that I’ve got the blog mess (sort of) sorted out, I can write about what came to mind a few days ago. We had lots of fun and cool experiences in Disney World, but this was probably the coolest… especially for the boys!

We were at Hollywood Studios on day 2. We’d done Star Tours and discovered that it was almost time for Jedi Training to begin. We ended up with front row spots and the boys were chosen to participate in the show. They get on stage, don their Jedi robes and begin training.

Then, Darth Vader shows up and challenges all of the new padawans to fight.

Of course, Jake was the first to volunteer!

And then it was Josh’s turn.

The new padawans even received diplomas for completing their training.

I think someone was taking the Jedi thing just a little too seriously!

I think that whole experience is something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives!

The dazzling Candy tagged me this morning. I feel so special :)

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? Ten years ago, I was a SAHM to just McKenna, who was just a few weeks from her 1st birthday.

2) What 5 things are on my to-do list?

1. Finish the laundry. Just blankets and towels left… yay!

2. Move all the stuff we pulled from Kenna’s room down to the garage.

3. Pull stuff from the attic for a possible garage sale this weekend.

4. Sew 2 baby outfits.

5. Decide whether I want to plant a garden or not. Clock’s ticking!

3) What snacks do I enjoy? Dill pickle sunflower seeds. Sounds odd, but they are oh so good! I love popcorn too.

4) Things I would do if I were a millionaire. That’s kind of hard to narrow down, but probably travel more, give more (time & money), pay cash for a new home.

5) Places I have lived. Kansas, Arizona, Nebraska

Now…. drumroll please… I TAG CHRISTINE!

While I was out taking pics of the tree, I decided to capture some of the blooms that have come up around the yard.

The pink roses on the side of the house are already quite plentiful…

and the peonies looked quite lovely before this morning’s heavy rainstorm…

(they’re pretty much obliterated now)

There are several pretty little columbines blooming under the cedar next to the house…

Ahhhh. I am so thankful that school is out and summer vacation has begun! I think we all really needed a break from the routine of school. I, for one, really enjoy the opportunity to sleep in :)