Daddy's Softball Game

Monday night, Jared played in his first softball games of the season.  It worked out well that they were the early games and the kids and I could go.  Ethan loved sitting in the dugout with Jared and all the other players.  He was big stuff!

Oh yes, he brought his glove!  He and Jared played a lot of catch!

Our softball hero ;)!

She's a cutie...but also quite the stinker!

It was a fun evening and Jared's team ended up winning both games!  He even hit a home run!

Week in Cincinnati/Week with the Grandparents

Last week, Jared and I dropped the kids off to spend the week splitting time between Grandma Terri & Pop and Grandma Karen & Grandpa.  It was tough saying goodbye for the whole week, but I knew they would have a great time and we would stay very busy.  We went with our church youth to Cincinnati for a mission trip.  It was a great trip where God moved through a lot of hearts!  We took about 130 students and adults!  When we got home, 14 of those students were baptized!!
Jared's was in charge of a group who worked on several urban gardens.  I never made it to their site, but I know what he looked (and smelled) like every afternoon after a morning of work :)!  He worked very hard and ended up with gardens ready to grow lots of yummy food and beautiful flowers!
My friend, Emily, and I were with a group of high school girls at a church outreach.  The church we went to ran a summer camp with some academics and LOTS of activities!  We were put in charge of planning activities and games for the 1st-8th graders who attended the camp.  We were so proud of our students! They did a great job and loved on those kids like crazy!  Here are a few pictures from our time in Cincinnati (sorry for the poor quality...phone photos aren't the best).

 In the afternoons, we did a VBS in a few Cincinnati neighborhoods.  Ours happened to have a splash pad.  We had a good turn out of kids for the VBS.

Splash pad fun!

We ran some games for the kids at our work site.  They ran out of water...so we improvised!

Thirsty Kids!

Playing water balloon toss

We stayed on the campus of Xavier University and all of our worship times were held in the Cintas Center...where Xavier plays basketball.  It was pretty cool to see the huge arena and court.

Stealing a little time with this scruffy guy!

Our group, like I mentioned above, was very big.  We had around 130 students and adults.  It's quite overwhelming...check out the sea of blue shirts :)!

FCC Cincinnati Mission trip Group!

After we completed our week serving in Cincinnati, we drove a short 30 minutes to Great Wolf Lodge.  It was a fun day and I even got to go on some of the water slides :)!

Jared is a big kid...this place confirmed it :)!

We were kept informed and in the loop with pictures and texts while the kids were having a great week in Salem.  They started and ended the week with Grandma Terri and Pop and had some Grandma Karen, Grandpa time in the middle.

Rural King, popcorn, chicks and Pop!

Playing outside with Pop

Monkey boy at the "big park"

Lunch with Pop!

Sweet girl with a sweet smile!

Ethan doesn't nap anymore...but he must have been worn out.  This is how Pop and Grandma Terri found him during "rest time."

Grandma Karen took the kids to the beach at Carlyle lake one day, and they had a blast!!

Playing in the sand

Fish in the lake!

Silly, messy hair Nora

Fun in Grandma Karen's pool!

Our kids are so blessed to have the 4 grandparents they have.  They were all excited about and looking forward to their time with the kids!  Thanks for taking such good care of our kids while we were away!  

Fishing Fun

Tonight, we decided to get some night-crawlers and head out to Judy's pond for some fishing.  It was the perfect night for it.  And the fish were biting!  I caught a few, Jared caught 6 or 7 and Ethan caught 6 or 7 also (all by himself)!  Nora loved every fish that came out of the water.  She even kissed one :).

He's a natural

She could hardly stand still!

Touching the first caught fish

And then Ethan caught one!

Excited boy!

"I touch his eye!"

2 cute fishing kids!

Daddy caught a big one!

I think she was excited

Beautiful scenery

Family fun!

More Birthday...

Let me tell you...the 5 year old boy in our house has been properly (if not overly) celebrated this year!  We had his 'friend' party today at the zoo.  I can't say enough how easy and nice the people at the zoo were to work with!  We had great weather and a great time!  After all the party guests arrived, we made our way through the zoo together, rode the train and made it back to our reserved area for lunch.

The Party Goers (minus a couple stroller riders)

Checking out some animals (And Nora tickling Mayleigh)

The penguins are always a big hit

Ethan, feeding the goats

More goat fun!

Nora feeding a goat

Monkey bars by the spider monkeys

Loved riding the train next to this girl!

Some of the boys on the train!

Flamingo Nora

Having some lunch

Ethan wanted a LEGO police cake.  This was our compromise...he got a ginormo cupcake with some LEGO pieces on it and regular cupcakes for the rest of us.

Waiting patiently for cupcakes

Chocolate mustache aftermath

Present time

Happy boy!

Brennan and Ethan; doing math problems together :).  Apparently they like to do math problems when they get together, so Brennan made him a card with some on it!  How cute is that?!?

Our reserved deck/area was in the zoo, near all the action.  So it was really nice that the kids could run over and look at a few animals, and we could still see them.  Also, this peacock was all spread out (for a while) so they all went over to check it out...and then chase him!

Chasing peacocks!  

It was a great day and a fun time was had by all!  Ethan was so happy, which makes us happy!  He even climbed up to pose for this picture :)!

Happy 5th Birthday, Ethan James!

LEGOLAND!

We went to Chicago for a little family vacation, of sorts.  We have been wanting to take Ethan to LEGOLAND for a while, and decided his 5th birthday was a good time!  We had a great time and he loved it!  Nora had a great time too and wasn't too young to enjoy most things!  As we were having some ice cream at the end of our day, Ethan said (without prompting) "I think this might be the best day ever!"  That was enough for us :)!  Here are a lot of pictures from our time over the weekend!

"Mini land" was up first.  It was a miniature version of Chicago made of Legos

The 2nd time through, they found all of  the characters from "The Lego Movie" hidden among the streets of Chicago.

Construction zone

Jared and his good friend Barrack ;)

Next up...the jungle!

Lots of Lego creatures and people to look at here!

Star Wars is next!

R2D2 and Ethan

Life-size Darth Vader and Nora

Then we rode a fun ride through a castle where we shot laser guns at different monsters and other 'bad guys'.  No pictures of this though.  I refused to pay $16 for the picture they took of us on the ride...

Next we went upstairs to see what was up there.  Turns out, they have a 4-D movie theater and show 2 different Lego movies (each about 10 min long).  It was so fun!  Actual water sprayed us during the movies.  Once, while a fire hose was being sprayed at the screen during the movie, and once while they went under a waterfall in the movie.  The kids thought that was pretty cool!

Glasses ready!

There was a lion outside of the movie theater :).  Ferocious!

Sweet Nora Lion

Next to the movie theater, there was a small "Lego Factory"  We got to see (a quick version) of how a Lego brick is made.  And they got a duplo sized Lego at the end of the process.

Checking the place out

At the end, getting a brick

Then there was a little cafe area, play place area and car building and testing area.  We hung around there for a while.

Nora in the soft Lego pit

Building their cars

Testing them on the test track

He's a serious builder :)

Testing another one.  I love his expression in the last picture! 

She didn't have to worry about getting in trouble destroying something here :)!

Action shot in the play area

Silly face!

There was one more ride- but they wouldn't let me ride it :(.  So, that meant Daddy got to go twice!

Daddy doing all the pedal work!

Flying Nora!

Sitting next to the sleeping man on a bench

Farewell LEGOLAND!  It was a great time!

We couldn't leave without letting Ethan pick out a new box...so here's the finished product in the hotel room.

We did lots of other fun things on our trip, but I only have pictures from LEGOLAND.  We ate out, had ice cream, swam in the hotel pool and finally, went to IKEA!  It was a quick trip through, with 2 kids, but still a good time.