The 1994 yellow mustang, with 77,000 miles... a gift from Grandad to Daddy when he was still a teenager! Many people know him from his car... I see him on the bypass driving and know it's him. We talked about our kids having this as their first car when they are old enough. We planned to garage keep it and restore it.

His drivers seat. No longer attached to the floorboards, this seat is totally falling apart. 2 years ago there was barely a tear at the top.

His dad's old phone.. Do they even make these anymore? The phone is perhaps worth more then the car itself...

The roof. Totally ripping up both sides. We were excited the day we found white duct tape, as it matched much better then the silver he had been using.

the wheels are so pitted he has a tire that is always flat that has to be filled with air at least every other day. the tire shop has worked on it so many times and has finally said the seal is the best it will be at this point. (taken in oct. 2007)

We had to sell the mustang today. It was actually really sad. I have tons of pics of friends and kids in that car, and many memories of driving around with Daddy in the car. One favorite is when we were driving north and we passed his sister driving her 93 yellow mustang coming south. He found a wonderful tradein at a local dealer and was able to negotiate a pretty fair trade in. I never thought I would see the day that he initated the purchase of a more family friendly car. This will get much better gas mileage for rotations next year though and can actually fit most of our family. All 4 boys rode home with him today and actually fit really well. I am so excited that he finally has a car that is "new" and one that he picked out, but we are so grateful for the mustang as it lasted 10 wonderful years for us, and saved us a ton of money from car payments.

the other kids were already buckled into the backseat. they were to excited to wait!

The Summer Museum Tour

While John was (still) busy with boards related things, the kids and i headed to my parents house for a week. During that week, we hit 3 different "play museums" with the kids. They got to touch all sorts of marine life including sharks, ride in manned maneuvering units, and learn about holograms. They played with colorful shadows, built huge structures with PVC pipes, and learned how wind moves objects. They watched butterflies emerge from a chrysalises in a butterfly garden and touched madagascar hissing cockroaches. They experiemented with arch structures, orbits, and mirrors. But most of all, they learned that their Gritty can have a lot of fun playing with the toys too! Thanks for such a great gift mom! We have used the museum membership pass at 4 different museums in the past month, and LOVED every minute of it. Education beyond what the classroom can offer!

I am WOMAN!

This was summer of the boards for us. John took a very time intensive (read expensive) class that ran most of July, including weekends to teach him everything VCOM never bothered to the first go round to (what exactly does the 35,000 a year do then, if they dont teach the students? Glad you asked... you shoudd see the lawn...) It was really hard having him so busy but still around. I think next summer when he goes to texas for most of the summer it will actually be a little bit easier bc he will just not be here, rather then jsut being here but to busy... anyway. so it was hard, but he took the boards on the 13th and so we actually got to see him a little bit and the boys got to spend some time with him before they went back to school on the 19th! Anyways.... during july, when he was so busy, our ward was having a campout, and the kids were so excited to go, so we packed it up and headed out without John. i was so nervous, but it actually went ok. I went out on thrus. with 2 of my friends who were also husband-less adn we had a great time! There were a few rules that I broke in the effort to make it easier.
The first rule- I let my oldest run around like this. For a whole day. With a bandana.

2. CL attacked this poor sweet boy, and i let her, because she wasn't eating dirt in there.

3- i fed her all sorts of things I shouldn't have. fried donuts, watermelon, anything i could reach to keep her happier in her stroller because she wasn't eating dirt there either.

4- I didn't make my kids wash their hands or faces before meals.

5- they played in a creek all day. they even drank a fair amount of it

6- they (again) tended their own fire all day.

We had such an awesome time! it is nice to know that i can take them all out like this and do things with them now. WE headed out thurs. and got to camp right as it starte dto get dark. I pitched my tent way far away from Mels and Stephanies due to location and we went over to their fire to make banana boats. At 10, we headed back to our tent and realized how far we were from them (in the whole camp, us 3 girls and our kids were about the only ones) and it was totally creepy so we dragged our tent all the way across a site so we could be closer. The kids all slept amazingly well and it got really cool! The kdis all played in the creek and in the fire the next day and I barely saw the older boys. Van spent the day eating marshmellows with his friends and that night by the time the rest of the ward had arrived, felt totally sick. At 10 he threw up by our fire so I packed EVERYTHING back up and showed up on our doorstep at 11. We had to throw all the kids int eh tub they were so gross and several of the swim trunks ended up in the trash too... Next time i will prob. be more careful with what they wear...

campfire donuts!!!

I was so proud of myself! I learned how to pitch our tent, light our lantern, start my own fire, and cook over our camp stove. I know that prob. sounds lame, but it was a great experience!

Cousins came to town!

Some of me favorite memories as a child were the many weeks I spent in Pa and NY visiting with my cousins during the summertime. I got to go see several Broadway plays, run all over New york City, explore Pittsburg (without adult supervision...), ride the inclines, and swim in the lake daily. It was always so much fun and I looked forward all year to the next adventure with my cousin Megan. This year, we had the chance to begin what will hopefully become a long standing tradition for our kids! With my little nephew still in the NICU, our family thought it would be fun to have the cousins that used to live in town with us back in town for a visit. July 4th I met them in Charlotte with a few of my kids, where we had a late breakfast with Johns brothers family and there sweet girls and Johns sister and her 3 boys that i was bringing home for the week. We hightailed it back home to celebrate the 4th. and we had a blast! I had to play in our towns holiday concert and we made it back just in time for that. After the concert, the boys lit sparklers and had a snap war with the poppit things that you throw on the ground.

Van LOVED the fireworks this year!

CL was less then impressed and slept through most of the display

the firework display was a lot shorter this year then normal, but there were tons of big ones!

My nephew B- he LOVED sparklers and i burned my thumb countless times lighting almost 100 of those suckers

E and A after the fireworks.. traffic was horrible after the fireworks so rather then sitting in the car fighting traffic for an hour we went back to the park and the kids played til almost 11 pm before heading back to our house to do even more sparklers (what can i say...we love to party!)

some friends from church had these things that lit on fire and they would grow... they were totally gross, but of course since my kids are pyros.... they had Jaren see how many could be stacked on top and still light and Jaren totally got into seeing how many they could light at once...

more sparklers

my nephews! On the way back into town we stopped at an old navy and got all the cousins matching shirts! (I am such a dork, I know, but I was really excited abt. it!)

our towns patriotic concert... we played the real 1812 overture but had to use a computer for the cannon sounds... the town wouldnt even let us use the fake cannon that they use at football games...

We had so much fun with the cousins here! We went blueberry picking...

gotta love child labor! they helped me pick 10 pounds of berries!

B quickly gave up on picking though!

and van only ate... their buckets were still empty when we left an hour later

and we swam almost every day!

and we celebrated A's 9th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY A!!!

CL enjoyed the dessert!

When it was time for cousins to go home, Their mom met us in a nearby town midway from Johns sister Stephanie. She brought her family up for a dinner one evening. I got to see all of my nieces and nephews this week, a totally rare event! We had such a great time with the boys this week! Thanks for sharing them Mike and Lauren!!