Too excited to sleep

I am so excited about our upcoming trip back home. I can't wait to see everyone. We have so many dear old friends and family we are going to be able to visit with. I'm overwhelmed with happiness!

Preamble to the Fourth

We just got Cade a scooter. Riding to the fireworks was his first time trying it out. Kind of tricky for a lefty to figure out which leg is dominant.

Smash Mouth....

Fun friends

Me and Warren sweating to death....

Jake getting angry when we're taking grass and dirty shoes out of his mouth...

Luke, loving his animal crackers and glow stick

Jake, finding great pleasure in feeding Cassidy animal crackers

For some reason our city celebrates Independence Day the weekend before the 4th of July. So Saturday night, we headed out for some live bands and fireworks. We saw some friends there and had fun sitting with them. The kids really enjoyed the beach ball and glow sticks they brought. (Thanks for sharing, Kirsti!) Warren and I were sweating to death. It was SOO hot. 100 degrees when we left the house at 8pm. Crazy, I know! When we got home at 11pm it was still in the 90s. No breeze, lots of humidity. But it was still lots of fun. Smash Mouth was there performing- the kids had a great time dancing to "Shrek" music. We even watched Shrek 1, before we left, to get them warmed up. The fireworks were amazing. One of the best finale's I've ever seen. I was really impressed.

Primary Water Activity

Cade and Cass had a blast at the Primary Activity on Saturday. They played lots of water games with their friends and finished it off with popcicles. Yeah!!

Cassidy's big night on the town

Just arrived home from the best night ever!!

Cass was thrilled Friday night to be invited to a birthday party full of carousel riding, candy and jewelry store shopping, and her first time ICE SKATING! The pics I got from our friend- so I'm not sure how to enlarge them. She had such a fun time. She was out till 11pm! WOW! I felt like I was waiting up for a teen-ager. She was beaming when she got home. Thanks, Sariah! Cade was a disaster without her. He cried for an hour at bedtime before he finally fell asleep. "I miss Cassidy!" Then Luke proceeded in the same fashion once Cade fell asleep- but his cries only lasted a half hour and were very unconvincing. Cass is sure loved around here. Cade gave our friends accusing looks today at church for stealing Cass away for a night. Pretty possessive of his best friend.

The Bass Pro Shop

Jake was scared to death of the deer heads

He was holding onto Warren for "deer" life! :)

Huge catfish

The greatly desired Lightning McQueen fishing gear

And of course Cade found the Star Wars fishing gear. There's something here for everyone!

Cool aquariums even over you heads

After seeing Heidi at the airport we decided to make a stop at the Bass Pro Shop before heading home. The kids LOVED it and it was a great way to avoid rush hour traffic.

Loving layover Heidi. And Cade's got a girlfriend?!

The boys LOVED meeting Buddha. Especially Cade. He kept telling us she was his girlfriend and how pretty she was on the way home. He wanted to go home with her. Come visit us again, Buddha!

"Sad, sad, sad," as Cade would say. He didn't want to see Heidi leave.

Snuggling with his girl

So they didn't have to starve or buy super overpriced, nasty airport food- we brought some (lactose free) dinner. Chicken salad sandwiches, chips and chocolate dipped strawberries.

As you can see, Luke has quite the fondness for chocolate covered strawberries.

We had so much fun on Thursday when Heidi was moving back from NYC to Reno.

She had a 3+ hour layover at DFW airport, so we went over and had a picnic with her! How convenient!! :) Thank you, American Airlines- what good flight planning! It was sad to say goodbye after just a couple hours, but it sure made us excited for our trip back home in a couple weeks! Love you, Heidi! Glad we could spend some time with you.

Swimming with friends

We have been lucky to go swimming about every other day so far this summer (Give or take). Today our great friends, the Meldrums joined us. Playing in the water, having picnics with old friends, isn't this what summer is all about?!