Where Have We Been?

Yikes!  This summer has been flying by!  So, where have we been the past few weeks?

2 weeks ago was the week of our 9th anniversary/my 30th birthday.  We had a lot of things planned.  Most of them didn't happen.  Mostly because of my stupid foot (still injured, healing slowly, slowing me down constantly), partly because I accidentally punctured one of the gel pads on my air cast...which took a lot more time and effort than I ever would have imagined to replace.  So we decided to just go with the flow - which was probably better anyway.

One of the happy surprises was a rummage sale that we stumbled upon.  They had kids toys for $1 a bag.  The twins found many treasures, including a pair of fairy wings for dress up.  Allie promptly came home and put together this fairy princess costume (my favorite part is the pink wig).

 Ryan immediately wanted to put on his dragon costume...and then they wanted to go back to story time to redo Fairy Tale Day...

 Allie misplaced a ring she had found at the rummage sale.  So, she made herself a new one...out of paper...you can't see it well, but it was pretty impressive.  My little DIYer!

 Washing their rummage sale treasures.  They had a fun activity, and their toys came out squeaky clean!

We are technically celebrating our anniversary in Nebraska later this summer, so we simply had a nice family meal and watched a movie.  For my birthday, Lucas promised to take me out for Indian food (quite possibly my favorite).  He surprised me with our good friends and Logan and Mindy meeting us there!  We had a delicious dinner and then hit up the Melting Pot for dessert.  In the meantime, the children had an absolutely magical night with their babysitters.

Ry-guy driving the boat.

Allie driving the boat.

 Honking the horn (and scaring away sharks).

The next week was mostly spent preparing for our garage sale.  But we managed to sneak in some fun.

Going to some local garage sales where Ryan scored this AMAZING Lightning McQueen pit crew costume.  He wore it every day.

Sporting our RC shirts (thanks, Nana!) before heading out for another bonfire with s'mores.

Strawberry picking with friends.  Sorry, no pictures of the picking, but here is the sink FILLED with our collection.

Our big garage sale was a bit of a disaster.  Not the setup or anything - thanks to the help of friends I was more organized than ever.  We had significantly less traffic than in past years (which meant we raised significantly less), the garage freezer was accidentally shut off during the setup, the wind kept blowing things away (which broke a baby tent I was trying to sell), and there was a sudden death of a church member which meant that Lucas was needed with the family and I suddenly had to keep the kids entertained during the sale (and that we were really sad).  On the up-side I didn't have a single unpleasant interaction (the grumpy/difficult people must have stayed home), the freezer wasn't shut off long so we only lost a teeny bit of ice cream, someone still bought the broken tent, and the kids and I enjoyed some outdoor movie time (and brought in one of the junior high girls from our church the next day).

"Helping" with the sale.

We topped of the weekend with church in the park - complete with a baptism at the lake and a picnic!  

Allie helping daddy with the Children's Message.

 Ryan playing (or sitting on the ladder and gazing out over the lake) during the service.

Completely exhausted, we are rolling into another crazy busy...don't be surprised if it is a while before I update again...