Enjoing Summer Mode

We are TOTALLY on summer mode here and it feels SO good! Staying up a little later, sleeping in a little longer, and just feeling the freedom of extra time with no pressing deadlines. I've manged to get to lots of those little projects that seem to get pushed further and further down on my 'to-do' list during the school year. I've been cleaning and brightening up my laundry room - still plenty of work to do there, though. Each of the kids' rooms got a good going-over yesterday and this morning we hung the letters on their walls that I bought MONTHS ago. I started tackling my flower beds, too - they're looking better. I sat down and played Tripoley with the kids yesterday morning (Aunt Terri, we found poker chips on a garage sale!!), Amanda and Alex built an entire Legos village, and I played Bubble Blast with Andrew last night. Still need to sand, stain, and get the baseboards back on from when we re-did our floors, and as soon as we can get the garage cleaned out, we're having a BIG garage sale!

Kansas City Trip

Here are just a few of our pictures from our Kansas City Trip.....one from the beginning at Kauffman Stadium where we went to our first Major League Baseball game (although Bruce had been when he was a kid), the middle of our trip when we were having supper on the deck of our cabin at Worlds of Fun Village, and finally at the end of our trip when we were exhausted! (although obviously I got them on here backwards!) Had just a fabulous time!!

Husker Open House

Ameritas sponsored their annual Husker Open House for employees and families last week and it is always so cool! We get to tour the new facilities and play football on the field. They feed us a free supper and have lots of fun entertainment and stuff for the kids. These pictures are actually from last year, but I love the last one so much!! This is Bruce doing the death crawl with a boy on his back.....you have to see Facing the Giants to get it!

Summer with the Saltdogs!

It's officially summer at our house, because the Saltdogs season has begun! We got free skybox tickets to opening night and had a blast! It was a Friday, so there were fireworks afterwards - amazing fireworks that just went on and on! Very cool! We went back to the Sunday afternoon game and got the kids signed up for the Kids Club - thanks, Grandma and Pa Stallbaumer!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Happy Birthday to our dear, sweet Mr. Andrew. 7 years old today - can't believe it!! We love you SO much!!

Kansas City here we come!

We're off to Kansas City for our annual Worlds of Fun trip! We're going to a Royals game tomorrow and will get to spend time with Keith, Bobbi, and Blake - Bruce's cousin and his family. We're staying in a cottage at Worlds of Fun Village which has become a new part of the tradition - very fun!!

We measured Andrew and he is officially tall enough to ride on the "big people's" bumper cars this year - so the whole family can do that together. He's also short enough to still get us all into Snoopy's Playhouse! Good deal!!

Will post lots of pictures when we get back!

Back to normal!

Miss Molly has been sick this week and had us pretty concerned - enough for us to take her to the vet TWICE. Still don't know exactly what the deal was, but she is better now and we're thankful for that! She is in charge of the house while we're gone this week, and we sure didn't want to leave her home alone if she was sick! If you're in our neighborhood, stop in and visit her....she'd love somebody to throw her ball for awhile!

Track Meet

We always know school is about done for the year when it's time for the Track Meet! The homeschool group is Wahoo does a great job of putting on this event for us each year and we are thankful for them! The weather is always SO unpredictable and we always come home with sunburns, but it's always tons of fun - and a great learning experience. We ALL learn lots of life lessons from watching Alex run the long distance races....he always finishes FAR behind everyone else, but has the BIGGEST smile on his face. His attitude, perseverance, and determination are a wonderful example to all of us!

Sneaky, sneaky!!

We made and delivered May Baskets and had SO much fun being as sneaky as we could! This is Andrew trying to get up to Degerness' front porch without being seen through their HUGE front window! The funniest one was at Thomsons house was when we had to speed away down the street because Joseph came out the side door....our van door was still open and Andrew was barely inside when we took off!!

AWANA Friends

We are thankful for our AWANA group!! Because we have been "church shopping" the ENTIRE time we have lived in Lincoln, AWANA has been a really nice outlet for our kids! Andrew is finishing his Hiker Book next week and Alex is on the last page of T And T Book One and will finish it. Miss Amanda is officially done with the T and T program and we're not sure what next year will hold for her.

14-13 Dolphins Win!!

Alex's football team, the Dolphins, won their first game of the season this week 14-13. They went ahead of the Titans because Mr. Alex made his FIRST EVER reception - IN THE ENDZONE - to complete a 2-point conversion!!! SO exciting!!! Go Dolphins!