Oh what do you do....

Oh what do you do in the summer time when all the world is green 

Do you swim in a pool to keep yourself cool?

Play in the grass

Go for a walk to the park

Play with your friends

 

Roast marshmallows by the fire

Do yard work

Is that what you do so do I!

Cpt. Kennedy

Mike has been gone for the last 2 weeks at his National Guard Annual Training at Fort Pickett, outside of Richmond, Va. While he was there he saw patients, helped train medics and had a little fun too. They had to practice putting patients on and off the helicopter and got to go on a Helicopter ride where they flew below the tree line. Here are a few pics of our Cpt. Kennedy during his training.

Landing Helicopter

Mike is the second from the left

Loading patients on the helicopter (Mike is on the front right)

View from the helicopter during one of his rides

Mike Medic Tent where he spent time seeing patients

Painting!

After

Before

While Mike is gone I decided to paint our bathroom. As you can see it was not the nicest color of green and the people that lived here before us did an awful job in the bathroom. They left wall anchors in the wall and just painted over them, lots of large hooks that tore up the wall when taken out and dripped the awful green paint all over. Oh yah I almost forgot they painted the green tile which started peeling (Take note, humid bathrooms not good with painted tile) and what a pain to get that off. But now all the wholes and wall anchors are out of the walls and patched, sanded and painted nicely and the wall color is a nice Salmon skin color. Now I just have to get new window treatments, light and towel racks and it will be a new bathroom!

North Carolina

Park in Blowing Rock (Anna, Raquel & Lexi)

Natalya napping at the pool

Mike is gone to his annual 2 week National Guard training so the girls and I took a trip down to visit my sister in North Carolina. We always have a fun time, but we were starting to get cabin fever with all the rain and bad weather we were having, making it difficult to play outside. But it cleared up and was warm the last day we were there so we took a trip to Blowing Rock. Played at the fun park, got ice cream, had a picnic at the pool and then went swimming.

Mike's Birthday!

We celebrated Mike's Birthday this week. The day started out with a little swim with the girls, then a birthday breakfast (including a candle in the eggs which I don't recommend because the eggs were so hot that it melted the candle from the bottom turning Mike's eggs waxy red.) We took him out to Mexican for lunch and finished the day with a homemade German Chocolate cake! 

Happy Birthday Mike, We love you! 

Tree!

Tree in back ground that lost the limb and a picture of our bent trampoline.

You can see the wires coming from the left and going under the limb.

Last week when I was sitting at my computer just finishing up blogging I heard a loud crack and something falling. Living in a neighborhood with lots of trees I figured it was probably another small limb breaking off of a tree. So I went to investigate and I was right about it being a limb of a tree but not on the small part. Our backyard neighbors tree spit off a huge limb that crashed down taking out the power, cable and telephone lines, a telephone pole, 2 trees in our yard and landing on our trampoline.  As I was out taking pictures just after it happened the electric company guys came to investigate and said that it wasn't there problem because they just put new underground lines in and they would just hook them up earlier than later. Then the cable guys came out and just took a look at it and left. So we thought ok they will be back tomorrow to fix the cables and get the wires off the ground, we were so wrong. It is now 10 days later and the tree has not been moved, the wires are still on the ground and our trampoline is still covered in tree. We talked with the neighbors hows tree lost the limb yesterday and they aren't taking responsibility for the tree and the damage that it has caused to our yard or the other neighbors fence and they are taking there own sweet time in getting the tree removed. So we may just have to live with a large tree in our yard for a while.

Dollywood

Last weekend we look a family vacation to Dollywood, which is in Pigeon Forge Tennessee. It was only about a 3 1/2 hr trip to get there and we had plenty of fun at the hotel pool and on the rides at Dollywood. Raquel had lots of fun going on all the rides, it was a good thing that Mike and I could trade off riding with her, you can only take so much going around in circles all day. Here are a few pictures of us having a wonderful time!

In front of the coal powered train

Swimming at the hotel

Natalya waiting to check into the hotel 

My Girls!

I'm so lucky to be the mother of Raquel and little Natalya, they are such a joy to be around. Raquel is such a good big sister and loves to help out with her little sister. She loves music and being with her dad. Natalya is growing up so fast and loves to laugh and giggle with her big sister.