New Car

Yesterday we took at trip down to North Carolina and bought a new car. We took advantage of the cash for clunkers program and traded in our jeep for a new Toyota Rav4. We will miss the jeep (especially the dogs because they are not allowed in the new car) but won't miss the no a/c or hard to open back door or iffy starting. We love our new car so come for a ride whenever your in town.

Saying good-bye to the jeep

Our new Rav4

Crawling!

Natalya has begun to crawl, just this morning she crawled across the floor to Mike. We knew she was close because she has been getting up on all fours for a while now and would scoot backwards and around in circles. She also enjoys mimicking the sounds her sister makes and loves food! Sometimes it seems like she eats more in one meal than Raquel does all day. In this picture she is enjoying a mini oreo cookie for the first time!

Family Day National Guard

Sitting in the army ambulance

Checking out the hummers

Playing on the slide

Enjoying some cotton candy

Playing at the park

Playing on the beach near the water

Riding with dad on the go carts

A couple of weeks ago Mike had his normal drill days but this month was family day. We left early Sat. morning so that he could make it to check in at 8 am, the girls and I went out to breakfast and did a little touring of the local Walmart (not much is open so early on a Sat. morning). Then it was time to pick-up Mike and check into our hotel, which one of Mike's fellow guardsmen got for us at a discounted rate. Although we only had one double bed and the pool was to cold to swim in it was a nice hotel for cheap. The party started at noon so we headed to the BBQ which was at the American Legion building. It was quite the layout, big park, covered eating shelter, pond to swim and fish in and all the toys that the national guard brought to play with including a big blowup bouncy structure, climbing wall and go carts. We ate lunch and had a few treats (they had snow cone and cotton candy machines) and played at the park until Mike was released from duty. We spent the rest of the day shopping in Lynchburg and hanging out at the hotel. Sunday Mike had to drill again and so the girls and I stayed at the hotel until we could go to the National Guard Armory and tour around and see all the trucks and weapons they had on display, it was nice to see where Mike goes every month and meet some of the men and women he drills with. It was a fun weekend!

Salem Fairl

Last night we took the girls to the Salem Fair, about 45 minutes away. We had lots of fun! They had a petting zoo and we got to see a baby camel, a zebra, emu, water buffalo, a yak and lots of goats (one even had 4 horns) and of course cows, pigs, lambs and chickens. They also had a sea lion act, kind of a sea world thing that we got to watch. We had fair food for dinner and then walked around, and were a little disappointed that there weren't very many rides that Raquel could ride so we decided to leave but not before having a character drawing of Raquel and letting Mike and Raquel ride a camel. Raquel was so proud of her picture and wanted to carry it home herself. It was a fun evening with the family!

Posing with the cows!

Sitting for her picture

The artist even made her a princess which she loved!

The camel ride

Swim Lessons

Raquel started swim lessons again on Monday this week. So we showed up at the pool at the specific time and couldn't find her age group, after asking one of the swim teachers and having her ask around the manager of the pool came out to talk with us. She said that Raquel was the only one that had signed up for the class and so it was cancelled and gave us the option of moving to the earlier minnows class that had 8 kids and full or joining the starfish class that was going on right then. I decided to let her try the starfish class and see how she would do, the class is for 5+ yr. olds and was a little worried she would get left out or left behind. No need to worry she did great and she is staying in the class, she is the smallest kid but one of the bravest. I'm so proud of our little swimmer!

Haircut

So Mike was cutting his hair this morning and Raquel was sitting and watching and decided she wanted to try it too. This is the third time she has cut her hair and the third time Mike has been in the room when she did it. Unfortunately we can't hide her haircut this time because she cut her bangs. And I don't think they will be grown out in time for our family pictures next month before Mike is deployed. Here is a picture of her handy work.

Our Week

Raquel and I went blueberry picking on Thurs. Our neighbor Ann was kind enough to watch Natalya while we went and picked. The weather was perfect, and the bushes loaded with berries. I got 2 gallons off of 3 bushes. Raquel and I both had fun and it was nice to have a little mommy daughter time alone with her.

We picked four gallons of blueberries

Natalya enjoying the fruits of our labor

Friday we had a pre-4th bonfire. We invited some friends (The Bracken's, Daley's and Henshaw's) to join us in cooking hot dogs and make s'mores over the fire. It was fun and reminded us how much we missed doing it in Star, Id.

On the 4th we got up and made a great holiday breakfast complete with eggs, bacon and of course fresh blueberry pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup. After hanging out the rest of the morning we went to the Blacksburg town parade. We were a little disappointed in the parade, for one thing it was the shortest parade we have ever seen. But we were able to take Raquel's friend Autumn with us and they had fun together!

Then later we had our own little fireworks show in front of our house. It was a fun 4th of July!