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!

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