Life Group Love

 Aptly named, our life group has definitely enhanced our lives this year.  These game night pics are evidence of how and why.  :)

Life is always better in community!

Cousins Days

This summer we only had a few Cousins Days, but they were chock-full of super fun!  It's hard to NOT have fun with this group....

This was the welcome team as kids were arriving...

Oh look!  More red cup games....  We definitely got our money's worth from this batch of cups this summer.

They have gotten to the point where they like to lead the songs themselves!

 And the giant slip-n-slide was a hit again... until fire ants showed up.  :(

What a blessing it has been to live near cousins!

Bible Blast

This summer the kids participated in a program I made up for our church.... Bible Blast!  We decided to make learning about the Bible -- and actually learning verses from the Bible -- fun and exciting, so I bought some buzzers and tried to recreate some of the ideas I remembered from Junior Bible Quizzing when I was young.

Kids ages 9-12 were invited on Wednesday mornings, and we divided everyone into 2 teams, the Colossians and the Philippians.  Each time got to choose a mascot and make a team banner for the wall, so we ended up with the Colossian Crocodiles and the Philippians Leviathan.  Then they competed all summer to get gold coins and fill their jars -- with the prize being an ice cream sundae party.

To get gold coins the kids memorized verses (some did as many as 20 verses in 8 weeks... and they may in fact live in our house) or won the various quiz games that we played.  I wrote up 100 facts from the Bible... things like "Who was the mother of Isaac?" or "How many books are in the New Testament?" and the kids learned the answers for the games.  I think it was a lot of fun!

We also did a lot of games with red cups since I bought several hundred at the beginning of the summer and didn't want them to go to waste...

It was a Blast!

Summer Camps, Part 2

Rayna and Colsen both got to go to camps this month.... but I have no pictorial proof whatsoever.

Rayna attended a day camp with Project2Heal in Waxhaw, where she learned all about caring for and training puppies to become service animals.  She also got to play with goats, do crafts, and a bunch of other fun things.  Even though she is not particularly fond of dogs (!), she still had an amazing time each day and couldn't wait to be dropped off there every morning.

Colsen bravely set off for Ridge Haven, on the recommendation of Strider.  Strider insists that his weeks at their service/work camps were some of his best ever.... and now Colsen agrees.  He met some new friends, got to share his love of yo-yoing with some of the kids and counselors, worked hard, played harder, and especially loved the night games.  The speaker was great, too, and he says he learned good things about Jesus.  Sounds like a great week indeed!

So since I have no pictures of those events, I'll post this one of Jinna enjoying her VBS experience instead.  :)

PA words

In an effort to encourage the kids that our plans to move to Grove City is a good thing, Pete and I were telling them some of the things we liked about the area.  We started talking about "Rachel's," a restaurant near campus that we like and I told the boys that one of the best things about places like that is that they offer salads with fries on top!

 (This is the perfect solution for me, since I always want fries but would rather have a salad than a sandwich so I can never decide which to get in regular restaurants.)

A few days later I heard the boys giggling and they told me they were practicing their "Pennsylvania talk."  They kept saying things like, "Ah, yinz just like fries 'n' salad!" or "They go together fries on a salad."  

The funny thing was they were saying all these phrases in their exaggerated Southern accents.  This move is going to be interesting!

Summer camp weeks, part 1

Each kid was told they could participate in one summer camp this year.  Rayna's and Colsen's are still upcoming, but Jinna and Miles have both finished theirs -- and in both cases they LOVED them!

Unfortunately I go NO pictures of Jinna's camp, but she spent 3 days one week with Ms. Deborah in her art studio.  They did all kinds of "fine crafts" -- weaving, yarn-tying, pottery, paper-making, etc -- and she brought home treasures like an ice cream dish she can eat out of, a key chain, a bookmark, a small book, and a wall-hanging,  They made some pretty impressive things!

I did get a couple of pictures of Miles' camp, which was called Camp in the City (or Pine Cove).  His counselor was really great and that camp was high-energy!  Each day they did different activities, like bungy-jumping, obstacle courses, water wars, some sort of dodgeball game, go-carting, scooters, a spider-web climbing course, rock climbing, and slip-and-sliding.  They also learned some upbeat songs ("Burn like a star, light a fire in our hearts" and "Me Without You" by TobyMac) and more about God -- all good things.

At the end of the week his counselor spent some time "speaking life" to each of the kids, telling them what good things he saw in them.  I loved that!

Summer Shenanigans

I never know what I'm going to come home to.  One day it was to a "bodyguard" who stopped me on the driveway to see if I had a pass to get through to see "the athlete."  Another time it was to some really muddy kids.

I took this picture of Strider when I walked into the kitchen and saw him making food.  I mentioned that the shot looked like a magazine cover, and next thing I knew, Miles had made these:

 Most days all of the boys are outside playing with some ball or another, sometimes just in their underwear....

It's not dull around here.

Summer Miscellany

Other fun things this summer....

Dinner at Chuy's while Strider made our food in the kitchen:

Spontaneous dinner with Nonna and Poppa (after she was healed from cancer!):

 Soccer games for Rayna and swim lessons for Jinna:

 Finding our picture in the local newspaper:

 Playing with the Clarks:

....And sweeping, always sweeping!  Rayna loves to do housework (unbidden!) every day!

Fireworks!

I don't think we've ever taken our kids somewhere to watch fireworks.... We have always been able to see plenty from our house (NC folks are crazy about their fireworks!).

So this year was a first!  The Deuces invited us over for dinner and then we were all smuggled in 2 cars into their country club (yes, they are country club people now!) for the fireworks show.

It was such a fun night!  I think the kids will always have this special memory with their cousins...

Waxhaw 4th of July Parade

Our now-annual tradition on the 4th is to go into Waxhaw for the parade with friends! Entertaining for sure.  :)

We love this small town!

Jinna hikes

When we first met Jinna, we were told she could go about 100 meters without getting tired.  The first few times we took her for walks, we knew we were pushing her.  And then we took her on real hikes in various states -- but Pete would end up carrying her a lot of the time.

 This weekend, though, she hiked for over an hour in Montreat, up and down a mountain, over all kinds of rocks and roots -- and did it all on her own two feet!  No carrying for this girl anymore. 

She lamented many times about the evil of roots in the path, but she persevered!

And we got to see plenty of beautiful spots...

We took turns holding her hand and helping over the rough parts, so we all cheered when she finished it.

Ice cream in Black Mountain for everyone!