The Birds & Bees

Well, more accurately, a bird and a bee.

I haven't seen any monarchs on our milkweed yet, but we have had lots and lots of bees.

Technically speaking this is a really bad photo, but I thought it was kind of cool because you can somewhat see the details on his gorget. Hope to get a better picture at some point yet this summer.

More Softball

Danielle's team played in their first series of all-star games today. Today was pool play, which is used to rank the teams for tomorrow's tournament play. We played 2 games and lost both of them badly. Danielle did a great job and had a good time, and we enjoyed watching her, so it was still a good day. This tournament is out of town, so Ron used some hotel points and we went down last night. We had a nice time pretending like we were on vacation. :) We start our tournament game(s) tomorrow. They are single elimination. I don't expect it to be a long day.

She got to pick her #. Why #8? "8 is my lucky number. When I was 8 years old I won the handwriting contest, I won the poem contest, I hit 2 homeruns, and I made the All-Star team." Makes sense to me.



I think she looks so grown up in this picture.

I think Danielle looks so cute in her uniform. She let me take her out for some pictures yesterday - I was afraid she'd get that nice, white uniform stained the first time she played! We were kind of limited in our availability and didn't go out at a very good time. It was way too sunny, so the lighting was harsh and caused a lot of squinting. Although I didn't get any "framers", it's difficult to take a bad picture of Danielle. These are some pictures from our little outing and from our game today.

This was the one picture she really wanted. She's silly.

Tennis & Tomatoes

Danielle is attending a 3 day tennis camp this week. It's only 2 hours a day, but she has had a lot of fun. The girls' tennis team from the high school has been helping with it. It's been a good introduction to the sport. I probably should have thought things through a little more before letting her go, though - tennis is a rather pricey sport! She likes it so much she's asked for her own racket and tennis lessons for her birthday.

I forgot to post this picture of Tyler earlier. He still hasn't mastered the "diving" part of the diving board.










Tonight we had our first home-grown tomato of the season. Usually we don't have any until closer to August. It was wonderful!! (The sweet corn is in early this year, too.) My plants have blossom end rot, so I've had to pick several green tomatoes that are rotting on the bottom. I'm hoping that if I pick the rotten ones it won't strain the plant as much and maybe I won't lose so many. BER is caused by a lack of calcium in the soil, so I dug a little trench around the roots and piled in a bottle of crushed TUMS. I haven't had to remove any more tomatoes for a few days, so hopefully my plants are recovering. I also planted a cherry tomato plant this year. I must have 50 tomatoes on that plant, but they aren't turning red. They will probably ripen all at once. Danielle will be so happy with her cherry tomato feast.

A Little Relief

The temperature was finally bearable today! We had some "issues" this afternoon but managed to get outside for a couple hours this evening. We had planned to go fishing sometime over the 4th - have a cookout, make s'mores, fish, etc - but it was just too hot unless we went late in the day and we either had plans or it stormed every evening. So we managed to squeeze in a couple hours of fishing after dinner tonight. The cookout and s'mores will have to wait for another day.

Danielle and I are the only ones who caught anything. I suppose mine was small enough it shouldn't really count for anything more than bait. Tyler was feeling a little under the weather so his heart wasn't really in it. The temperatures were wonderful, though. It was so nice to be able to sit outside! The sunset was beautiful tonight. My point & shoot camera doesn't do it justice. We enjoyed watching the bats as they came out to hunt, too. As far as bug eaters go, I've decided I prefer bats to spiders, although I suppose I might feel differently if I had one in my house.

Keeping Cool

It was 103 degrees here today. What better way to spend the day than at 2 pool parties! This afternoon Danielle's baton group had their end of year awards party at an inside pool. The girls got trophies and matching tank tops. Tyler got a gift card to Best Buy for carrying the banner earlier in the year. I thought it was very thoughtful that they included him. The kids had a nice time staying cool in the pool.

This evening Danielle's softball team rented the local pool for a private pool party. It was wonderful! We had such a nice time. The coach brought a grill and we all brought a dish. We picked up some dry ice and brought drumsticks, popsicles, and freezer pops. They were a big hit! The girls all got another trophy. The trophies they received last week were from finishing first in the tournament, but we didn't realize they would get trophies for finishing first in the regular season, too. That was a nice surprise! So Danielle had a 2 trophy day!

We had some dry ice left after the party, so we did a couple experiments before putting the kids to bed. Dry ice is so fun to play with. Here is one of the experiments. The giant bubble was pretty cool.

4th Fun

Our 4th of July celebration has been stetched out a little longer than normal this year.

We went to a nearby town to watch fireworks on the 3rd. We've done that a couple times and have always enjoyed it.
























Danielle's baton group performed at our town's 4th of July celebration. She has taken the past month off from baton since softball kept her so busy, but she didn't miss a beat. She did a great job.

We let off all our "fireworks" (smokebombs, snakes, & party poppers) yesterday and went to watch the fireworks, but a big storm moved through right before time to set the fireworks off and they were postponed to tonight. So, we got to celebrate again tonight.

This year we went to the old school's playground to watch the show. It's fun to watch the kids all run around and be silly together. I love living in our small town. They started tonight's show a little early because another storm was moving in. Last night we enjoyed a few rounds of Apples to Apples since we couldn't watch the fireworks. After the fireworks tonight, we had a little sparkler fun until the lightning sent us back inside.

This & That

I took this a couple weeks ago. I posted a picture of the same nest earlier that week. I went back a day or two later and took this. One bird had left the nest. We went back the following day, and 2 of the birds were sitting on the fence post under the nest. There were only a couple left in the nest. The momma was swooping around and squawking at us, so we didn't stick around. Further along the roof line was another momma just starting the process.

I found the perfect Father's Day card for Ron this year. I think it was probably a little worse when the kids were a little younger, but we still definitely have days like this.

One day last weekend the kids were downstairs playing together when Tyler suddenly came storming upstairs, quickly followed by a giggling Danielle. "Mom!! Danielle gave me a tattoo! What does it say? Did she write 'Momma's boy'?!"  He turned around and had this giant red heart on his back. I had to turn my back to the kids so I wouldn't lose it. It was so funny. I thought I did pretty good maintaining my composure while scolding Danielle until Tyler ran downstairs to show Ron. Suddenly I hear Ron's over-the-top laughter and that was it for me! She was all too happy to scrub it off his back, too.

This may not be noteworthy, but it was a first for me. I was baking the other day and cracked open an egg with a double yolk! I know that's common in duck eggs. I don't know how common it is in wh
ite chicken eggs, but it's never happened to me. I decided it was a sign that egg was meant for better things, so I cooked it up over easy and ate it for lunch instead. :)

It has been so hot here lately. The only outside activity that makes sense is going to the pool. We went to the water park for a few hours on Friday. We ended up getting chased off by some scary strong storms but made it home safely. There are still people without power from that storm, so we were very fortunate.

The Champs!

We won!

Danielle's softball team made it all the way to the final championship game, which they played last night. It was a tough game! We ended up going an extra inning. Thankfully we were the home team, so when that extra run came across the plate, we were done! The girls were so excited! They finished the season with an undefeated record of 15-0. I think that's pretty amazing. It was neat to watch all the girls improve over the course of the season. Our coaches were never uptight or so focused on winning that the game wasn't fun, either. It really was a great experience...that happened to end with a trophy!

Cheering for the 2nd place team

After the game the coach invited the kids over to cool off in his pool. The kids had so much fun. It was a great end to a great season. All-Star tournaments start in a couple weeks, so I suppose I'll have to find something else to blog about until then. :)