Sliding into Summer

Evan had a week of Skybacher's Basketball Camp to kick off the summer. If you look really closely, you can pick Evan out on the court (look for the curly hair!) Below are the three amigos....Zach, Joseph and Evan....good friends!
Yesterday was our church's Family Fishing Event....a couple from our church graciously opens up their lake once a year and lets us come and fish and picnic. This is our third year and we always enjoy it.
Ann-Marie just likes playing with the worms...what is it with my family and worms????

Darrell did most of the fishing with the kids...I don't enjoy fishing as much. He had a good time and even caught himself a Father's Day present (although all the fish are catch and release).

I'm going to take this opportunity to thank my husband for being a wonderful husband and father. Darrell is selfless, loving and giving and our family would not function and thrive the way it does without him. I love you and appreciate you, Darrell!

On another note....next adventure - Iowa! We'll be heading there on Monday...I'll try to post updates on the road.

Finishing Well

We did it! We finished our first year homeschooling with PACyber. This post is labeled "finishing well" because, quite frankly, we all experienced a bit of burn out in late May/early June. I thought February would be hard to school through, but that was a breeze compared to the Spring fever I caught! We persevered and I couldn't be more proud of my kids. To celebrate, we invited another family to come with us to SportsWorks in Pittsburgh. What a fun day!

On another note, we are trying to "finish well" the myriad of home projects that have popped up in the last couple of weeks. There are just not enough hours in the day! A dead bush (which is now a big hole in the front yard), stripped and not-yet repainted garage doors, and a basement office that had some water leakage due to the torrential rains we've had complete a list of never-ending projects. We figured that the home office was one of those projects we would get to eventually.....but since we had to empty it, dry it out and clean the carpet, we might as well complete the project now. We had some left-over paint from last summer's painting projects....a light shade of blue that Darrell took to Home Depot to tint what we hoped to turn out an Air Force Blue.....instead we have more of an tropical island blue, but we like it. Ann-Marie decided she was going to get in on the painting and she did quite well.

Pap will be proud.....a little painter apprentice to follow in his footsteps!

Memorial Day Weekend Fun

Not many pictures from this weekend, but lots of wonderful memories. I sat back and enjoyed the time with our family and PA friends, so the camera was left behind. Here's a recap:
Friday, we headed to Idlewilde for a PACyber field trip. It was hot, so we rode some rides and then spent the majority of the time in the water park, until 4:00 p.m. when the thunderstorm came through and closed the park down. Alec rode his first adult-sized water slide. Good times!

We stayed overnight with Toni (Darrell's oldest sister) and family...this overlapped with Micheal's last day of high school, so we met several of his friends as they were having a sleepover in the basement. On Saturday, we left for home, but Ann-Marie stayed and spent some quality time with her Aunt Toni.

Sunday brought the annual family gathering at Karen's house and we had wonderful weather for enjoying her swimming pool. It was nice to see everyone there, as several of our nieces and nephews are now college students with busy schedules. Ann-Marie got to show off her new plants (compliments of Aunt Toni) to include a tomato plant named Juliette. I'm hoping to keep Juliette alive this summer!

Monday, we met a group of our close friends in Beaver to watch the Memorial Day parade. We then all gathered at one of their houses for a cookout and stayed for the majority of the afternoon. Adults and children had a great time.

This weekend we were blessed with a wonderful combination of family time, activities, time with friends, and great weather. We hope that you enjoyed an excellent start to your summer also!