Hot Summer

We had some really hot weather this summer, so we stayed inside a lot. We had to find lots of fun things to do. James playing with playdoh and blinking for the picture.

"How do these scissors work?"

Notice his scab on his arm. I talked about how he got it in the previous post.

More Playing

James has been enjoying playing with his friends.  Here are a few pictures from our play groups. James and the musical bars.

James actually fell on this toy and got a good sized "raspberry" on his elbow.  It is better now, but it was a big scab for a long time. Here is James hydrating himself.

We also went to the zoo one day.  James, Madison and Braden watching the otters swim.

The stinky pink flamingos.

James went into the petting zoo. He was terrified of the goats and came right back out.

Then he went back in with his friends Ethan, Madison, and Braden. He was cautious at first.

Eventually, he pet them all and did not want to leave.

James is loving playing with friends. I hope he loves preschool when is starts soon!

Swiss National Day

So my computer is not operational.  The monitor quit working a while back, and now the key board is not working, due to a little boy yanking on the cord from under the desk.  Needless to say it is now disassembled on the computer desk.  I have been working on getting all my data saved to an external hard drive and now I am using the laptop to blog.  It has taken a little while to get everything switched.  This should be better though, because this computer is faster.

On August 1, Jon and I decided to celebrate Swiss National Day since that is where Jon served his mission. We ate some fondue.  We had cheese fondue with homemade French bread and pickles for dinner and then cleaned our fondue pot and did chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, apples, and marshmallows for dessert.

It was fun and tasty. We tried to get James to try it, but he would not.  He had salami and cheese instead.

We might have to make this a tradition in the future and maybe James and Jacob will join in soon.

Carter Sealing

I was going to include these pictures with the rest of my July pictures (in the following post), but this occasion was special enough that is deserves it's own post.  On July 26th, I was privileged to be able to go to the sealing of Logan to his parents Maria and Weston.  The Carters are our good friends, who are living in Toledo and were able to adopt Logan.  It is so fun to see their family grow!  Here is a picture I took of them outside the temple afterwards.

With Grandma Cater too.

I also was able to see my friend, Carrie, at the sealing.

She is also from Idaho Falls and was in my parents ward, but after I was married.  It was a great experience! Thanks for inviting me to be there to your special day!  Sadly Jon was working long that day, but I was able to find someone to watch my boys.  Thanks Yanceys!

The Rest of July

Wow! I cannot believe it is August already! Time just goes by and I have every intention of blogging, but it just does not happen.  Here are some more things we did in July and some pictures, too.  Side note, Jon worked a lot, so he was not on many of our adventures last month, but hopefully there will be more this month.  He was working in the PICU.

This first picture is actually from June 2011, right before we move to Grand Rapids from Toledo.  We were at the zoo and our friend Maria took the picture.

Thanks for the picture Maria!  We miss the Toledo zoo so much!  Also miss the hat James is wearing.  It was left at a park not long after this picture was taken. 

In July, we made a few trips to Miejer Gardens.  Here are some of the pictures.  James and his friend, John, playing some drum sculptures.

Jacob chilling in the stroller at the tree house.

A puppet theater inside of a giant log.  Sorry it is blurry, but it was hard to get these boys to hold still for a picture.

The water.  It is actually a model of the great lakes and shows how the water flows in them.  There are also facts written around the outside edge, and the state boundaries are carved into the ground around, too.

James got soaked. 

We normally avoid this part since James never wants to leave and it is not pretty when it is time to go home. 

Jacob staying hydrated while he watches James play in the water.

In the basement of the front building, there is an aquarium with turtles.  Here is James and (if you look close) one of the turtles.

Jacob watching the turtles.

James wanted to take some pictures of the turtles so here they are.

This is the first time he has ever taken a picture and he is very proud of them.

There will likely be more pictures of Meijer Gardens over the next few years.

We had a play group at Blanford Nature Center.  It was a lot of fun walking through the woods and getting rained on (it had not rained for a long time before that).  We even were able to get all the kids in a picture.

Here is John and Isaac Swenson, Tanner and Hailey Harris, Ethan and Braden Vach, James and Jacob Felt, Madison Vach, and Noah and Lucas Scherf.

We like to go here and walk in the woods.  This time we saw a ton of frogs in a little pond.  The kids loved it.