Welcome to July! I knew you were missing the hot weather so I'm here to give you a reminder. July 2nd was my dad's 60th birthday, and it happened to be on a weekend between sessions. He came up for the weekend, partly to see us, and partly to work on my great aunt's house which is about 8 miles north of us. Her house was damaged in the tornado that came through that night back in the spring when we were running for cover in the basement in the middle of the night. My uncles and cousins came to work on it as well, so we kind of made it a family hangout/work/birthday party Saturday.
The kids and I were on our way to see the progress that was being made on the house, and we got a call saying my Uncle Doug (Dad's youngest brother) had slid off the roof and was on his way to the hospital. That put a damper on things, particularly for Doug! Thankfully he was just badly bruised, it could have been a lot worse. I went on over to the house, and what was left of the family that didn't go to the hospital was scheduled to come to camp for lunch.
Here's Dad on his 60th birthday. It's a shame an old guy like him still has to do physical manual labor. Actually my crazy dad works for fun. He says it's a welcome break from office work.
My cousin Jesse, whose dad was on his way to the hospital. Nothing stops progress!
Trees through the roof aren't a good thing.
Taking a break.
Some of the Adams crowd trickled in for lunch and a low key birthday party. Looks like Grandad had to sit at the kids' table. Or maybe this is kids sitting at the Grandad table.
That mysterious pole sticking up in from the table is the Golden Plunger, the award cabins earn each day for winning cabin clean up. I love eating with a plunger on the table with me. As long as it's golden, and not brown, that is. I digress...
Maybe not quite the pomp and circumstance a celebration of six decades deserves, but the cake was tasty, anyway!
Sixty candles would have been a fire hazard.
The guys headed back to work on the house and kids, moms, and grandmoms stayed at camp to play in the lake for awhile. I took the girls to the barn to ride when they got tired of swimming. Gracyn and Bailey came to camp first session and love horses, so the two of them and Amelia rode in the arena for a little while.
This is the day I decided to officially retire Taffy. We hadn't been using her for classes because she had a terrible itching problem all winter and it still hadn't cleared up. I changed her feed and tried all kinds of topical treatments. The vet even did blood work and couldn't figure it out. She had also developed a heart murmur over the past year, so at the young age of 36, she's "out to pasture." This day I thought maybe she'd be in good enough shape to carry Amelia around for a few minutes since we we hadn't been using her and her itching seemed to be improving, but the heat was too much and she was stumbling a bit. That was a pretty clear sign she was officially done. Since then she's been happy coming in to eat and going back out with the herd. She follows Maverick around the pasture because her eyesight isn't what it used to be either, and he always waits for her. She deserves a rest after teaching countless kids to ride. I need a barn full of Taffys, then our riding program would be perfect. :)
Amelia rode Stormy instead, a pony I borrowed for the summer.
Gracyn practiced cantering on Maverick.
Bailey took a turn too. It started raining towards the end of the girls' riding time, so we brought the horses on in.
The following pictures are some I took of Amelia while she played in the rain at the barn. I think they're really cute.
I might have to actually develop some of these. It's rare that any of them ever make it off the computer.
A few days before second session ended, James came home with a new ride for Shannon. He got a good deal on a Shannon-sized mountain bike, with real gears and hand brakes. This kid is one with his bike.
He's probably put a couple of hundred miles on it already. He rides a bike better than I do. Maybe he got the cycling gene from James.
I'm going to end this post (that bite-sized pieces thing I was talking about before), although this one doesn't get us even close to the end of July.
I don't want to sign off without sharing a few more Elizabethisms with you. It's fun to witness a little person's mind developing. Last week she accidentally dropped the entire box full of colored pencils and crayons on the floor. I was in the other room and she left them there. I called her back in after awhile to clean them up, and she immediately responded, "Mom, they're sleeping!" I said, "Who's sleeping?," and she said, "The pencils and crayons are sleeping." She didn't want to clean them up and that was her out.
This morning I was driving the kids to our home school co-op classes and told them I had to put some gas in the car. I drove by a station to find one with a better price, and Elizabeth says in an animated tone, "Mama, you just passed gas!" I'll leave the ruckus that ensued to your imagination once the other kids heard that.
This evening she cracked Amelia and I up. I was fixing Amelia's hair because we had pictures for the church directory tonight, and she said, "You look like somebody else, Amelia." "Who?," we both asked. She cocked her head to the side and said, "You look mah-velous!" No idea where she got that. (Bet you're wondering if we pulled all of our hair out during the photo session. That's usually how it goes. Not this time though, because after spending all that time coordinating outfits, getting everyone ready, and driving 20 minutes to Clermont, we found out there was no power at the church, and therefore no photos. AAAAHHHHHHHH!)
Today Shannon spent nearly an hour talking on a Lego cell phone he created out of a flat Lego piece and several small pieces that looked like buttons. He was even texting, and "called" Maggie D. to see if she would take down some pictures she had posted, I assume on Facebook (?) All of the kids took turns playing games on his phone. He even had a Candyland app. Avery asked if he had Angry Birds, and he said he had a game just like it but that wasn't what it was called. I jokingly asked if it was called Frangry Frirds, and Amelia said, "No, it's Tangy Turds." That was funny. All of this took place while we were walking around in JC Penney's and Kohl's. I wonder how many people thought I had really gotten a six year old a cell phone. He says his next one is going to have a section that flips up and down.
Tomorrow Avery will be five. Impossible.
Until next time, peace out.
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