Summer, Week 1.

We just finished week 1 of Summer break!This summer, I decided to do a true "scrapbook" entry of each week....especially since I recently discovered a site to print the blog!

Our summer vacation started last Thursday and Ellie and Jayna went to the auditions at Appleton Alliance Church for the children's musical that will be held later this summer. Ellie was chosen as an "aside speaker", which is sort of like a narrator. Upon finding more information out about this part, we were told that she will be tying the play's story line to God's word and truth! She is very excited! Both girls will be in the chorus for the play--they can't wait.

On Friday, we had a "Father's Day Craft Session" with our friends the Landsverks. That's all we can say about that....after all, it's not Father's Day yet and we'd hate for the dads to see what they are getting...

And after 13 months of waiting....our sand FINALLY arrived. On Friday, Colin played for 5 straight hours in the sand, taking about a 20 minute lunch break. He was in heaven! On Saturday, he played for about 3 hours straight! The sand is definitely loved by all.

On Saturday, Andy, Ellie and Jayna went to Cherry On Top in Neenah to tie dye shirts! It was a VERY hot day and it was very messy...but the shirts turned out so cute! We'll be wearing them as a family when we go on vacation--I'm sure people will notice them, they are so bright!

While Andy and the girls were tie dying, I took Ava to see a ballet performance of "Where The Wild Things Are". She loved it....and can't wait to start ballet next week again!

On Sunday, we had an impromptu "fix the faucet BBQ" at our house!
One of our bathrooms had a leaky faucet and I was just collecting all the water and dumping it on my plants each day. We found out that a friend could help....so it was "bring the kids to play while the dad's fix the faucet" day! We had such a great time with the Schlafmans and I captured this photo just as the kids arrived:

Rub-A-Dub-Dub....5 girls in a "tub"...

They did eventually move to the bigger pool, the trampoline, the swingset, the basement, the sand, the basketball court....we covered all activities in 1 short afternoon/evening!
As you can see below, all 7 children were just having a ball together: (check out Colin's macho man look with Lexi!)
Another first for our family: I took all 4 kids to a public pool by myself, on a VERY hot (and busy pool day!) day! We surprised Ellie and Jayna with the activity and Ellie said "Are you sure mom?!" My response was "This is either the best idea and the start of something new or the worst idea and we'll never do it again!"

All the kids LOVED it, and we will definitely go swimming together again!

Colin is doing a Pull Ups study and it is quite interesting. The testing is a sensor attached to the Pull Up; when the child wets, the sensor sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Quite funny! However, we first found that Colin LIKED to hear the song (wrong behavior to enforce) and now our sensor is acting up and playing every 5 minutes, even without wetness. Now he is upset at the song. It has been an experience!

And, Ellie had her 1st swim meet of the summer! We love the local meets and this one was very low key, a dual meet between Fox Cities and Oshkosh. We were trying to pump Ellie up in the afternoon before the meet....it was either the Wiggles' "Swim Like A Fish" song or "Just Keep Swimming" from Nemo. At any rate, she swam wonderfully; it is so neat to see her improve and get stronger....which equals faster!
For the swimming fanatics:
Catch the 50M butterfly HERE. (Ellie is the 2nd to last lane)
Catch the 50M freestyle HERE. (Ellie is 2nd to last lane)
Catch the 50M breaststroke HERE. (Ellie is in the 2nd lane)

We did forget our camera at home...but thankfully we had 2 iphones...1 for videoing and 1 for timing her events. We had NO idea that she swam so well in the freestyle until we were leaving and checked the results. See for yourself.....moving on up....Way to go, Ellie!
In other news of the week, both Ellie and Jayna have been attending choir camp through the Appleton Public Schools. WOW. I am left speechless by the organization, the beautiful singing I have heard, the instructors...everything! The end of the camp week is a concert,which will be included on week 2 of the blog roll. And while the big girls were singing, Ava was learning how to ride her 2 wheeled bike! We're almost there!
Until next week...