Ice Cream

The strawberry farm down the road from us also has homemade ice cream. We love their ice cream, and I know Edward does too.  I'm sad he'll miss it this season.  Well, we have stopped by twice for ice cream, and it hasn't disappointed.

 

 Madison, after my own heart, with my favorite, Mint Chocolate Chip (it is so good!).

 Another Mint Chocolate Chip lover

Alex loves Vanilla and always gets it. He's camera shy for some reason.

 

Miss you, Edward.  We wish you could enjoy the ice cream with us.

Strawberries

Alex has been begging to pick strawberries for weeks.  On Friday, as we drove down to buy some, he about lost it, begging to pick them.  So, he finally got his wish, as strawberry season is upon us.

 

 Here's his loot.

 Grandma happened to be over for the day, and she enjoyed picking with us. I think Alex loved the fact that he was the only kid along for the day.  Madison and Luke were both at school, less than a mile away  :)

My strawberry picker

"Kisses from Daddy"

One month down, and our jar is still really full, too full.

More of The Great Outdoors

Edward asked to see how the yard was coming along, so here's what I've been up to lately.

 

My mom and I found these beautiful Geraniums at a local nursery.

I love this basket I also found.   The flowers are so vibrant. It's hard to tell in this picture just how bright they are.

The yard is coming along.  I don't mind mowing at all, but every four or five days right now is wearing me out!

Alex begged me to take this picture.

Encore Azaleas on the side of the house

Back at the front yard with Alex

 Nice green grass (with very few weeds, yea!).

 Vegetable garden area

 

 View of the backyard

 The Snapdragons are so pretty.  They have become a perennial for me. I planted these last year.

 Our Tropicana is coming back. It already looks better than it did last year. I don't know what was going on with it last year, but I'm happy it's looking better already.

 My Wandering Jew is starting to wander.

 Luke was hanging out on the climbing rope on our swingset.

 Another Snapdragon. I planted this almost two years ago.

This petunia hybrid has beautiful color too.

Tennis

Madison has been taking tennis lessons for a couple of months.  She is really enjoying lessons, and it's been such a nice way to spend the evenings.

 

It's hard to get good pictures because we have to stay outside of the court area.  Here, she's practicing her backhand.

Getting some instruction from Coach Mona

 She has six kids in her tennis group, so it's a nice size.

This is what the boys like to do during the lessons.

Camp Rockfish Open House

Madison and Luke went to Camp Rockfish last summer.  A couple from our church runs this camp, so we know quite a bit about it. Last year, it was raining during the Open House, so even though we went, it wasn't all that fun. This year, it was a beautiful day, around 68 degrees. The kids and I had such a nice afternoon touring the camp and checking out all the activities.  Madison has been telling me forever she wanted to do overnight camp this summer, so she's signed up.  Luke waivered about the overnight camp, deciding today, after remembering the fun, that he, too, wanted to do the mini overnight camp (three days instead of six).  So, both kids are ready for summer camp. They won't do that until July, but they will also go for a week of day camp in June with our church (our church is invited out every year since the directors go to our church).

 

 I signed the kids up for camp right away, and when that was all done, we went right for the climbing wall.

 Luke was up first, and they kept telling the "little guy" if he needed to come down and not finish, they'd get him down...yeah.

 As you can see, he quickly passed this little girl who was about Madison's age, maybe even older.

 At the top!!! Ready to repel down

 Next up, Madison.  They also told her not to be afraid  :)

 Nailed it.  Awesome job!!  Now, I didn't get any pictures of me going up the climbing wall, but I, too, made it to the top!  It's a 40 ft. wall, so it's no little climb.  The kids were jealous that I got to use the zipline down. You have to be over 12 years old to use that, and they loved watching me come down. They were standing next to the zipline cheering.  It was cute.

 

 Madison wanted to show off her favorite lake activity, the tube slide.

 

 There's a new subdivision behind the tube slide (on the other side of the lake).  We looked a several houses in there when we were moving, and I told the kids they could have just gone on a swim to come to camp.

 Beautiful day

 It was a miracle, but none of my kids fell into the lake.  My neighbors weren't so fortunate. The son and the dad flipped the canoe (well, the son really did it), so they had to leave early.  ****NOTE**** I am REALISTIC in what I can handle with three small, ACTIVE kids. Notice, I didn't try the canoe with them!!!!!

 It's a beautiful camp.

 Stop for s'mores...again, no pictures of actually roasting them. I, too, did that part, knowing that no one needed to catch on fire.

 BB Guns

 Archery

While we were there over three hours, we still didn't have time for everything. We eliminated the arts and crafts because, let's face it, my kids love the outdoors.