Tennis Lessons

Madison has been taking tennis lessons for over a year now when she's not doing soccer.  Luke decided to join her in August.  He enjoyed the lessons very much, but let's just say that his baseball swing and tennis swing look VERY similar right now!

Not the best picture, but I wasn't about to be that mom stalking my kids on the court during a lesson, so I had to take this from outside of the fenced in area.

It works really well to put the two of them next to each other.  There is never any fighting over the ball; Madison is left-handed, so any shots coming toward her are really coming toward her and not in the "gray area" between Madison and Luke.

Cousins

Cousins...life just isn't the same without them!

Trip to Wilmington

The kids and I had plans to travel with my sister and niece to Washington D.C. to visit our brother and his family...had plans. My sister ended up coming down with Shingles, seriously!  Now, the problem with the trip was that our niece Violet had not had her chicken pox vaccine, so we changed our vacation plans and went to Wilmington for a few days.  While the kids were bummed they didn't see their cousins, aunt, and uncle, they were thrilled to see Grandma, Grandpa, and the beach!  

After one of our beach days, Mer and I went out to dinner.  Grandma discovered a new favorite game with the crew-BINGO!!

Another time we all went out to eat, we ate at a local favorite, Flaming Amy's.  I LOVE this place.  The portions are huge, and the food is awesome.  This is what the inside of my "Double Bypass Burrito" looked like.

I'm so glad these two enjoy each other so much!

Our crazy beach crew

Great trip, well unless you were Mer with Shingles and a jellyfish sting...yeah, she had a rough couple of days.  We hope to repeat the beach trip next summer, without the illnesses and stings.

Camp Rockfish

Summer here in North Carolina means time at Camp Rockfish.  All three kids had an amazing time this year.  Both Madison and Luke did the week-long resident camp, while Alex did the week-long day camp. We are so happy that the kids love going to camp so much. It really is a fantastic Christian camp.

Madison and Luke couldn't wait for us to leave on drop-off day.  They ended up being in cabins back to back, and they were in a lot of the same day groups.

Alex LOVED day camp, especially since his good friend AJ went too.  

Our campers after a great week!  They had awesome weather, with a bit of rain only on Monday.  When we picked Madison and Luke up on Friday, they didn't want to go, and their counselors said they were awesome all week.

Target Practice

Luke loves his bow and practices with his target all the time. He even uses the swingset platform as a  tree stand.

Blueberry Picking

One of our favorite summertime activities in North Carolina is to go blueberry picking.  We've gone every year for the last four years.  Usually, it's extremely hot, humid, and even sometimes wet.  This year, we managed to find a day between rainstorms where it was unusually cool and overcast to pick our blueberries. With great weather and good workers,we were able to pick 17 pounds of blueberries in just over an hour!!!!  After getting them home, we ate some, but we froze the rest to enjoy throughout the winter.

My great work crew...this was only about halfway through our picking, and you can see how full our buckets were getting!

More Boating Fun

We really have enjoyed our boat. The lake is always beautiful, even on the few days we got caught in a rainstorm  :)  

Everyone has enjoyed fishing; however, with two left-handed kids, fishing poles are a bit awkward.

Food on the boat is always a good idea.

No boating day is complete without tubing or knee boarding.  Here's Alex on the knee board.

Hanging Out with Alaina

Edward took the kids camping for a couple of days, and while he was gone, I had the chance to hang out with my sister and her family. I was also able to visit with my dear friend Heather, who was visiting her family, all the way from California.  I was at Mer's house July 1 and 2.  Alaina was excited to take me to the neighborhood pool and make a homemade pizza.

We also spent time doing a Frozen puzzle.  Mer's cat got sick while I was there, so I had some one on one time with Alaina while Mer took Joey to the vet.

Fun with my niece!

NASA

On our drive home from Florida, we stopped at the Kennedy Space Center. It was a very interesting visit, although the extremely high prices wouldn't get any of us to go back soon. Overall, we are all glad we got to visit this cool place!

Displays visible from the parking lot

The rocket park area where tourists can see many of the rockets that have traveled into outer space.

Luke enjoyed sitting in the moon buggy.

Part of the visit includes a bus ride past the launchpad.  That was really neat to see up close.  It's amazing just how large of a complex that area is.

This is one of the launchpad mobile vehicles. It is so much taller than this picture can describe.  It was amazing to think that these mobile launch vehicles move all over the Kennedy Space Center transporting various shuttles and rockets.

After our bus tour, we went through the Atlantis building.  As you finish the tour, visitors have the option to ride down the slide, which simulates how the astronauts exit the space shuttle when they return to Earth.

We ended up closing down the Kennedy Space Center and had to find some dinner before checking into our hotel for the night.  We found a random fish restaurant on the intercostal waterway.  It turned out to be a delicious seafood dinner where we received a 50% military discount!  The owner happened to see Edward's id when he was getting out his credit card, and just said, "Thanks for your service."  It was totally unexpected, and it made a delicious dinner even better!

Great place for a relaxing dinner

The next day, we just had to get a picture at the rest stop...just because.  

Our Florida vacation turned out to be a really great trip.  We had such a great time and made some wonderful family memories.