Random summer fun...

The township was having a 5 week intro to dance for little girls so I had to sign Aliyah up.  They didn't let parents in till the last class, it was really cute though we realized that she only paid attention half the time!  She was the youngest and I know she had fun so that's most important!

 



 She LOVED circle and song time!

 This year the Major reunion was held at Knoebles  We had a great turn out despite the long drive for everyone (closer for us than the Montgomery County folks) but it was a beautiful day and we were happy to finally get up there.  The kids had a blast.  It was also nice to have our picnic grove back by the creek, built in entertainment when we couldn't be at the rides!

 They collected and were showing off all their "treasure"...

 Aliyah telling Jess all her stories!

 Happy to let Becky and Jess take them on this.  They weren't scared at all and had fun!

We were supposed to head down to the DC zoo, then over to the Brown's for an overnight while Nate when fishing with Josh and his brothers.  Sadly at the last minute Luke got sick and the weather turned rainy in DC so those plans got canceled.  Since I didn't want to let the kids down we headed to Lake Tobias instead and we had a great day!

Scared of the goats but not the snake!

This didn't last long, I had to hold him once he realized they like to gnaw on your shorts:)

 On the safari ride

 Monkeys seeing monkeys!

Another plus was that Ron, Anne and Ryan were passing through on their way up for Matt's 40th B-day party so we got to spend time with them too.  The weather got really nice and we had a great evening outside at our house and a fun morning at mom-mom's before they headed up north.

 

The other week Nate took Max camping with the church group.  Aliyah and I stayed behind to work on VBS (my first year directing, went awesome, almost 60 kids! Praise God!).  They had a great time despite Max's injury.  In the first hour him and his buddy had a bike collision down a hill and he got a nasty scrape on his arm.  Luckily one of our church friends is a nurse and was around to help clean and lots of mom's helped throughout the rest of the weekend.  Max is NOT so brave and I feel bad for everyone having to listen to and deal with that.  Luckily it's healed very nicely and they did have a great time anyway!  Even got out on the canoe for the first time!

 

 

 

Another fun Max and daddy event was joining some good friends for a nice at the local race track.  It was family night and our friend has connections so the kids got to do down and get in the race cars.  They had a blast of course!

Visit to Grandpa Ken's

In July we all made a trip to Grandpa Ken's for the weekend.  It started off a bit shaky.  Max was getting over a stomach bug which Aliyah finally caught the night before we were going in.  Only 2nd time they've had a stomach bug and of course in Aliyah fashion, while she ALWAYS catches what he has (and visa verse) she never gets anything nearly as bad.  Ellie and kids picked Nate and Max up on their way through and after catching up on some sleep Aliyah and I headed in late in the afternoon.  We all spent the night and had 2 days of swimming, creek, biking and playing fun!

 

Tried new floaties for Max and he did great with them!  He keeps forgetting he can swim with them each time we get to a big pool but happy he has more freedom and we can drop the tube at least.

 The kids, in their adorable matching shirts, thanks to the Brown's craft project, were practicing a song to sing for Great Grandpa's birthday.  We all got to join the party in MN via face time and Skype, love technology and fun to see everyone and get to sing and clap together!

 Max finally got a chance to learn how to ride his "new" scooter!