Hot Summer Days

Our summer has kicked off nice and.....hot.  (Busy, too!)  The heat makes great business for me at the Coffee Caboose - every little kid wants snow cones - but not so fun on the bike ride home from work.  :-)  Thankfully it's a short ride so it's nothing to complain about.  However I'm very thankful for air conditioning when I get home!!

 Josh, in all his cute glory.   He has so many nicknames that I collaborated them all into one long one:  Chunky-monkey-snuggle-bunny-cute-big-Joshua.  I call him our snuggle bunny because he is such a snuggler; and also our emotional one.  He and Isaac disagree hugely on the subject of kisses:  Isaac hates them and Josh loves them.  Whenever they get to disagreeing about it, Joshua will say "I love kisses!" and then come give me one just to prove it!  It's so cute.  Thank goodness I still have a brother who likes kisses and snuggles!  :-) 

 We recently got a basketball hoop!  Actually, when we went to Nebraska a few months ago, one of Dad's renters left their hoop after they moved out - so, amazingly enough, we took it apart and drug it aaaaallll the way back here.  David got a basketball for his birthday, and we've been having great fun with it.

Poor Jonathan is finally making his appearance on my blog after, oh, months? of being absent from my bloggy world!  He has been gone and busy with so many things that it seems like he's hardly around when we take pictures.  He just got certified as a lifeguard and swim coach, so I will be doing a post about that this week.  Anyway, here he is, doing a progression of basketball shots.

 I thought this was a particularly cool photo!  Mid-air anything always looks neat.  :-)

Courtney recently got two new things:  a truck and glasses!  It's so nice to finally have a third vehicle around; it certainly solves some transportation issues we were having.  Courtney keeps asking me if her glasses make her look 'weird' or 'like an old maid'......I keep telling her that they make her look very distinguished, sophisticated, fashionable, smart, etc.  Don't you agree?

David is keeping busy with school, piano, baseball, and (as you can see in the picture) basketball with us kids.  :-)  He's almost taller than me ~ getting a deep voice too. :-)  I couldn't believe it when I was forced to make him shave his upper lip a few weeks ago due to the noticeable uh, fuzz? he was accumulating.....no way!  My little brother is getting too big!

Mom, doing the ever-present laundry! A little over a year ago, Mom and Dad decided we kids needed to do our own laundry, and it has worked out pretty well.  Thankfully that has hugely lightened Mom's laundry load, for sure!  (Maybe that's why she's smiling while holding the laundry detergent - laundry has become a "breeze!")

Lastly, Dad and I attended the Crisis Pregnancy Center mid-year fundraising event last week.  We had fun!  And I was able to get signed up for the volunteer orientation in next month, too.  I can't wait to get involved.  I will keep you all updated on how that (as well as the training) goes.

Well.....what else is new?  I learned again, and finally accepted the fact, that bike riding + skirts = an embarrassing ride to work.  *Sigh*  I don't care how graceful Anne of Green Gables makes it look, it just is not practical.  I bought some nice dress pants a while ago when Courtney and I went shopping, so that's what I wear now.  :-) 

We went to a graduation ceremony last night for one of the guys in our church ~ we had a wonderful time!  Mr. Doughty, our head photographer for almost every church event :-) took pictures the whole time, so hopefully I can post a few later this week.   When we pulled into the church parking lot, Isaac pointed to the three crosses out front and exclaimed totally to my surprise, "Look Rachel!  Three crosses, where Jesus died for all the sins of the world!"  It was so precious!

And that, my friends, is about it - hope you have a wonderful week ahead!