Happy Birthday soon-to-be Aunt Sarah!

We celebrated with buy one, get one free concrete mixers at Culver's, yum!

Out at the Ranch

We have some friends of friends who own a really cool place just outside of town. It is called Refuge Ranch. They have a really neat ministry. Well, on an unusually cool day for July, we headed out to the ranch with several other moms and kids to visit and let the kids have a ranch experience. The kids all got to feed the goats, pig, sheep and donkey while the grown-ups got to just visit. Then, they each got a chance to ride one small horse and one big horse. Drake loved it and his face just lit up when he got on to ride. Hadley, who seems to be much more timid around animals, surprised me and also loved it. She rode the small horse first and then also wanted a turn on the big horse. They had a great time and can't wait to go back again!

Sorry about the bumpiness of the video at the end- I was holding Hadley while taping and she was trying to get down!

That's a Wrap

Drake played in his last baseball game for this season this week. It was quite a season! Watching a bunch of 4-5-6 year olds try to learn to play the game is quite entertaining. I will say, this last game did show a BIG improvement from the first game (when the kids mostly just played in the dirt). Tonight most of them seemed to be following the game and learning the plays. Drake's hitting ability has definitely grown this season. Here's a clip from tonight's game.

Hadley doesn't really show much interest in baseball and most of her time at the games was spent doing other things, like blowing dandelions, playing with make-up, coloring or being silly with Papa.

Zoolympics

This morning, we headed out to the zoo to Zoolympics. Despite the heat, we had a good (free) time! There were 6 different stations that the kids had to complete. One was Monkey Mayhem:

Here each kid had to put on "monkey gloves" that had no thumbs since monkey's don't have thumbs and carry one piece of fruit from one bucket to another. Then the kids had to do the Snake slither :

There was also a Frog jump station, Parrot Perch, Penguin Waddle and Predator Prowl obstacle course. Thankfully, these were all in the shade so we were able to stay fairly cool. Hadley's vocabulary is continuing to grow by the day and we love hearing her say this:

After the zoo, we headed to this fine dining establishment with FREE coupons we had from some friends of ours, who happen to own the place. So, we ended up having a completely FREE day, man, life is good.

Trying to Stay Cool

The temperatures have been unbelievable for only June this week! We went swimming a couple of times this week, just to try to stay cool. Not only has it been hot- 90's, but also HUMID! So, we broke down and turned on our air conditioning and also took advantage of some great friend's generosity to swim at their house. Then, on Friday, Gabe's day off, we went to Lake Springfield's FREE public beach. If you can get past the grossness of lake water, it's not too bad. The water was really warm, which almost made it a little worse on the grossness factor, but the kids had fun. And you can't complain about free. We packed a picnic lunch and ate at the beach, then headed home for naps later in the afternoon. Have I mentioned lately that I love summer, even when it is really hot!

Jumpin for Joy

Can I just tell you how much we LOVE having a trampoline?! It's been great!

New pictures

Whew, what a day! I have been wanting to get new pictures taken with the kids. Since their birthdays are only 6 weeks apart, I usually just get both of them taken at the same time and we hadn't had a family picture in about a year and half so I wanted to get a new one of those too. Getting pictures of a little girl hitting the terrible twos is not an easy task. Drake did great- a little cheesy, but still, very cooperative! Hadley on the other hand, took lots of coaxing (read: bribing) and energy to get some good pics. Finally, we ended up with a few keepers!

**My mom thinks this is payback because I didn't like my picture taken when I was little either. If only I would have known how frustrating that was!!**