Camping with the Schmidjell's

We had a great time camping with the Schmidjell's a couple of weekends ago.  We went swimming, played on the playground, ahhhhhed and ohhhhhed over a turtle Charlie found and just enjoyed being outdooors. The guys slept in the tent, while Patty, Me and the kiddos were spoiled with air conditioning.  Charlie was able to do some geocaching on our trip home and you will have to ask about the amazing story of the return of his GPS.  God is so good!

Surprisingly our little woodsy girl would barely go near the turtle until after she saw that Kara was ok with it.

Benjamin at 9 months

I totally forgot how much can change in one month. Ben went from crawling slowly on one leg, to off and running - not literally, but he is a boy on the move.  He has so much fun chasing after his big Sister which usually ends with them in the bathroom pulling all the towels out of the cabinet.  The funniest thing to watch is when Ben is using his legs and turning circles on his behind.  We guess that he's either looking for something or that he's pointing himself in the direction he's getting ready to go. 

I call Ben my Water Boy.  He absolutely loves the water.  So far I have not ventured beyond the bathtub and our backyard pool with him, but I can tell he enjoys it much more than his big Sister. 

Ben's first tooth decided to pop out this month and you can tell that it feels like a foreign object to him because he sticks his tongue out a lot.

Here is a picture taken by our good friend Shelli.

Happy Birthday to my Best Friend

C - Caring

  H - Humble

         A - Adventurous

  R - Reliable

L - Loving

     I - Intelligent 

     E - Easygoing

(just in case some missed this picture posted last year)

Happy Birthday Charlie!  We love you!!!

Successful Surprise Party

I'm sure all have heard by now that we actually pulled off a true surprise for THE Charlie Groff who turned 30 this year.  My Sister-in-Law and I worked together to see if we could surprise Charlie.  Who knew that we would actually make it happen especially with a toddler in our house who can let things slip every now and then (and Mommy can too).  We were able to keep it a secret even up to the last second when we drove in Kristen and Jose's driveway because there were no cars in sight.  Charlie's first comment after everyone yelled SURPRISE was "where did you all park?".  It was priceless.  Thank you Kristen and Jose for planning and hosting the surprise and thank you to all those who joined in the fun.

 Wow, Daddy, you look so much taller now that you're 30.

What's a good caption to go along with this picture?

2nd Annual Idlewild Trip with the Groff's

For those that haven't had a chance, you must check out the coolest amusement park ever.  It's called Idlewild.  I've also posted information about this park on our Fun Place Database site.  I don't have any pictures this year.  I used the "Mary photography" from Luke 2:19 - But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  It was a blast and we can't wait to go next year.

Emily - 3 years, 11 mo. - July 16

Here's our growin' little girl.  One minute she's talkin' baby talk to Ben and the next minute she's acting like a 4 year old going on 13.  Her recent nickname is Cat Lady.  She had seen these Beenie Baby cats over at my Mom and Dad's house and asked if she could take one home with her.  Well now she has quite the collection, 7 in total and I believe she's named 5 of them so far.  We mentioned Stripy back in May, and we've added Lilly, Bucket, Brown and Bubble. 

Emily loves to have sleep-overs at my parents house.  This last sleep-over gave us another Emily-ism.  She and my Mom were in their basement and Emily had been sitting on the floor playing on the computer for quite a while.  When she stood up she said "Mommo, my leg is sparkling.  Do you see the sparkles?"   Yes, her leg had fallen asleep and that's how she put things together.  She was convinced you could see the sparkles.  

Emily's recent food combination was blueberries dipped in ranch dressing.  I have to write this for the blog because when she's older she probably won't believe it.

Emily is enjoying having Ben around a lot more now.  It's neat to watch them play together.

Sunday School fellowship

We hosted our Sunday School fellowship a while back.  We had hamburgers, hotdogs and other fixins'.  After stuffing our faces we had a friendly cornhole tournament to which Mr. H and Charlie won. 

Here's Ben's reaction once he found out his Dad won.

Here was Emily's fun with her friend sending bubble bottles down the slide. 

Family Reunion

I love family reunions.  I have fond memories of sitting around with the older folks and hearing stories of what times were like "back then".  I haven't had an opportunity to go to my family's reunion, but I did get the chance to go to Charlie's.  There was great food, great fellowship, and tons of fun.  Emily swam and played on the playground and also had her first dog bite - actually it was just a nip and she was the one that provoked the dog even after Charlie told her the dog was already upset.  Ben enjoyed the scenery, napped, ate and attempted to crawl around, but I'm sure he mostly enjoyed being passed around from one family member to another.  The adults enjoyed catching up with everyone, the games and the auction.  They are already planning where next year's reunion will be. 

I have more pictures, but I seemed to have misplaced our camera so thanks to one of Charlie's family members we have this picture.