Hartford (Connecticut) Children's Museum

Maybe Jonah is a little too friendly!
Jonah & Merrik with a cat/cheetah type thing.
Sorry, don't remember the exact animal this was.

Merrik was talking to the turtles!

Just your cool, run-of-the-mill snake skeleton!

Jonah & the whale!! HA HA.

The museum has a life-size model of a whale out front!

Family Time!!

This was one of our day trips while Jared had his vacation from work.

Merrik feeding the baby triceratops.

And Jonah (top) and Merrik (below) excavating!!

And we found a specialty, very rare species of turtle.

A Camping We Will Go! ...or at least...attempt!

The tent and ...

the view from outside our tent...

Beautiful Wells State Park.

Jonah, Mommy & Merrik sitting around the campfire.

What a cutie!

Believe it or not, this was our 1st camping trip. The boys LOVED it.
However, sleeping on rock hard ground all night with kids who are notoriously bad sleepers... not so fun. Needless to say, we skipped the second night (luckily camp was minutes from home).
We'll have to rethink the whole sleeping arrangement. Maybe air beds would help.

After we built this massive teepee of firewood, we got a great fire going.

Jared was so proud!

Let's Bowl, Let's Bowl, Let's ... Rock-n-Roll!

The Shoes!!! The boys wanted to take them home.

But then again ... so did Jared.

(Hope you don't mind, Kat, I totally copied your camera angle on this shot!)

What form!!

Merrik waiting patiently for the slow but inevitable collision.

Feel the love.

Gee, why is it that whenever these two get close for a photo opp,

Merrik always has a grimace on his face?? Hmm...

And YES, the proof that MERRIK WON!!!!!

And Mommy came in dead last. Nice.

(I'll blame it on the fact that it's candle-pin bowling, which I had never heard of

let alone tried until I moved to the east coast! What's with the candle-pin bowling?)

A little paint never hurt anyone

Look, Mom! Green hands!
Typical. Eventually everything ends up on their hands & face.
Why did I think I could leave them painting on the deck &
try to go in the house to get stuff done?

Jonah is the ringleader in activities such as these!!

My New Ride

Love my "new" Honda CR-V!!

Would I want to do it all over again? Definetly not. I could do without the car accident.

BUT since it is what it is, I'm happy to have a newer, bigger car

to fit my constantly growing boys!!!

Primary Summer Activity: Scripture Olympics!

All the kids (notice bare-chested Jonah in the middle)

in front of the "David & Goliath" water balloon toss.

The kids earned water balloons for answering scripture based questions, then got the try their hand at throwing them at poor Brother Young standing in the Goliath board! :)

Tug-o-War over the "Moses Parts the Seas" kiddie pool.

This was "Daniel & the Lion's Den" bowling.
The fronts of these 2-liter bottles had lions heads taped onto them.
And I just thought this was a cool action shot.
Look at the angles of the bottles falling over. Nice shot, Jonah!


The Adam & Eve bobbing for apples.

This was the coolest activity. We had 12 events in all.

If anyone wants any more info, just let me know!

Delaware Hwy Traffic: 1 -- ALLI: 0

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

Well, at least there were no injuries!!

I'm currently waiting to hear the results from the appraiser.
Wouldn't be surprised either way if it's repairable or not.
It's a 2001 (old) but it's also a Honda (holds value). So, hmmm...
As much as I would love a new car right now, I'm really not excited at the thought of having another new car payment!

MY POOR CAR!!!

Firemen, Couch Potatoes & Clay Animal Parades

What a car ride! AJ, Jonah & Merrik: the 3 amigos!

(we'd just gone to this cool place for lunch: Firehouse Subs)

Jonah and Alexis - bonding. :)

And Merrik with Uncle Allen, who is quite talented in the

clay animals department!! So fun!!

(he's always so great w/ the kiddos -- thanks Allen!)

Duck, Duck, GOOSE

Feeding the ducks in Virginia!

AJ, Jonah & Merrik w/ the many, many ducks at the park.

"One for the ducks, one for me, one for the ducks, one for me..."

(we were feeding them popcorn)

They were really into it! (Love the expression on AJ's face)

Being swarmed as we got out of the car...

You'd think these ducks were used to getting fed by people, or something!

Splish-Splash!!

M & J happy to be in the cool Virginia waters while in the hot Virginia sun!!

We were visiting Rach & her family in Virginia. This is "their river"!
(And there at the river they have free life jackets to use - sweet!!)

It's cool cousin time!! Merrik (3), Alexis (13), AJ (6) & Jonah (5).
(and a couple of Rachael's friend Monika's kids in the background, hanging out!)

Somehow Jonah always finds a dog to play with...

Merrik - not sure if the water's warm enough!

YAY, cousins!! Merrik, AJ & Jonah!!

And Rach made me promise that the photo of her in her bathing suit wasn't going to end up on my blog. So there are no pictures of us grown ups! :)

Cousins, Motorcycles & Goofy Dancers

Merrik, Jonah & Melody doing their crazy cousin dance they made up.
Jonah, Melody & Merrik - LOVE THIS PIC.

And, "cheese!"

Jared's brother John with Mio, Will (13) & Melody (7)
visiting from Utah. We were SO happy we got to see them 2 summers in a row!!

Melody was rubbing Merrik's back on the porch. Aww...

Melody & Merrik got along so great! It's like they've grown up together! :)

Will on the mini bike that "Cool Uncle Paul" made.

Will would still be riding that thing if it were somehow possible.

Jared about to give Merrik a ride on the motorcycle. How cool!

This here's a fuzzy action photo -Merrik's getting a ride w/ Uncle Paul.

Paul & Michelle were the hosts of this wild and crazy afternoon! Thanks guys!!!

Uncle John & Jonah on the very cool 4wheeler.

And Merrik about to ZOOM away with Uncle Paul....