Another new cousin

My sister, Angie, had a baby boy last week, and we are very excited for them. Nicholas was 9 lbs 3 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. This is a picture of their family at my brother's wedding (with our cousin, Shawn, in the background who was so happy to be dressed up on a Saturday :-) Congratulations, you guys!

Before and After

We still aren't completely finished with our project, but here is the before and after of the part that is done. Those aren't actually weeds along the fence. We have inherited raspberries and strawberries from under the fence, and we picked our first three strawberries yesterday.

The garden area is looking really good now too. We made the perimeter a little bigger for next year.We also discovered that we have obsidian in our backyard when Neal chopped one open while he was digging.

And finally, here is our cheerful little Halle when she learned that we would be playing in the back yard instead of the front this morning. Apparently the backyard was not a suitable venue for her chosen hat of the day.

A New Project

We started a new yard project this last weekend, and even though it was a lot of hard work, it has been entirely satisfying. The former owners of our home put in some really great plants but it looked like they left before they could finish their project- of which we could not see the vision for. So after fighting the weeds and grass along the edges of the garden beds, we finally decided we needed an edge. We aren't quite finished, but it is looking so much better.

We are very thankful for all the extra help we received to make the project less daunting. My parents came to help out, and some other friends of ours, Dusty and Rebecca. Halle also insisted that she needed to be part of the action. Too bad that kind of enthusiasm won't likely last through the teen years. And of course, she is wearing the hat of her choice.

Fun at the Splash Park

We took Halle to the splash park yesterday. Unfortunately, the wind picked up a little so it was a bit cold after she got wet. But she still had some fun running around dodging the splashing water, which actually kind of defeated the purpose. Oh well, she had fun which I suppose was the ultimate purpose.

In this video was closest she would get to the water spouts.

Visiting the Wyoming Cousins

We did do more over the 4th of July weekend. I just didn't have time to finish the post. On Saturday, we took a trip to see Neal's brother and his family in Wyoming since they were blessing their new baby on Sunday. We stayed at the KOA there and Halle had her first experience "swimming" in a big pool. Turns out she loved it. I was surprised that she was so willing to jump from the edge given her fear of heights, but it didn't phase her.

This is a video of her and her cousin Caleb both jumping in together. It's a little blurry because apparently the camera was set on compressed mode. Oops. Now we know.

Halle's other cousin, Olivia became her new best friend for the weekend. She followed her around almost the whole time. I couldn't get her to look at me because they were supposed to be "sleeping" in the chair. Thanks, Liv, for being so good with her. She really looks up to you.

Not five minutes after we got home and were unloading the car on Sunday, she found her life vest and hat and begged to put them on. She now wears them around the house constantly saying, "I a snowman, mom!"

4th of July

We have our camera back! It turns out Canon didn't have the part needed to repair it, so they sent us a new camera that is much nicer than our old one at no cost. We aren't complaining.

Anyway, we did enjoy our 4th of July celebrations this year. We started the day by riding our bikes to the park and watching the parade. Small town parades are much more fun in my opinion. I took Halle to the front to help her collect some candy, but we weren't quite as fast as the other kids. That was fine though because she was more interested in the free coupons everyone was handing out. She had a blast waving at everyone.

For dinner, we headed to my parent's house for a barbeque with the family. Halle found a water gun that was as big as she was, especially with the water in it. Here she is trying to get her cousin, Frankie, wet but she couldn't hold it and make it work at the same time. It didn't matter though. Dad came over to help her and yes, I was the target.



Her most favorite thing to do at Grandma's house is to jump on the trampoline, and she just figured out rolling down the "hill" was lots of fun.



Our next and last stop was the fireworks. I love our fireworks show and I don't think it compares to any other place we have been. Granted, the show I saw in Hong Kong for their independence day celebration was from the roof of a 20+ story building and it was a really awesome show. But there is something about listening to our own patriotic songs and watching fireworks for our own independence day that always brings tears to my eyes.

We had a fireworks setting on our camera, so we of course had to try it out. Looks like it works pretty good. We just need to adjust a couple of the settings.


Anyway, Happy 4th of July! We hope you had as much fun as we did.

Halle usually reads books in bed before she falls asleep at night. When I checked on her tonight, I found the Kitchen and Bath Guide 2008 tucked next to her pillow. I guess if mom reads it, it's gotta be good, right?

Singing in the Heavens

There is singing in the heavens today. We just got a message that our camera will be back tomorrow. I am so happy we will have it before this weekend. I tried getting one of those cheap digital cameras to use in the meantime, and it turned out to be exactly that- cheap. I returned it the same day because this was the best I could get for anyone considering purchasing one. In case you can't tell, that is Halle taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.

Also, it turns out the winter pictures just weren't cutting it for me (see last post). It was still getting extremely warm in our house and since I work from home, it was starting to become quite an issue. So we finally decided we needed an air conditioner and it is now keeping us very comfortable. Yeah! Sorry, no pictures, but you know what one looks like :-)