Sizzlin Summer

Barbecues, popsicles, dancing fireflies, ponytails, deck parties, staying up extra late, lemonade, water activities, salt rimmed drinks and baking hot cars remind me of summer. It's official, summer is here! The past few days have been hot and glowing. Our Day Lily's and Hastas are in full bloom, but then again so are all the weeds that we have neglected to pull in our flower beds the past few weeks.


Today the girls enjoyed the afternoon playing on the Slip-n-Slide. Jaidyn watched the Olympic gymnastic trials on TV the other day so she was taking a good run at the slide kind of like the gymnasts do before vaulting. She is fearless. She would lay on the slide and then let Wes give her a hard push flinging her in to the water at the end. He almost looked like he was bowling. Addy watched and would cheer for Jaidyn and clap for her but wouldn't let Wes touch her (smart girl in my opinion). She wasn't all that excited about the bowling action and took it easy just dipping her feet in the water.







Nothing better than popsicles on a sizzlin summer day. With grass clippings sticking to their wet bodies and popsicle juice dripping down their faces and covering their hands, baths immediately followed.

Backyard County Fair

Every summer we have the luxury of having the Tri-County Fair right outside our backyard. The picture above is of the animal barn that is taken from our deck. Everyone always asks us if we are glad when that week is over since we have no choice in being involved in the activity. Truth be told, it is one of my favorite weeks in the summer since we have moved here. We have the best parking spot all week long. From our deck we constantly hear the mooing of the steers, the baa-baaing of the sheep and the high squeals of the hogs. Once the evening sets in and the carnival rides gear up we can hear the screams in the distance as kids are spun endlessly on the scrambler. On breezy days we can smell the hamburgers and hotdogs being cooked by the Beef Association. The overpriced rides, tons of junk food, and pens of animals stinking in the heat is all part of the magic that the fair brings. For a few days each year the fair lays upon us the guilt-free sensation that we can induldge in deep fried onion blooms or ribbon fries along with cotton candy and icecream. Although very tempting, you all will be glad to know that we didn't induldge in any of those foods. Simple hotdogs and hamburgers suited us for an evening. This year Wes was gone on a work trip so the girls and I enjoyed a couple of days of it on our own. On the opening day they have kids day at the park with lots of activities...bubble pool, wash-off tatoos, corn pit, leather bracelet making, and a jump tent. We had friends join us for this activity day and the kids love it. The best part about it is that it is all Free. In the evenings the girls and I spent a couple of hours visiting the animals in the barn and playing at the playground. We spent one afternoon watching several rounds of the hog show. I really had no idea what truly goes in to taking the title of the Grand Champion Hog. Except for being different in color, in my opinion they all looked alike. Earlier that afternoon, Jaidyn and Addy were also fascinated by several people sheering their sheep getting it ready to show. Here a a few pictures of the girls pretending to practice the technique on the dogs. They were cracking me up at how seriously they were taking this.





From what my parents have told us about their hometown fair in Owensville growing up, this fair is a far cry from the amazing attractions that county fairs used to be, but in Jaidyn and Addy's eyes having one in our backyard is spectacular.

I am editing this post to add some more photos of the kids day activities. These photos are courtesy of Rick and Cheryl Richardson.

Happy Birthday To Us!!

Sadly, I turned the BIG 30 yesterday and today Wes celebrates (he has to work) his 29th birthday. I really hated to leave my 20's and it only makes it worse that Wes gets to rub it in for one more year. We have a busy week...My Birthday, Wes's Birthday, Our 6th Wedding Anniversary, and Father's Day. The best part about having them all in one week is I only have to bake one cake or in my case, BUY one cake. Baking isn't really something that I enjoy doing. We are headed to the Lake today to spend the weekend and celebrate. I am hoping for lots of sunny weather and look forward to an enjoyable time. Thank you to everyone who sent us birthday wishes through email, cards, and phone calls.


Our two little Cutie-Patooties!

Silver Dollar City

Earlier this week, our friends The Richardson's treated us to a day in Branson. We spent the afternoon at Silver Dollar City and the evening at Celebration City. They also treated us to dinner at Mickey's Pizza as they said it was their contribution to our adoption. They have been so supportive of our decision to adopt and we are truly blessed to have gained their friendship throughout our journey.

Jaidyn and Addy were fearless on the theme park rides and loved spending the day with Emily and Cole. Cheryl and I spent most of the day watching the kids ride with Wes and Rick as the circular, spinning motion of the rides makes us sick to our stomachs. Blech! I did ride a couple of adult rides, but am glad none of them lasted very long as I could already feel the nausea coming on within a matter of seconds. I love the thrill of theme park rides, but my stomach usually doesn't agree with my heart.

Cheryl took tons of pictures of the kids throughout the day and then made us a slide show DVD. Jaidyn and Addy love it! I can't imagine any better gift to remember this day. It sure beats any of the gifts in the souvenir shops.

Here is a slideshow of our Branson trip! These are the pictures from my camera and I don't have that many as my camera batter only lasted a small portion of the day. Cheryl has emailed me all of her pictures (hers are so cute) and I am having trouble downloading them. Hopefully, I will figure it out soon and can add them to the slideshow. And for some reason the HTML code that Photobucket is giving me for the slideshow I created is not working either so the link to view the slide show will have to do for now.

Link to Slideshow

2nd Adoption Fundraiser Garage Sale

Yesterday we had our 2nd adoption fundraiser garage sale in Richland at our house to add to our adoption account. Most of our items were leftover from the garage sale we had at my mom's house earlier this spring. We did have a few more item donations from friends and family since our first sale and I did another closet cleaning overhaul earlier in the week. Wes had to work all weekend and wasn't home much, so thankfully my mom came the night before to help me set up and then again on Saturday to help me out during the sale. I really needed her help and couldn't have done it without her. After the clean-up in 90 degree weather with two tired, hungry, hot kiddos at my side throughout much of it, I was exhausted. However, the garage sale brought us $158 more than we had yesterday and it will definitely be nice to add this amount to our adoption fund. Little by little we come closer to our adoption money saving goal. We are hoping to have the upcoming Philippines country fee saved up for by the end-of-the year.

We are still recycling aluminum cans and are adding that $ amount to our fund regularly. Jaidyn has made a game of it and takes her own little sack along on our stroller rides and keeps track of how many we find out on our walk. Please continue to save cans for us and let us know when you have some and we will be glad to pick them up.

Ozark Greenways Adventure Race

I FINISHED!!!

This past Saturday I participated in the Ozark Greenways Adventure Race at Gasconade Hills Resort. The race is a 4 person co-ed event. Both my sister, Jill and I participated on different teams. My team's goal was to finish and we did finish in less that 10 hours and placed 42nd out of 77 teams. Jill's team was hoping to place in the top 10 and they finished 7th. The race course consisted of an 8.8 mile run, 6 mile canoe, 6.9 bike, orienteering, 1.27 technical run, 8.9 miles of technical bike, 8 mile road bike to the finish line. Nothing like starting off the morning with a nice 9 mile run. The first 1 1/2 miles were an uphill run from the resort to the highway. I enjoyed most of the race, but could have done without the orienteering portion and the technical bike. I hated being lost in the woods for over 2 hours hiking through the masses of poison ivy, creepy crawling ticks all while hoping not to step on any snakes while trying to find 3 small flag-like points. The 8 mile technical bike portion was on horse trails and much of the trail was not ridable so it was exhausting pushing a bike up and down the hills for a good portion of it. The technical bike ended by having to cross the river with your bike. The had a rope in a very swift portion of the river that was a little over waist deep. We had to carry our bikes across and still had to hold on to the rope. Looking back, I am really surprised that I made it. My sister's team was a little smarter and they took a more direct route across the river and bypassed the rope area. People told me that Jill just picked the bike up over her head and carried it across. By that time in the day, it was good for me to just be able to lift my bike off the ground. Jill is an ANIMAL.

I am truly proud of myself to have finished and hope to do another one in the fall. When I first started training back in March, I am almost embarrassed to admit that I struggled to run 10 minutes at a time. I have come along way since March. My reason for committing to this race is because I wanted to go in to my 30's being fit. I think this race was a great way to end my 20's as I will be turning 30 in 9 days. Who knows, Wes may even join me on the next one. He said that I motivated him and that if I could do something like this he should be able to do it. In other words, if an out-of-shape, stay-at-home mom can do this than a member of the Highway Patrol SWAT team should be able to finish one too.

These are pictures are from before the race. I didn't have any pictures on my camera from after or during the race, but hopefully I will get some in a few days and can post them too.