Hunting and Fishing

Hunting for crayfish...the total for the day was 12!

Fishing...the total for the day was ZERO :(

Beethoven's Bakery

I didn't get nearly as many pictures of this as I should have...

Ben and Bella were with us for the week. Somehow, the kids concocted this idea that we should have a dessert night for the grown ups at the end of the week. From there, it morphed into "Beethoven's Bakery," complete with invitations and even menus. At one point, there was even talk of inviting friends and neighbors AND of making it a fundraiser. I managed to talk them off of that ledge (at least for this year). I helped, but the kids selected the recipes and did nearly all of the work themselves.

We ended up with a fabulous selection of Caramel Toffee Bombe, Strawberry Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, Three Musketeers Pie, and Pretzel Kiss Candies. (Yum!)

Camp in

It's been sleepover central around here lately. More often than not, the boys are sleeping in the same room, often on the floor. Last week, they spent one night in their "fort" of couch cushions on the family room floor, one night in our backpacking tent in the family room, one night in the big family tent (with us) in the front yard, and another two nights on the floor in Rudy's room!

The fort they constructed:

Two buddies, ready to settle in for the night:

Sound asleep the next morning:

Week with friends

Bella and Ben are hanging out with us every day this week while Cindy works at summer camp. The kids love having their buddies around every day to play.

It's been some early mornings, though:

They've had a lot of fun hatching all sorts of elaborate plans. Here, they were discussing their multi-volume story outline for "Strawberry Shortcake and the Clone Wars."

I'm not sure what these two were up to!

Part of the process for the upcoming Beethoven's Bakery. They've decided that they're going to host a dessert night for the grown ups at the end of the week. They started off quite enthusiastically, with about 6 desserts they wanted to make. I talked them down to three or four. So far, they've made a menu and signs and two of the desserts (strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and a caramel toffee bombe).

The jam-packed days are definitely taking a toll though :)

Pool

We spent a long time at the pool this morning with Bella and Ben! The kids all had swim lessons for an hour (the big kids at 10 and the littler guys at 11) and then they played until 2:00. They were happy to stay longer, but I wanted to get them out of the hot sun!

Goofy kid in my hat:

Ben insisted on wearing these glasses most of the day. (They're 3D glasses with the lenses punched out.) I didn't take a picture of the time he was wearing nothing but the glasses and hanging out in my dining room. At least he had the decency to cover himself with a Pokemon card...

Perfect tree

Kathy and Tony have one of those near perfect trees in their front yard. (Especially since Tony cut off all of the poison ivy!)

It has good strong branches to hang swings from:

And climbable branches to hang out and read:

Hang Gliding

James and his dad exchanged hang gliding lessons as gifts this year and last weekend was the big day. It was HOT out on those dunes, but they stuck with it and managed to get a few flights in. It looked like a lot of work, especially on such a warm day!

The spectators...