This is the first time I braided Abby's hair. It didn't last long because her hair is so baby fine and still hasn't grown very long on the sides, but it was cute while it lasted!
Enjoying the pretty weather outside...
We discovered Cardinal eggs in a nest one evening... the next morning when we went to check on them, baby birds were there!
At Abby's friend, Lydia's, birthday party.
We had dinner at our friends, the Goodnight's, house. Abby and Acadia are the sweetest little friends, and Sam (the 2 year old) reminds us SO MUCH of Micah at that age.
We reached day 180 for school!! As a surprise, I took the kids on a "field trip" to the zoo with some friends...
Trying to get a picture of Lily making her "llama face"... Micah photo bombed.
Abby inadvertently making a llama face. :)
On the tram ride to the "Gardens" from the zoo.
So, we finished walking around the zoo by about 2:30. I thought, "Oh that was great timing." Then I realized there was another section called "The Gardens"... so we took a tram ride there. I thought we would see some pretty gardens and go home. Little did I know that there was a whole water playplace for the kids!
If I had known, it would have been nice to bring the kids all a change of clothing and some towels!
The kids played and played in the water and then a huge sandbox with "dinosaur bones" hidden in it. We didn't even get over to the part of the "Gardens" that had a huge jungle gym to climb around. Suddenly, it was 5:00 and we realized the park was closing... and we had missed the last tram ride back to the zoo area. So we had to walk with a bunch of wet kids all the way back to the zoo and the employees had to let us out a side gate since the front gate was already locked up. They had a lot of fun, but the hour and ten minute drive back to our house was pretty looooong with kids in wet clothes who were very hungry. :) (Abby said every five minutes, "This is taking FOREVER!")
Micah decided he didn't want to play baseball this year, but Caleb is playing his first season, AND his team is the INDIANS! He does everything with a grin on his face. (Except stand in the outfield... he usually just stands on his "spot" with arms crossed.)
I bought this hose reel and mentioned to Caleb in the morning that I would probably try to put it together that afternoon. He spent all morning out there working on it, and by lunch, he pretty much had it together! I had to "rearrange" a couple things and tighten the screws, but for the most part, he had done it all. No one can ever say that Caleb gives up easily... he often sticks with hard projects until he can do it himself.
One day I went to water my hanging basket and a bird flew out. I discovered a nest with a bunch of pretty eggs in the middle of my flowers... Abby was pretty excited about it!
We also found birds making a nest on top of the ladder in our garage, so we had to keep the garage door closed for a while until they picked another spot.:)
Danielle and I threw a baby shower for Lindsey, with the help of a lot of other ladies too. Because Lindsey felt like the Lord highlighted the word "laughter" to her while she was praying about the baby's name, he's going to be Isaac ("laughter") Judah ("praise") Bucher. I loved these verses, so I painted this for Lindsey as part of her present:
The shower was a little "buckaroo" (or "Bucher-oo) theme since Karl is such a cowboy. Kylie, who is 13, made the amazing cake!
I thought these were cute. Kind of weird to eat, but still cute. :)
Carroll Financial hosted a family night at the ballpark in Charlotte again. Free BBQ, ice cream, souvenirs, and a game! And since we were done with school, we stayed for the whole game even though it meant getting home at about 10:30.
I love the view from the ballpark.
Now that "summer" has set in, I'm impressed at how much the kids have occupied themselves. There's been lots of Candyland and Stratego games. Micah has also discovered the Harry Potter series and has read the first four books over the last month and a half. (The 3rd and 4th ones are almost 800 pages!)
I'd like to say this picture is because of Ben playing ball with the boys, but really, I'm just so excited that we have nice grass in our front yard this year! :)
Field day with CC:
We played a game like "hot potato". If you were stuck with the potato you had to put on a clothing item from a big sack.
Caleb was less than thrilled with the item he got. :)
We got to take an actual "family vacation" to someplace that wasn't Ohio, Maryland, or a Vineyard conference! (Not that those are bad places....we just don't usually get to take trips anywhere else!) Fortunately, we live in a place where it's easy to do a short weekend (Thursday-Saturday) getaway to someplace good, like Myrtle Beach or... in this case... Charleston!
First stop was to take a tour of Ft. Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. (It was the one educational thing I convinced them to do because it came with a "boat ride".) Before we got on the ferry, we looked around the Ft. Sumter info center. I knew Ben and Micah would appreciate the economics surrounding the Civil War... :)
Ben pointed out that there weren't very many quotes about how horrible slavery was (although there were a few)... most of them were quotes about states' rights. Since we've lived in the south, we've heard the Civil War referred to several times as the "War of Northern Aggression."
We joked about how much Abby would love to play with a flag that big! :)
Playing "rock, paper, scissors" on the ferry ride back.. because SOME people don't appreciate the history being taught over the loudspeaker. :)
After all the fun stuff we did in Charleston, if you ask Caleb and Abby what their favorite part is, they always say "the hotel." They just love the novelty of sleeping at a hotel... and the pool helped too. :)
Folly Beach may be our new favorite beach! At least for this time of year. It has a good mix of soft, white sand and spots with lots of sea shells, it had easy parking ($7 for the day), there were very few people there (it helps that it was a Friday and school wasn't out yet), and the water is so shallow that it's nice and warm already!
Unwinding with a movie and ice cream after the beach and dinner...
Another thing to love about a hotel... breakfast in your jammies and pushing elevator buttons!
Just some light reading in the morning. (Article is titled, "Federalism for the Left and Right.")
Saturday morning after checking out of the hotel, we went to "The Battery" so the kids could play in the water. Unfortunately, Micah was so sunburnt from the beach that he couldn't even enjoy being outside, so it was short-lived. :(
Such a pretty park right by the fountains...
The Jettes had been traveling and we hadn't seen them much lately. When Mike went up to Abby at church, she climbed right up on his lap! How far they've come! :)
Macey snuggling with Jenai at Josh's birthday party. :)
We had a really fun evening of going out for pizza and playing ping-pong and cornhole with a bunch of friends (to celebrate Meagan's birthday and Tess's last day of a horrible teaching job.) Afterward, we walked with Wes and Joyce and the Ziebers down to the fountain (which are finally fixed after a year of being broken!) It was such a pretty evening.
Aunt Carrie put a pretty twist in Abby's hair.
You can't hang out at the Ziebers without getting ice cream!
I know he's not my kid, but he is just the cutest!!! This is our little friend Caedmon at Rachel and Jeremiah's wedding. His Mom, Meagan, made his outfit!
I caught Micah mid-eye roll. :)
Our goofy friend Simeon and Maddox. (Believe it or not, NO alcohol was served at this wedding. And he still dances like this.) :)
Abby was on the dance floor ALL EVENING. That girl likes to move!
The next morning... she was worn out! :)
There was also several people who got sick the night after the wedding... the jury is out whether some of the roast beef gave people food poisoning or if this was some weird stomach bug. We only found out about it from a text I got AS Ben was about to a eat a bite of a left-over roast beef sandwich the next day. He threw it directly in the trash. :)
Overall, May was a great month! It was nice to take such a nice long break from school work. We'll probably start back in a couple days a week sometime soon in June... just because I sense the boredom setting in and the brains starting to rot and it's already getting too hot to play outside.
