Father's Day

Our kids may be biased, but they know that they have the best Daddy in the world!! We loved celebrating his special day with him, especially the pool tournament we had at the end of the day in the basement. Will loves the kids and loves to spend time with them, especially doing active things like playing pool, ping pong or foosball, or throwing the ball around or shooting a little hoops. He is so good to them and we are so glad to have him!xoxoxox
Will had been talking to someone on the phone and Natalie was waiting for him to carry her up to bed. She didn't quite make it up!! One minute, she was playing on the stairs with her toys, the next, Will was quietly calling to me, "Quick, Jen, you've got to see this!"

The end of a great soccer season!

Zach had a really fun soccer season this year, with Will as the head coach again. They had their best season yet and ended up with an 8-0 record. Undefeated!! They all really improved and had a really good time. They are a great bunch of boys and the parents are all really great, too.
Natalie had fun playing soccer, but probably most of the fun came from waving at the crowd and rolling down the hill in between. She was awfully cute!
Will coached her team, too, and learned not to get frustrated when Natalie was too busy looking at the crowd to notice where the soccer ball was! He did a great job.
Zach's team had an end of the season barbeque, where they presented Will with a ball they had all signed. It was a really good experience for both Will and Zach.

Visit from Fernando

Our good friend Fernando, from Spain, came to visit us at the end of June. He worked with Will when we lived in Europe and we stayed with him in Valencia for a wonderful week when we lived there. We took him straight from the airport to a Tigers game, and he was excited to see a real major league American baseball game.
Will had a lot of fun explaining all of the rules of the game and introducing him to good, healthy American ballpark food like hotdogs and peanuts.
I had a great time with Zach!
It was fun to watch Fernando and Zach go at it with the soccer ball. Fernando could definitely teach Zach a few things! Soccer (football) is crazy in Spain! Fernando was only here for a short time, but we loved having him.

My Cub Scout

Zach attended Day Camp for Cub Scouts in June for the first time. He absolutely loved it. I went with him on the first day and it was fun to watch him try new things.
His two favorite activities were archery and BB guns.
A few weeks before day camp, he recieved his Wolf. He had worked hard and was very excited.
He did a great job pinning the mother's pin on me, and I was very proud of him.
He got to play the drum during the ceremony and he loved it. He had a great rhythm, probably from all of those hours of practicing the piano!:)

Day at the Zoo

We had our first fieldtrip of the summer today! We spent the last week reading up on animals from the African grasslands and Kangaroos and Wallabies from Australia. Today we went to the Detroit Zoo and our favorite thing was feeding the giraffes!
The giraffe we got to feed was named "Shardo" and she had a very long, purple, sticky tongue that would wrap around the food we would give her.
Elise was really excited to feed her until the giraffe licked her and then she was a little surprised and pulled back.
What a cool experience! We also loved seeing the warthogs, rhinos, African dogs, lions, ostriches, zebras and hippos. We were fascinated by the aardvark and jumped when the black bears started to fight. It was funny to see the kangaroos lounging on their sides, propped up on their elbows like humans. The chimps and the gorillas were also fun. We'll go back later in the summer to see some of the other animals. It was Natalie and Elise's first visit to a zoo and they loved it!
This was a great way to start our summer vacation!

Time Out For Women

On the 30 and 31st of June, I went to Toronto for Deseret Book's Time Out for Women with some of my friends from church, Denise, Michelle and Ronna. In front of our hotel was this very kitchy and funny unicorn and we just had to take a picture in front of it! I thought they needed it to be connected to a rainbow and a pot of gold that would span across to the column behind it. Despite the unicorn, the hotel was actually very nice and contemporary (whew!!).
This was truly a weekend for filling our cups to overflowing!! One of my favorite parts was hearing Jenny Oaks Baker playing her violin for one amazing hour. It felt like heaven! I also loved hearing talks on service, feeling the spirit, leadership and having joy in our lives. One highlight was going into downtown Toronto to eat a late dinner at a very chic Thai restaurant, where as Ronna said, "Look, tablecloths you can't write on!" (Something appreciated by every mom that currently only eats at restaurants that provide kid menus and crayons!) It was the first time I had gone somewhere without kids and husband, and I had a great time and felt spiritually fed!

The day the trees came down!!

We've had quite an adventure today! Luckily we haven't had floods like they have had in southern Indiana, but we've had our own brand of adventure! About 5 o'clock this evening, we heard incredibly strong winds outside. I've never heard anything like it! I said a quick prayer that none of our trees would come down on anyone's houses. We have many trees that are at least 100 feet tall! I looked into the backyard and saw that one of the tallest trees had snapped and had the kids go down into the basement. When the storm settled down a little, I went out to see the damage. My neighbor was out there, too. He said that he was watching when a twenty foot section of one of our tall trees splintered and came crashing down (you can see it in the background of the above picture), and a minute later, he saw one of our big trees come down completely. Heavenly Father heard my prayer!! The tree landed in the only possible place it could have without damaging our house or one of our neighbors houses! While we were talking, the tornado siren went off and so I ran back into the house and spent the next half hour with the kids in the basement.
The tree had not only missed the houses, but it had fallen perfectly between nine different trees and had only broken off a few limbs on the way down! Also, to give you some perspective, at it's base, I can barely get my arms around the tree.

Above is a picture of part of the tree that the top 20 feet had broken off. It landed in our yard next to this little pine tree we planted last year. I'm not sure yet if it will be okay.
The view above is from the neighbors yard looking back toward our deck. The tree goes behind where I am standing for quite a bit, but this gives some perspective. I told our neighbor about saying a prayer at the beginning of the storm and pretty soon all of our neighbors had heard about the prayer. We have definitely been thanking Heavenly Father for his protection tonight!!