Catch!

I have a lot of catching up to do! Between Gage's baseball practice and games and Wade's softball games and Ella's swim lessons and every other thing we are up to this summer it's hard to keep up with this.

For my birthday, my good friend Jaime and her boyfriend Rob came to Cedar Rapids and we went out to eat. It was nice to visit and catch up with them. Jaime has been a friend of mine for about 17 years now. WOW! She is another of my few "forever friends".
Love her!!

Every year Cedar Rapids has a huge celebration around the 4th of July. It lasts more than a week with lots of fun events. We didn't take part in much of it this year, but we did take the kids to Usher's Ferry one Saturday. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how the kid's would like it, but they absolutely loved it! It was like stepping back in time. We got to go through all of the houses and old shops, there was even a hotel. It was really interesting. And the best part was there were no ropes keeping you out of things or off of things. You could sit on the furniture, touch the dishes, lay on the beds (we opted out of that). We took a mini train ride around the village and the kids loved that too! Gage thought the outhouses were really neat. There were a few houses that actually had running water and bathrooms - they must have been well off! The first house we went in, the woman who "lived" there told us a few stories and offered us fresh baked biscuits that she baked in this ancient wood fed oven. I think that really set the tone for the rest of the visit. I will post some of the pictures so you can see a few of the houses we got to see.

On the 4th of July, we decided to have a picnic and a hike. We went to Palo and had our picnic lunch near the lake. It was such a nice day outside. After lunch we went on the only nature trail they had. We didn't know that before we went, but it was a nice 2 mile trail. We saw a couple of snakes near the marsh area, heard a chorus of bull frogs, saw lots of animal tracks and spiders and Gage pointed out a few bugs he recognized from his bug books. There was a lot to see if you really looked, and the kids love to look! Ella walked almost the entire 2 miles. I was really proud of her! Wade took the kids downtown to see the fireworks that night. I stayed home for a little while, then went to the gym. It was a good day. :)

Last Friday, Gage and I went with a couple of his friends and their mom's to Adventureland. It was a blast! We did all the water rides and the kids got soaked. I managed to stay pretty dry somehow. The kids had so much fun, and the moms did too!

Saturday we went and got the kid's pictures taken at Smiley Face Productions. It was a lot of fun. They had an hour long photo shoot - and the owner and photographer Terilyn was awesome! We will get those back in about 2 more weeks. Yipee!

Ella went to my mom's last night, she is going to stay until Saturday morning until we pick her up to go to the Lost Island water park. I'm sure she will be good and spoiled the next time I see her. hehe

This is always for some reason a busy month for us, but we are busy having fun, so it is good!

I will post more pictures soon!