Friends for over 10 years for the big kids, and they always have fun when they are together.
Telestrations is always fun and full of laughter!
Shipwreck VBS. Molly and Simon moved up to VBX (x-treme) this year for rising 6th & 7th grade. They all had a blast!
Over July 4th week, Jen and the girls spent a few days at Lay Lake in Alabama, while I was on mission trip to VA. So, for the first time in forever, Jen had to sit with the girls on the plane.
It didn’t take long for the family to be out on the Dottie B.
Jen made all the kids festive July 4th tees.
She also made a patriotic fruit trifle for the July 4th dessert.
A trip to Lay Lake is not complete without tubing!
G’mom and Grampa surprised everyone by being the first out on the tube.
Molly's going solo.
Jen and Leah too.
One last picture opportunity before leaving.
Back at Aunt ‘Chile’s house, the kids had fun on the double Slip ’n Slide.
Molly has her brown belt in karate, and is working toward black. When she got her brown belt, it had 3 stripes on it, which she has to work off over 18 months in order to test for her black belt. After 6 months of work, she got the first stripe removed. Congratulations, Molly.
We bought our house with enough rooms that the girls could have their own rooms, but they chose to share a room with bunk beds. We thought that wouldn’t last very long, but we were wrong. They lasted 5 years together, but finally decided to split. With Molly headed to middle school (with a much earlier wake up time), Leah decided to move out into her own room.
While Leah was at baking camp, Molly attended Encore Music Camp here in Howard County. It’s a full-day music camp for middle schoolers (yes, Molly is entering middle school). They had a wide variety of levels and had a lot of fun together.
Molly was excited to have friends at the camp. She, Simon, and Jake have been friends since they were infants.
The string orchestra did great and had a lot of fun in their end-of-the-week performance. The last song (Rosin Eating Zombies, starting at 12:46 ) was our favorite.
Molly was also part of the choir.
At the end of the concert, the entire camp came together to play.
Molly took a class on conducting as one of her electives. Then she got to conduct this ensemble at the end of the week.
Molly also took guitar as an elective. She said it was hard.
It was late after the end-of-the-week concert, but we still stopped at The Snowball Stand for the first time for a treat.
Leah attended a baking camp in June and came home asking to practice. Since Jen is an expert baker, she and Leah made some cupcakes then sent them virtually to Aunt Caroline as a birthday gift.
Leah also baked some banana bread muffins, which are a staple in our house!
Leah brought home her creations from baking camp each day. After a few days, there were lots of uneaten leftovers, so I made myself a sampler platter.
Now that summer is coming soon to an end, I guess I should finally post what we’ve been up to this summer. So, take yourself back to the week school ended...
School ended on Tuesday, and Friday we headed to Hershey Park for some fun.
We rode a lot of roller coasters. Hershey Park is great for our kids because they have a bunch of coasters with lower height requirements than Six Flags or King’s Dominion. This meant Leah (who is quite short) could actually ride lots of rides. She and Molly rode Laff Track, Lightning Racer, sooperdooperLooper, Trailblazer, Wild Mouse, Wildcat, and Comet (which she actually rode three times). Jen rode on most of those too (possibly the most impressive thing about our visit). Molly and I also rode Fahrenheit (Leah’s not tall enough for that one yet).
In addition to coasters, we rode the Ferris Wheel, since the girls had never ridden one before.
For our treat, we had to try out Makin’ Whoopie Pies. We got 2 giant whoopie pies. Molly went for red velvet with traditional creme, while Leah went for sugar cookie with peanut butter filling. They were delicious - super sweet and rich. They were so sweet the girls and Jen couldn’t finish their portions, so I had to help them out.
Any trip to Hershey Park needs to have a stop into Chocolate World as well.
Hershey Park was a perfect start to the summer!
