summertime blues

I just loaded all of my pictures from the summer onto my computer and it made me miss the summer fun. I miss my family. I wish I could take each day for grated when I am with them but thankful that I don't. I could only load a few of the MANY that I took. I would like to share some of my best parts with you. I long for the lazy days of SUMMER...

Best Memory number 1) Spending time with my family
My cousin Jeralee graduated from High School. Here I am with my grandma and papa. He is like my dad. I don't think I could love these two anymore than if they were my ACTUAL parents. No two people (aside from my mother, who is in NOT ONE picture b/c she refuses to get hers taken) could have taken better care of me growing up.

Best Memory Number 2) Thompson Park
Jeralee and I took the girls to the park on a very cool and blustery afternoon. The kids had so much fun playing. Karsyn could have stayed on the swings or played in the rocks all day long. All of the things there are made of natural or recycled materials which is sooo cool on its own. I do remember playing on these same structures as a kid and I was able to share that with my daughters. Makes my heart smile and long for home.

Best Memory Number 3) Building the bonds of cousins
Blood is thicker than water...Nothing is as strong as a family bond. You may have best friends but it doesn't hold a candle to a friendship inside your family. Here is Kaitlyn and Karsyn watching a movie with their cousin Maddison. We spent the whole summer with Maddison, Haylee, and Emmie. We laughed, we cried, we pulled each others hair and we laughed some more. I also love this picture because you can see how sun-kissed everyone's skin is. We spent the summer swimming in my grandparents salt water pool, Kaitlyn learned to swim and Karsyn learned to count to 10.

Best Memory Number 4)Oldest and dearest friends
Here I am with one of my very best friends, Nikki. We graduated high school together. We had a cook out and got together with a few of our other friends. We had a great time. We could have spent the entire night together laughing and talking if we hadn't been forced out by the hoards of mosquitoes. MONSTER MOSQUITOES!!! I love you Nik and miss you!

Best Memory Number 5) Enchanted Forest
The wind and water against your face, so much fun in just one place. Hang on for a wild one, hang on for a coooool one. Enchanted Forest, water safari, where the fun never stops... We always take a family trip to theme park. Since my sister and I have younger children we really can't go to a place with roller coasters. We chose to go to Enchanted Forest. It has rides for all ages. We leave early in the morning, drive the 2-3 hours it takes to get there and spend the entire day then drive back. It is so much fun. The kids loved it. The water, the rides, storytown, all of it. I am so glad that we do this every year. We did this while I was growing up and the tradition continues.
This is just a small snip it of how much fun we had over the summer. I could probably fill the pages of a book with all of our adventures. I can hardly wait for summer to roll around again to make some more memories.

Trick or Treat, Smell my feet!!

We had a hard time deciding what to be for Halloween this year. Kaitlyn has wanted to be Jessie since this summer but when we went to purchase a costume they were either sold out or so cheap looking I didn't want to spend that amount of money. I had homemade costumes all my life growing up so when my mother suggested that she and my aunt make Kaitlyn's Jessie costume, I jumped at the chance. Well weeks came and went with no word about the costume. I was getting very nervous that it wouldn't be done and get here in time for Halloween. The search was on, I looked at every website on the internet. Nothing seemed right. We finally found a costume that fit Karsyn. We still couldn't find something for Kaitlyn. WE HAD TO MAKE A DECISION!!! Every costume I showed her she would say yes I love that, so I thought well this will be easy. As soon as I would get off the internet I hear, mommy I want to be Jessie... so here we were again... I needed to get a Jessie costume. I talked with my mom and she said we can do it. So here are the final results.

Karsyn wanted to ride at first but soon just wanted to run to each house, leaving us in the dust.

Here is the first house we stopped at. Karsyn was so excited that she tried to open the door before the lady even had the candy in hand. lol She was such a big girl running ahead of her older sister. She said trick or treat and thank you at every stop. Kaitlyn on the other hand just held out her bucket which was so surprising to us because she is soooo outgoing.

We chose to go to this neighborhood because it is right behind our old house and they have this really cool house on the corner. I have never seen it on Halloween however so if you have seen this house in the daylight, you haven't seen anything. It was like a mini outside haunted house. We (the adults) loved it. Karsyn was not so sure, I had to carry her through and up to get her candy. Kaitlyn wasn't scared and we even stopped out front for a quick pic in front of one of the many blowup lawn "ornaments"

Karsyn would stop and "rest" after every couple of houses. I say that with quotes because we later realized that she was stopping to snag a piece of candy out of her bag every time. If you look closely at the picture she is holding a piece in her sneaky little mitts:)

This is the end of a wonderful Halloween. We had so much fun this year and can not wait to do it again next year!!