bye bye baseball

It was a great season of baseball for Andrew. The coaches and kids were fantastic. We loved watching each game. Andrew really grew in skills and hit a few whoppers!

Ready to run Fielding

Speaking of fielding, we figure when the kids learn to catch (and throw more accurately, I suppose) the games will change a lot. You know, when they have a defense. :)

Abby and Eliza made some great little friends. It was fun to watch them be so...girly. This was at our night game "under the lights" that the boys got so excited about. Hence the jammies.

Andrew's fans

Storming the Bastille

I don't know much about Bastille Day, but I do know Milwaukee has a night 5K "fun run" to celebrate. July 9th DeAnn and I hit the pavement to help kick off Milwaukee's Bastille Day festival. There were somewhere between 4 and 6 thousand runners. A lot, but not quite the insane 40,000 of the Bolder Boulder (that I ran many years back). It was busy, full of festival-goers, and the run was kind of crazy! We loved it and had a great time! Even treated ourselves (and husbands) to waffle cones afterwards.

If you don't see us in this picture it's cuz we were going so fast. (Actually we're in the blue and orange shirts in the center in the back there.)


Mmm, water after the run. We opted out of the free beer. I also painted my nails hot pink to confuse and disorient runners around us...it frequently helped us pull ahead.

Eliza says...

The other day we watched The Princess Diaries. Eliza saw the movie cover on the computer and exclaimed, "Let's watch Princess Diarrhea!"

Germantown's 4th of July Parade

For the first time our family had a member actually march in the parade! Andrew showed off his elbow, elbow, wrist wrist wrist as he marched with the little league. We loved seeing him go by with his big smile! He loved it too.

The girls watching. This year I simply couldn't resist the $3 Wal-mart patriotic shirts. Here he is, what a guy!

Feed the Mosquitoes (aka: go camping)

If you want to do a good deed to bugs, namely mosquitoes, give them fresh food by visiting any of Wisconsin's state parks. Going with or without bug repellent will do. Even if you put it on after a couple minutes of leaving your vehicle, they will have had enough time to get a good meal.

Eliza is protecting her eyes from the smoke. Her idea. Abby is reacting to the mosquitoes.

Kids working on a project by flashlight.
Abby took this picture of the wetlands/nature reserve. We camped in a wooded area. We were at Richard Bong State Park and Recreation Area. It is massive. It has places for hunting, four wheeling, horse-back riding, camping, swimming, snowmobiling, bird watching, etc.

Eliza and Andrew both had somewhere between 12 and 14 mosquito bites on their faces. Andrew's were all on his forehead. Hard to see here...but it was bad! It didn't take long before we were covering faces with bug spray as well. Sheesh!! You know, they say here that mosquitoes are the state bird.

Abby (like all of us) got attacked in the first minute upon leaving the car. Some even through her pants. Poor girl.

Despite all the bugs we had a lot of fun! We jumped rope, swam, ate hot dogs and foil dinners, roasted marshmallows, had lots of snacks and treats, told shadow stories at night in the tent, played frisbee and catch, and all that good camping stuff. The extra fun was that our friends, the Greens, camped along with us for a night. What a treat!

Hermies

We're learning as we go. We started with this cage set-up. But learned that the pet store cage is not the cage to model after. Hermit crabs are diggers and like to bury themselves completely. They can't dig in the rocks. They also need multiple shells to try out and wear. They enjoy climbing and hiding, thus the wire bridge and flower pot in there. Humidity is important so we switched from the wire screen lid to a plexiglass lid that will keep the moisture in better (with a little space for fresh air to get in). So this is the better set up...

We could make the "soil" even deeper at some point. The soil is actually compressed coconut shell fibers sold in bricks. When you add water to it poofs up. It's really cool. This is Julie in her second shell.

This is Charlie in the shell we bought him in. You see Julie's first shell (empty) next to him. Charlie has switched to a bigger, thicker shell.

Hermit crabs like lots of human food so it's fun to put different stuff in their cage each night.

So far they've lived longer than the poor goldfish.

TLCB Summerfest

You've heard of The Lucas Cates Band here before.

They just had their first gig at Summerfest, so we had to go support! They did awesome. And I'm pretty sure we're their biggest fans.

If you don't believe me:

It was a hot, sweaty day. Lots of walking. But so worth it! We had fun meeting the band's other fans, like Lucas's sister, Dad, Mom (though we'd met her before) and a few of the band's close friends. They loved our...band spirit!