A few days on our own!

Eric's brother Aaron invited his brothers and spouses to spend a few days with he and Angela on their boat in the Ozarks to celebrate his 40th birthday, without children!  It was a wonderful, relaxing time away!

Dan and Deena.

We hiked up to a castle that was built in the early 1900's.  

It was destroyed by a fire shortly after it was built and the remains are still there for visitors to tour.

The water tower.

Aaron and Angela.

We hiked to a natural bridge, something I didn't expect to see in the Midwest!  

Aaron and Angela's boat, Wrigley on the Water.

3 brothers.

Our 3 brothers!  

Nick, Sam and Ben spent the week with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Bill.  They had so much fun being spoiled by their Aunt and Uncle they barely missed us!

We stayed at a hotel to enjoy a little swimming before returning to Indiana.

Conner Prairie

We spent a day at Conner Prairie, an interactive museum in Fishers, exploring and learning about life in the 1800's.

The barn animals are always a favorite!

Getting the summer started off right!

It's finally summertime!  

Ben is helping out with the garden.  We are planting green beans, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, zucchini  and cucumbers.

Nick and Daddy took in the Indy 500 race!  A first time event for both of them.  They both loved it!  I believe Nick is hooked on the race now!

Touch a truck at the library with our neighbors.  

Hopefully this is the closest these boys will get to a police car with it's lights on!

The boys and I participated in Vacation Bible School at the church where the kids went to preschool.  We always look forward to attending (and volunteering) at VBS each summer!

We went to our first Indy Eleven game!  (The professional soccer team in Indianapolis)  The kids loved watching the fast paced game, so did Eric and I!  

Cub Scout camp at Camp Belzer.  

I was lucky enough to go along with the boys to Cub Scout day camp this year.  I went each day and helped keep the kids from our school in line.  It was a tropical kind of weather week with rain, heat and humidity!  The kids didn't seem to notice and we all survived and came home smiling each day, ready to return the next day for more fun!

We capped off the week with an overnight camp out, in the rain!

Father's Day.  Eric and his minions, showering him with attention and love!

Little League Baseball

 This spring if we weren't at the soccer fields with our boys, we were at the baseball diamonds!

We had our first Little League experience this spring, and it was really a lot of fun!  The games are held at our local park, Lions Park, the nicest park ever!  

Sam played on the Volcanoes and Nick played on the Angels.

Although they played all positions, Nick's favorite was catcher.  He really improved a lot over the season, not much got past him!

The Angels even got to play under the lights!  They had a come from behind win in the playoffs!  What an exciting, and late, night!  

Nick's league was kid pitch.  Nick really liked pitching, too.  He got to pitch under the lights, a thrill for him!

The Angels took 3rd (out of 4) in their division. 

It was a learning year!

The boys all had a blast playing together.  Every one's skills improved and friendships were made.  Nick is looking forward to his next baseball season!

Sam, the lefty.

Sam improved so much at batting and even became proficient with batting righty during practice.  

He earned the award for the most improved player on his team!

Ben opted to not play ball this year.  He was instead the 'Super Fan'!

Sam's team went far in the playoffs making it to the championship game!  The Volcanoes took 2nd place in their division.  It was so much fun watching Sam play, all of his team played hard at each and every game!

Sam and his buddy Riley.

  Sam and Riley were in preschool together and remain good friends.

One of the best things about the baseball games at Lions Park was we could take Ruby and Louise!  They were always so excited to go to the games and socialize with everyone that they could get to pay attention to them.  That wasn't too difficult!

End of the school year

The end of the school year brought a few projects for our boys.  Ben's kindergarten class performed a farm play for their families.  The kids all had different costumes depicting things that would be found on a farm.  Ben's role was a chicken coop.  They sang songs to tell about their roles on a farm.  It was very cute!

He also visited a local dairy farm on a class field trip!

Nick's 2nd grade class participated in a States Fair program.  Each student chose a state back in the fall spent the year researching it.  Nick choose Virginia.  The kids then displayed their work for all of the families and students to view and learn interesting facts about their state!

The last day of school!
Sam was the only one who would look back for a photo!

Bring on summer!  We are ready!