Random Summer Fun!

I haven’t been very good at taking pictures lately, but here are some random ones of some of our activities this summer including blueberry picking, blackberry picking, a visit to “Big Daddy” Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, and other randomness.

We had a bit of time to spare on our way south for a funeral, so we stopped at the drag racing museum right off the interstate.  We have lived here for 14 years and have never made the stop because we are always in a rush to get where we are going.  I’ve always heard from Deda that we need to go there because he personally knew Don Garlits.  I don’t care about cars, but I thought of Deda the entire time I was there.   I sure do miss him!  Josiah liked the model cars and trucks the best and really wanted to play with them.

You can tell this was during Josiah’s phase of being willing to smile for the camera, but refusing to look at it.

 

We went blueberry picking with Annie, Henry, and Mom.  Due to weather, the picking wasn’t great this year.  Between the poor picking and the eat-as-you-go method the boys used, we didn’t take too many home :)

On our way to go blackberry picking along our dirt road.  We walk/ride almost daily and the boys love eating berries as we go!I love this action shot!  It is so typical – fireman boots, hats, sunglasses, and cool rides.

I never could get the container full and all the berries in their bellies ruined lunch!

 

Josiah had spied this snake in our yard a number of times at the beginning of the summer.  It seemed to stalk us on our porches, in our outside toys, in the grill of my car (with his head sticking out – totally surpirsed me when I walked by!), and in our yard.  It is a harmless snake, but I had just told Jacob it had to go because it kept surprising us, then Josiah found it dead in the road the next day.While doing yard work, I walked towards the spicket and reached for the handle without looking out of habit, then just happened to glance where I was grabbing right before I did!  This snake was sneaky!

Swimming Fun!

At the end of last summer we bought one of those cheap collapsible framework pools on clearance.  For man reasons, I always balked at the idea whenever Jacob mentioned it in the past, but I could see the boys were not comfortable in deep water, so we wanted to give them routine exposure of some sort...so I broke down and we bought the cheap pool to see if we’d really want a real pool one day.

Well…leveling the ground and putting it up didn’t prove to be as easy as we anticipated, and after assembling it and starting to add water 3 or 4 different times, we (Jacob) finally got the job done.   (It has also been a learning curve for us to figure out pool care, but that’s another story.)   The boys loved it with 1-2 feet of water in in it and begged us not to fill it the rest of the way, but I’m proud to say that after just a few short weeks, they’ve gone from refusing to let go of the ladder or us, to independently floating and “swimming” on their own with floaties.  They love it!  Yay!

I love these two pictures.  Josiah always wants to help whether its scrambling eggs or working on a big project.  He’s going to learn so much from Jacob, except how to put up a pool in one try :)  (Jacob gave me a dirty look when he read this!)

But this is what the boys spent most of their time doing…playing in the dirt and mud created by Daddy leveling the ground.

Only Jacob wasted time putting on a bathing suit!

This is what the boys did when they got too cold in the pool.  They sat on the pool’s packaging and shared the screwdrivers to punch holes in it.  I think they had just as much fun doing that!

Prior the fiasco of setting up the pool, we used our Slip ‘N Slide.  It was spontaneous, hence the lack of bathing suits.  Jacob had to participate to show ‘em how it’s done!

Elijah’s about to get wet!

SLIP n’ slide!

My hubby is ripped! :)

So, so cute!

Elijah didn’t really enjoy learning to slide by Jacob pushing him!

The ham of the family.