Green Beans 2017

Awe, green beans.  I think Tony and I have a love/hate relationship with green beans.  We love the overtime pay, but we don't always love the schedule.  Tony is on the night shift again this year.  They have had a few breaks in production which really screws with his overtime and our schedule.  It does look like they should be done before we go to Oregon, so that is very good.

The kids and I always love to go and see Tony at work on Saturday to check out the green beans.  With the new building some of the equipment was a little different then in years past.  Allie did not like the loud noises of the machines.  The other kids really liked our tour of the cannery and had a great time.  Allie preferred to watch the process from the window in the hall where you can't hear all the noise.

 After we had a tour we all went out to lunch before Tony had to go back to work.  We went to our favorite place, Texas Roadhouse.  It was of course yummy and we all had a good lunch.  It was another good time at the cannery and with Tony. 

Silly Kids

I love my silly kids so much.  They can push my buttons and try my patience, but they can also melt my heart and make me so happy.  Here are just a couple pictures of some of the kids that Megan asked me to take.  Her and Allie love when I take their pictures and ask me to do it often.  Good thing they are so cute, the camera loves them.

Grandma Camp 2017

It was another great year at Grandma Camp.  My parents picked up my boys Wednesday morning.  They were both so excited.
All the cousins were able to go (ages 6 and over, except Jacob and Alex).  The kids went in the boat on the pond, made desserts, shot guns, shot bows and arrows, went on a 3 mile hike, did service cleaning up the property, played dancing games on the wii, tie dyed shirts, made wooden shelves, and much more.

They both had so much fun.  Josh and Tyler had a birthday party Friday evening, so the girls and I went up and got them Friday afternoon.  It was a nice drive for me and the girls.  I did get the van stuck, but luckily with Teagan helping direct me I was able to get out.

Next year Megan will be able to go and she is very excited.  The boys had a great time and I think it is so awesome of my mom to put on Grandma Camp for the grand kids.  

Summer Soccer for Tyler

Awe summer soccer.  This year only Tyler wanted to play.  This spring Megan wanted to play soccer but I knew it would be too hard with the boys baseball schedule so I told her she could play this summer.  Now that summer is here she decided she didn't want to play.
Josh thought for maybe a minute that he wanted to do summer soccer again, but quickly decided against it.  He says he doesn't like soccer anymore, just baseball.

So just Tyler is taking on the heat and playing hard.  He's had two games so far.  His first game he did pretty good, but his second game he did even better.  He had a few pretty good shots on goal and some awesome break a ways.  He says he is really liking soccer and he's happy to be playing again. I must admit that it is nice only going to one game that is one hour long, especially in the heat.

Swimming in the Back Yard

The kids have been asking me since the spring when we could get out the pool and let them go swimming.
The weather finally got hot enough to get out the pools.  I had bought Allie a new little pool this year and then when I went to find the pool from last year I could not find it.  I didn't remember throwing it out, but I guess I did.

So after I dropped Tyler off at soccer practice I ran to Sam's Club to see if they still had pools.  They did not.  So then I ran to Costco just to see if hey had any.  They did not.
It was then time to pick up Tyler.  After I picked him up we ran to Walmart together.  Luckily they had pools.  We bought one and then headed home to pump it up.  After it was all pumped we started filling it up with water so it was ready for the next day.

These kids can not get enough of water time.  Well, the three older kids.  Allie pretty much just liked running around the yard from pool to pool.  She liked skimming out the grass from the pools with the net and playing with the water shooters.  She did get into the little pool a few times, but surprisingly didn't want to play with the water too much.

Allie kept starting to climb up the ladder on the slide, but then she would chicken out before going down the slide.  I finally just put her on the slide and helped her slide down.  She sort of liked that, but didn't want to do it again.
Tyler, Josh, and Megan have been having so much fun  They go out multiple times a day and play for hours.  It is so nice to see them all play together so nicely (for the most part).

They love showing me all their mad tricks on the slide.  It is fun seeing how creative they can get with the slide.  I am so glad that they love the water and can have such a fun time in our little back yard.

Fireworks!!!

Tony ended up spending more money then I thought he would have, but he got some really fun things.
I had bought a box of pop it's earlier from Sam's Club and Josh was so excited to play with them.  He kept asking if it was time to go out and play with them.  I kept saying no because it was so hot outside.

So we waited until about 7:30 and then started getting things ready for the night of fun.  We invited Margie to come over and watch with us.  We also invited a few neighbors who were home to come over if they wanted to.  They did come over and it was fun to enjoy the fireworks with a group of friends.

We started with the pop it's and then moved on to the parachutes.  We got some of the cheap ones and none of the them worked like they were suppose to.  So I don't think that we will buy those anymore.  But Tony did get some bigger ones that went off perfectly.  We had four that had streamers on them with the parachutes and then two with Army men and even bigger chutes.  Megan and Allie loved those.

After those were all done we finished getting everything ready for the big fireworks.  This time Allie loved them.  She got a little nervous with the big aerial fireworks, but she just sat with Margie or me and she was fine.  One of the aerial fireworks went crazy and flew into Max's garage.  It was a little scary and lucky it didn't cause any damage or problems (luckily).
We didn't have any other issues for the rest of the fireworks.  It was amazing to sit on our front lawn and see all the fireworks around us from around the neighborhood.  I love celebrating Independence day and feeling blessed to live in this country.  We really are so lucky and blessed.  Life is good!

Happy Independence Day!

It has been a fun few days.  Yesterday morning our swamp cooler stopped working.  It would still blow air but it wasn't coming out cold (like the water wasn't running through it).  So I told Tony and he said he'd look at when he came home from work.
After lunch Margie texted and asked if we wanted to go to the Sweet's factory to see what treats they had.  I said "Heck yes!" and got the kids ready to go.

We welcomed the outing and getting out of our hot house.  It is always fun to go the candy store.  Margie was leaving for her trip with Suzanne's family in a couple days and wanted to see what they had that she could take with her.
We let the kids pick out a couple little treats and then we checked out.  We enjoyed free samples and the cool building.  They do have tours but you have to sign up in advance.  We talked about setting one up for another time.  That will be fun.

Margie brought us back home.  Tony got off work and checked on the swamp cooler.  Luckily the filter had moved and blocked the water from getting through, so it was an easy fix.  I was very thankful for that.
Margie had a broken sprinkler in her back yard that she wanted Tony to fix, so we headed to her house after eating some dinner.

Tony saw the problem and Margie needed a new part.  So Margie, Tony, and Allie went to the store while the rest of us stayed and hung out at Margie's.
After they fixed the sprinkler part Margie took us all out for Italian Shaved Ice.  It was the perfect treat for such a hot night.  Many other's thought so too and it was pretty busy there.  We all enjoyed our treat and then we went back to Margie's to get our car.

We then went over to my parents house to watch them set off some fireworks.  Since Kevin and Julie's families wouldn't be around for fireworks of the 4th they decided to set theirs off the night before.

Allie (who had not had a nap that day) didn't like the fireworks.  Her and Tony went inside and she watched them from the window.  The three older kid loved them, especially Megan.  Tyler was kind of scared of some of the loud ones and would run towards the house.  I thought that was odd because he has never done that before.
But even with the really big and loud ones Megan stayed seated watched them intently.  She is my brave girl.
We let Tyler and Josh spend the night with Hayden at my parents.  They slept outside on the trampoline and stayed out there all night long.
The rest of us went home and got some sleep before coming back to get the boys the next morning for the Murray parade.
We loved the parade and the kids got lots of candy.  Allie was adorable waving to people and saying "Over here" in her cute little voice.  She loved the city royalties and called them all Elsa and Anna.  Adorable.
After the parade we went back to my parents for a BBQ.  The kids all played together while we got all the food ready.  It was all very good and the kids loved playing together.  After we ate and cleaned up we went home.  We tried to get Allie to take a nap, but she wouldn't have it.  Tony and Megan went to a fireworks stand to get us some fireworks for tonight.