Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Ryan turned 7 this past weekend. He didn't have a friend birthday party, but he did get to celebrate all weekend. First, I took him and a couple of his friends bowling. They were very competitive always wanting to know who was winning and running smack at me. One of his friends even told me he thought I needed to take bowling lessons. Yeah...but I didn't have to have the bumpers up! Ryan was even running smack about an older lady a few lanes down from us until he went down and looked at her score. He came back to our lane with an astonished face and said, "Whoa, that lady has three strikes in a row!" That was the end of the smack talking.

The next night we took Ryan (and the rest of the family) out to dinner at his choice of restaurant. He chose Cafe Rio, or just Rio as he calls it. He snarfed down his salad like he hadn't eaten in a week. I think we need to work a little more on table manners.

Finally, on Labor Day we celebrated his birthday with family. He wanted a guitar cake this year, so I did my best. I know I'm not the "Ace of Cakes", but he thought it was cool. It took forever to make and only minutes to eat. All that hard work so quickly destroyed, but it was fun and Ryan liked it.

Fun in the Sun!

Last week our friends had a birthday party for their son Amani. For the party they bought this waterslide and the kids had a blast. They spent HOURS racing, sliding and having a great time enjoying the water. At first Owen was too scared to climb up the "ladder" to go down. We tried and tried to get him to climb up. Finally, Jason just lifted him up to the top and then he had to go down. After that we couldn't get him off the slide. Thanks for a great party. And thanks to Jason and Andrea for these pictures. I forgot my camera, of course.

Ryan got some good air up there at the top.

First Day of School!

It's hard to believe that the kids have already gone back to school, but yesterday was their first day. Zach is now in 3rd grade and Ryan is in 2nd grade. We have year round school and are on C track, which means we go for 3 weeks and then we have our first break for 3 weeks. So even though the kids have started school we still get to have a little more summer in a few weeks. They seemed fairly excited that morning to go back, but after school Ryan could not stop talking about how much fun he had and how he LOVED school. (I hope that attitude lasts throughout the year.) I think Zach's excitement for school was overshadowed by his excitement to start football. His first day for football workouts was yesterday also. Things went well after he faced the fact that he was just going to be HOT. He didn't even have all his pads on, just his helmet. He'll be really busy with practices for the next few weeks but we're excited to see him play in a real football game. Owen was not excited for his brothers to go back to school because he didn't get to go too. He was very upset that he was not old enough to go. After repeatedly telling him that he would get to go next year, and that not satisfying him, I gave up and told him we could have school at our house. So I got out some paper and colored pencils and told him he needed to learn his ABC's. That seemed to work, for today anyway. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

We love Grammy and Papa

We loved spending time with Grammy and Papa while they were here visiting from their temporary home in the Philippines. On the day before they returned to the Philippines, I took these pictures at our cousin Bradon's Eagle Court of Honor (hence the Scout uniform). We love you Grammy and Papa and are looking forward to when you come home next year.