What Does Santa Do All Summer?

I know what you are thinking - Who is that scary man you have your children sitting with? I didn't know Santa took requests in the summer!
Why yes, as a matter of fact he does. If you travel down to the bayou you can find him spending his summer vacation at Crocodile Dock. He really lets himself go over the summer!


Okay, not really. This is actually Jon with the boys after his Thursday night VBS performance last week. This is his second year being part of the skit for the kids and their families. He has so much fun doing it. Elijah and Evan were a little unsure.


Here is Evan and Elijah watching the show from up in the balcony (so we wouldn't disturb everyone else). Elijah really liked watching his Daddy on stage. There was a part where Jon (Grandpa) was sleeping and one of the girls accidentally falls on him and wakes him up. Elijah yelled, "Get off my Daddy!" The rest of the time I had to try to quiet him when he was yelling, "Take off your beard Daddy!". For heaven's sake, we didn't want the other kids to know "Grandpa" was just some kids Daddy!



Here is Jon in action sharing the Good News.


In other exciting news, we had a great time spending a Saturday morning at a friends house. Here are the kids having a "picnic" breakfast.


We also got the pool out for the first time. We went out on one of the really hot and humid days last week. Elijah had a lot of fun playing in the water. I really wanted to jump in too, but I had to stay out and keep Evan company.


Evan is not yet used to playing in really cold hose water that is a foot deep so he spent the time playing in the exersaucer. It was so hot that I had to strip him down too and give him a wet washcloth to play with. He looks like he is having fun!

Literal

So, my friend from MOPS, Rachel, introduced me to literal videos when she posted one on her blog last week. Since that Jon and I have been watching them like crazy. They are so funny! They take real music videos and change the words to say what is literally going on. Here are a few of our favorites - enjoy!

Head Over Heels:

Head Over Heels: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Penny Lane:

Take On Me:

Take on Me: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

Monotony

Apparently the idea of being monotonous is not a concern to our almost-three-year-old. These lovely paintings are all that he has been producing with his watercolors for the last month. I give him an "A" for his use of color and another "A" for distinguishing the difference between the rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and black. See how in every picture he paints a nice swirl of the rainbow colors and the does a smaller swirl of just black. But originality, hmmmm . . . I will have to think about that one. True, the first one was an original idea, but not so much the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, you get the idea! Have no fear, these pictures have also been replicated on the backsides of these pages too, and also on many more pages that have long since been thrown away. We can't help but wonder what is going on in his little mind. Is this some kind of secret message??? We don't get much out of Elijah when we ask him what it is. I guess we might never know!

Camping

So maybe you have noticed that I haven't posted anything new in three weeks. Where have we been!?! Well I wish we could say that we have been hiding away on some tropical island, but on the contrary life has been business as usual around here. It actually has been pretty hectic, hence the lack of posts! May and June are always very busy times for us with Jon's end-of-the year parties, wrapping up his spring quarter for school, holidays, birthdays, etc.
Two weeks ago we spent a night at the Water Park of America. Elijah had a blast in the water. He must be part fish, because he could not get enough of the fun! He even went all by himself on one of the kiddie water slides! Evan on the other hand was content to sit on our laps in a few inches of water. He was not too sure about the water and did not like sitting on his own in the water.
Last Thursday through Saturday we went on our first family camping trip. It was a lot of fun and crazy at the same time.
Here are some of the highlights in pictures:

Elijah helps Daddy set up the tent. He had fun playing with the giant poles.

What a helper!

Luckily we had the help of Grandma and Grandpa Rickabaugh to help us with the kids while we set up. They then stayed for our first campfire.

Evan is enjoying his breakfast on the picnic table.

Elijah enjoyed spending a lot of time playing in the car. We could have stayed home for that!!!

We went to the park's visitor's center and enjoyed the children's interactives and walking around outside.

Elijah looks back at the visitor center's natural roof.

The second night we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Dack and aunt Carrie and Nicki. We had fun around the campfire and singing many, many silly songs!

Our lovely campfire. We made yummy hobo packs on the fire for dinner that night. This is our camping tradition.

Elijah at the tent.

Elijah enjoys eating a "raw" marshmallow. He did not like the roasted ones because they were too hot. He did not even want to try a smore!

On Saturday, after we packed up camp, we headed to the beach. It was a beautiful day and Elijah had a lot of fun in the water. All in all it was a fun family camping trip!