Summertime!

I hope you have been enjoying your summer. I know it's been awhile since I have updated, so I have several events to cover.

In June, we successfully graduated all 4 children to their next grade...yeah! It's always a relief to officially hear that. Joe graduated from the 5th grade with a ceremony, awards, slide show of baby photos (he was so embarrassed!), and a reception. He's headed to Middle School in August.

Madison will be a Sophomore and will be learning to drive this Fall...oy! Tom and Logan are in 5th and 4th grades, and started back to school last Monday. They are on year-round calendar, so they had enough time to have fun and then get back to business.

Over the break so far, Tom went to NC State Engineering camp for a week. He had to be selected to attend and loved it! They conducted many experiments and received awards for their accomplishments. (We're hoping it's the first step towards a scholarship!)

He also went to Sunset Ridge (our neighborhood) Sports Camp with Logan for a week. I dropped them off at 9am at the neighborhood pool where they then played soccer, basketball, tennis and golf, had lunch and swam. I picked them up at 5:00 and they had a blast!

Logan went to Durham Bulls Baseball Camp at the Bulls stadium in Durham. The players conducted the clinics and then they played a mini-game each day. They had stadium-food lunch, received t-shirts, a real wooden bat, and then got autographs from the players. My mom and dad took him to camp on Saturday and got a kick out of watching him.

Madison attended drivers ed class and will drive later this year. Getting up early for class was only made bearable by the anticipation of getting her permit soon. yikes~ She is in Florida with Kelsey this week visiting Kelsey's grandma and working on her tan.

Joe went to 4H camp overnight for the 2nd time. He enjoyed it so much last year, he wanted to go again. We dropped him off on a Sunday morning and they do have quite the operation in place. I don't have much to tell about camp - I guess what happens at camp, stays at camp!

(maybe this is why we like camp??)

We've been up to the cabin 3 times since we moved in. While it was 101 degrees here, it was 85 in the mountains and beautiful! The main reason I have not wanted to do much updating!

Over the 4th , we spent 4 days and during that time the boys went climbing at Footsloggers in Boone. They are such monkeys! Dan and Natalie, Logan's grandparents, also joined us for a couple of days. It was a wonderful visit with some really nice quality time.

(New headboards made locally from Locust trees)

We celebrated the 4th with our mountain neighbors, the Avery's. We cooked out at their cabin for dinner and then migrated to our place for dessert, drinks and fireworks. We really enjoy their company and this time they were able to meet the boys. Their daughter Addison, 6, totally took to Tom. She held his hand everywhere and stuck to him all night like glue! It was too cute.