what a great BBQ

Tim brought some toys
which the kids loved
I love this one
everyone got a turn
and toasted marshmallows yummy
I'll say it again, I love the body of Christ.

today's the day hooray!

one last slug without the cast
with...
waiting, yes we still have skinny j and good news he has gained 2 1/2 lbs with us.
here it goes right through Brookes name
ah the joy of washing, he washed 4 times.

and back to a removable splint. We will see him again in 2 weeks.

a little more of VBS

you can see by the map how far our farthest balloon traveled
very cool David was in charge of the K-2 dept. which makes me very proud
KB was saying how she hadn't been on our blog in some time so here you go K

our fund raiser was to help build a library in Indonesia, this is me and aunt lynn weighing the $ to see who the "winner" was
A putting $ in Daves bucket (there was 4 men who ever got the heaviest bucket got a pizza size pie in the face)
this is the fun part of being director you can say that you are the one who gets to do the pie
that is Kevin under all that cream, he won by a land slide 75 pounds

but all the others got a consolation pie, regular size. as a bonus their daughters got to put them in their dads face. Here is jeff
David came in second 60.5 pounds

that's not enough


lets do it again
she certainly did the best
I think this is funny Rob ended up putting his own pie in his face
the other man is Chris , don't they all look great! the kids went crazy for it and we raised 205lbs!

the northwest side of chicago...

so the news said we were hit hardest with last nights storms, 3000 trees down. Well I believe it and here is one of them. If you look close you will see the light pole and a blue jeep under there, with only half of the tree.
we were not without trouble either. With David at the firehouse ,always happens, we took in 6" of water to the basement. Power was out so with flashlights in hand me and the 3 oldest worked for 1 1/2 hours to try and keep the water from getting in or to go down once the rain stopped all surrounded by unbelievable lightning and thunder. As the storm started at 11pm I was laying in bed praying that if something did happen that God would help me remain calm and think clearly to keep us all safe. Well 15 minutes later I was put to the test I had one almost uncool moment but with B's help and encouragement we didn't loose anything. How blessed I am to have him when Dave's away. Could have been way worse thank you God it wasn't, all are safe.

F-U-N at VBS

this week is our Bible school and here are a few highlights so far
oh how B reminded me of Tim sucking in helium
buddies
duck, duck...
isn't she a beautiful girl?
ahh jr. high

for those of you who are wondering about the new cutie popping up on the blog, they're family who just recently moved back to the USA and we are blessed enough to have them living only a mile away. So get used to that adorable face!
yeah the push the shoe box with your back game
we did an old fashion balloon send off today to see which one goes the farthest ( sorry environmentalist) it was really fun and a total throw back
a wind sock OR a hat take your pick. I realized I don't have to many of B and Sky (trying not to embarrass them) but I will work on that the next 3 days. Gotta love VBS!

this one's for Colby

we stopped to see an art exibit, mapping: cartographies of learning, that colby helped with students from a CPS school to complete. This was colbys exibit

more Leamington fun

Now I actually began posting at the block party today so that is why this is part 2. Sky was the big winner for the big raffle, a deluxe BBQ set and I am happy because we all benefit from his BBQ skills so this was a great prize for him
pinata time
now I figure I have been at about 30 years of Leamington block partys so I really have done all of these things as a kid and do we think he has been there all these years holding that string too?hum...maybe
aw man I didn't put in the one of Sky busting it open, here is the candy mayhem
and the poor bee after sky finished him off, good job slugger.

nothing like a chicago block party

bike decorating
even skinny j got to be in the bike parade





this was G's first time on his big bike
Gairette won 1st prize
no block party would be complete without Gladstones water games

a new one in honor of the Olympics

oldie but a goodie

B didn't get wet today instead played Chinese hackey sac

then a police K9 unit came it was so cool

this is a big deal for liv, she is not a dog lover

it was really interesting,I think
Sky's a winner

the kids raffle, David bought each kid 10 tickets...

G won 7 out of his 10 he was the big winner today
then the fireman came always a good time
you know that I love when my kids do things that I did as a child
Dave talking with the boys

future firefighters?
Anna and aunt lynn were the first to win at the bake raffle
sky won cookies

more yard games, more fun.