Another Teenager

We now have two teenage girls in our house, and we love it! On Bethany’s actual birthday we celebrated with Grandma & Grandpa and Grandma S., but her party with her friends wasn’t until a few weeks later. It’s always good to draw out the fun for a while.

A new bicycle for my girl who loves to transport herself around town – to the library, to church, or wherever she needs to go. Later she used some Amazon gift certificate money to buy a bag to attach to the rear rack.

A great group of girls – we had a blast with them!!

Shopping Trip!

It has become tradition for the Ball girls to take a day in August to go shopping…back to school shopping in particular. We head south (to where the Canadians are fewer and farther between) and stop at various shopping centers. We buy school supplies and clothes, go out to eat, and often stop at Hobby Lobby & the American Girl store. Ed loves it because he gets to work late or come home and be alone at the house for once (although my guess is he didn’t love all the American Express alerts throughout the day every time we bought something…) and we love our day out together and it’s pretty much the one day I say yes a lot. I let them pick out school supplies without worrying too much about the price (though I do refuse the $9.99 pencil box in favor of the 50 cent one) and I let them pick out necessary clothes & shoes, paying attention mainly to the school dress code…we always shop the sales, but I don’t ever say “No, we might find it cheaper somewhere else.” If we like it and it’s reasonable, we get it. It’s a good day.

We had quite a good day this year, as you can see!

19 years

We celebrated 19 years of marriage in early August and we were able to get away for a little over 24 hours, courtesy of my parents’ willingness to keep the kids and a gift certificate to The Chrysalis that we won at a Logos Christmas party a couple years ago. We finally got to use it and we had a great time! Our two-day getaway began with lunch at the sushi place in town, which was delicious! I did not eat sushi, but what I did eat was delicious!

I know, we look exactly the same as we did 19 years ago. Right?

We shopped, ate Italian for dinner, walked at Boulevard, and even sat in our room overlooking the water and READ! It was so relaxing, refreshing, and restful.

In the morning we explored during the low tide down on the shore – it was a beautiful morning!

Grandma’s 90th

My grandma celebrated 90 years of life on August 1 and our family & friends gathered on a sunny Sunday afternoon to honor her. It was a great day & since the event was catered, we were all just able to enjoy!!!

We tried to get pictures of everyone who attended, but unfortunately we missed a few people! Our apologies! Thanks to all who came to celebrate Grandma with us, and thanks to my aunt & uncle who hosted and all her kids and the others who helped set up. And no, my grandma doesn’t only have girls for great-grandkids. That’s just who was able to be there. But she sure does have a lot of them!! I believe there are 30 great-grandchildren in all, 20 girls and 10 boys. The oldest two are Seniors in high school and the youngest two are 4 & 5 months old.

Logos Picnic & Built-ins!

August began with more beautiful weather and the annual Logos picnic! It’s always a lot of fun, and this year the food was better than ever. There were several local food trucks serving whatever we wanted (for no cost to us!), plus Woods Coffee and Mallard’s Ice Cream, and all kinds of treats! I ate from the philly cheese steak food truck and I had the “Mt. Baker” – which was a cheese steak covered in a most amazing homemade mac & cheese. It sounds awful, but I had to try it…given my love for mac & cheese. It was INCREDIBLE! Definitely a highlight of the picnic for me! The girls ate burritos and quesadillas, ice cream, raspberry lemonade, cotton candy, kettle corn, pop, shave ice, cheesecake on a stick, rice krispie bars, and probably more. Pretty much it’s the one day a year we let them eat anything they want. It’s better than going to the fair because it’s all free!

Another highlight of the day was meeting another Logos family who also has 4 girls and then, near the end of our time together, we discovered that we live IN THE SAME NEIGHBORHOOD! What fun! Their girls are much younger…basically our family about 7 years ago. We hope to see them more in the future.

And as always, there were fun games to play, though the ever popular trampoline jumpy thing from last year wasn’t working properly. The girls did have fun on the bungee race, however.

While we were at the picnic, my dad was slaving away in our house. He came before we left to get started on some built-ins for us in our bonus room and then he worked the whole day and we didn’t even bring him any goodies! We love those built-in’s, though. Thanks, dad!!!

They’re beautiful and useful! I still have to caulk and paint them. I’d love to find all coordinating baskets and bins, but I’m still working on what all will be stored there. They’re full for now, but I’m sure it will evolve as time goes on. We are so happy to have that additional storage up in the bonus room!

Watermelon Party!

We were able to celebrate Elise’s birthday with her friends mid-July. Elise settled on a watermelon cake, so we had a pink & green watermelon themed party!

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the watermelon ice cream cake turned out. It’s lime sherbet and strawberry ice cream with mini chocolate chips.

We painted foam hats to look like watermelon.

The girls also played games and went swimming.

It was a fun party! Sarah was working, so Bethany was my official photographer for the event. Thanks, Bethany!