Catching Up!

I am apologizing in advance for the boring monotony of this layout... blogger has not been my friend today, and this is the third time that I have written this post. The only way that I could get it to work and not kick me out was if I put all of the pictures in the middle of the page. It's boring, but it's done!

Lance and I celebrated our anniversary in St. Louis... about 4 hours from where we live. We went on the 3rd of July, and the kids stayed at home with grandmama. We started off with a nice dinner... and then we went down to the waterfront...

where the city had decorated for the 4th of July. The flags were flying under the arch, concerts were going on behind us, and we there were tons of people there! The only bad point of the day was when Lance went to find cotton candy and they were all out! We sat on the waterfront, right on the Mississippi River, and waited for the barge that would be the stage for the fireworks display... and we waited... and waited...

and when Lance got bored... he turned the camera on me...

Eventually the fireworks started and they were an amazing end to a great day!

Seven celebrated her 7th birthday, and she had her BFF Emily over to celebrate!

They swam and played with the turtles,

and finished off with a special doll cake made especially for her by her grandmama!

Girls' Camp was a blast!

I went to camp with some great girls... and we had fun from the moment that we left the parking lot! These are the girls in the picture below... and like normal... I am the one behind the camera!

One thing that was really special about camp was Skyler... I am so glad that Skyler came to camp this year. She had a bad experience a few years ago and so she hadn't been back for a couple years... Maggie and Skyler were stuck together like glue... so much so that there was one adult who thought that they were both my daughters, and I didn't correct her...

...they are better than sisters! I adore Skyler & Maggie is such an amazing girl!

One of my favorite parts of camp was at the end of each night when all the girls formed a unity circle. The YCL's started in the center of the circle, and one girl lit her own candle. As they sang a song called 'One Little Candle'...

each girl lit another girl's candle with her own...

until every girls' candle was lit... and it all began with one little candle!

We housed three pro tennis players from Australia, and it was so much fun! It was cool to learn more about another place, and Asa LOVED having 'real' tennis players under his roof. Some of the matches that these guys played were intense. The temps were only in the 90's, but when you paired the temps with the humidity, which hovered between 60 and 70%, it was the perfect recipe for heat exhaustion. Some of the matches were between two and three hours, and that is a lot of time in that weather! But, we enjoyed watching them play, and I got the opportunity to learn about the scoring and rules of tennis.

The players that stayed with us were Clifford Marsland...

Jared Easton...

and Marvin Barker... it was really cute when Asa said his name, because he said it just like he did... being from Australia, it came out like Maahvin... and Asa copied that pronunciation exactly!

Asa was a ballboy for the doubles tournament, and he had a great time... he would like to be a ballboy for the remainder of the tournament, but he is in the tournament starting tonight!

Asa with Marvin and Jared at the house before they left...

and with Marvin and Jared in front of the Millennium Tennis Club where he plays tennis.

Cub Scout Day Camp starts Thursday, and I am sure that I will have a lot to post about that!

In The Garden

It's been a while since I took pictures of the garden, so I took a few more today of some of the products of our labor... Plucked our first cucumber today and we'll eat it when it gets cold... THAT one isn't going to Spaz! Here are some pictures:

Big crookneck squash... mmmm!

A little cucumber peeking through the leaves...

We had had the cucumbers climbing up a trellis like the watermelons are doing, and they didn't like it, so we pulled out the trellis and put the vines back on the ground and they are so much happier!

These are two of our little watermelons!

We started them growing up a trellis because I planted too many of them in the little 4x4 box, and I couldn't bear to pull any of them up! The ones growing up the wire are little sugar baby melons, so they won't get very big and the panty hose will be able to support them until they can be harvested... so cute!

Here is a big watermelon hidden in the leaves...

Here is the brocolini starting to come in!

So exciting! There is nowhere to find broccolini in Joplin, and the little kids love love love broccoli!

We also have three different kinds of tomatoes coming in... it is hard to know how many tomatoes I am getting, because anytime there is a ripe apple, Asa plucks it and eats it! He eats tomatoes like apples!

Speaking of apples...

By the deck we have a huge apple tree, and the branches are drooping with apples! Not sure what kind they are, but they are about the size of baseballs right now!

I have to include a couple of pictures of what the kids are doing... Seven and I went to get Maggie at the end of her Missouri Fine Arts Academy stay. She was SO excited to see her big sister!

Asa had a tennis tournament last weekend, and he won his first match! We are so proud of how much he is growing through his tennis. He has great coaches who are helping him to mature as a person and not just a player. He is an honest player who is very gracious to his opponent. Oh... and Jack took this picture! He is really enjoying the camera!

The First MO Borup Blog!

My first blog post... will probably be boring, but I am learning! Right now everyone is spread all over... Maggie is at the Fine Arts Academy in Springfield... that's her on the left in her 'Clowning Around' class. Hopefully when she gets home tomorrow she will be able to teach us all how to juggle and make balloon animals.

Dexter is in California visiting family there. Christopher is in Texas hanging out and waiting for EFY to start. Devon's 19th birthday was last weekend, and so we sent a new bike to help him get to the job training that he is going to start soon... I also sent him a lot of candy, and a toothbrush, toothpaste, flossers, and mouthwash... hopefully he gets as much use out of those as he does the candy!

The little kids are here and enjoying summer. We have been over to a friend's house and picked blueberries, blackberries and green beans (and picked up chiggers). We have also made our own little garden on our deck. We have cute little watermelons growing up a trellis... they are only little sugar baby watermelons, and we are supporting them with pantyhose. There are also cucumbers, crookneck squash, zucchini, cantaloupes, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, and broccolini. Should be really cool when everything is finally ready to be harvested!

Asa started tennis last fall and played in his first tournament a few weeks ago. He has been going to tennis camp every day and absolutely loves tennis. He has another tournament this weekend, and is such a little competitor. Asa is intensely goal oriented, and has made being a great tennis player his goal. My garage door has gotten a big beating from his practicing!

Jack has been doing piano and is working on the 'spongebob

theme' right now. He also loves art and has taken to photography.

He is so funny. At Asa's tennis tournament he was given the

camera,and so he found a basket full of little rubber tennis ducks, and it was all over from there...

his fun for the rest of the day was placing the little ducks all over the place and taking pictures of them. The were like little yard gnomes all over the tennis complex. One day Jack took a box of chalk out to the front sidewalk and made it colorful. It took a lot of work, but it was really pretty until it rained!

Seven also did the piano camp and is going to start taking lessons, and she loves loves loves swimming this summer. Her only problem seems to be finding someone to go swimming with her when she wants to get in the pool. That problem will soon be solved when Grandmama will be coming to stay with us for a few weeks. Seven is excited that she will have someone who wants to swim with her all the time.

Girls' Camp is coming up, Lance is going to be riding the TA120, and there are a lot of other fun things planned for the summer. Check back soon and hopefully we will have more to blog about!