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!