Bunk Beds

We stacked Hannah and Alli's beds today, so they are "real" bunk beds. They were very excited about it, and it makes a lot more space in their room for playing (and messes!).

I'm in the yard near the camp office so I've got the chance to put several pictures on here. I don't have a lot of news, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let them speak for me.

Preschool!

Hannah started preschool today!!! She has been excited ever since we registered for it back in February. But in the past few weeks if we asked her if she was excited about preschool she would respond with, "I tired of everyone talking about it, just be quiet!" Monday they had an open house at her preschool (which is in two of the classrooms at the church), and she saw that most of the kids were in her Sunday school class, and they had some great dress-up clothes, so she got more excited about it. This morning she woke up to a boquet of sunflowers, a Cinderella card, and a red balloon that said, "Happy 1st day of School!" all provided by Grandpa and Grandma Humphrey. She was "frilled" (thrilled), and she read the card several times! We loaded up in the van and dropped her off at 8:30 at the church. Her teacher, Mrs. Caudill, comes out and opens the van door and helps each kid into the building. Hannah said they sang a song to welcome each kid into the class, they drew pictures, played outside, read a book, ate a snack, and did a weather chart. When anyone asks her if she liked her first day, she says, "Well, I was a little nervous at first, but then I found out that it's fun, and I like it now." While she was at school, Alli drew three cards for her and helped me bake a cake. We decorated for a "First Day of School" Party. We picked her up at 11:30, and she seemed tired, but happy.

Some more zoo pictures

Where does the time go?

I know it's been a while since I've updated this...sorry. And I don't remember what has happened in the past month, so let's just start with today. Mike took the day off and we went to the zoo today!!! We had a great time. I think the unanimous favorite was the oceans area with sea lions, penguins, polar bears, fish, and sharks you could pet! In the penguin area, they had a glass floor in the hallway between two aquariums, so you could watch the penguin swimming from one side to the other.

Hannah fed two giraffes in the Plains, and she and Alli petted an elephant after she had her bath in front of an audience. Right after the elephant, we decided to eat our lunch. I told the girls to use some hand sanitizer since they had just touched the elephant, and Hannah said, "But it just had a bath!"

After lunch, they played in the Splash Zone. It's a water huge water feature that has lots of cute water sprinklers, sprayers, dumpers, etc. They got drenched, but they had fun and got cooled off. Sometime during the day Carrie got knocked down accidentally by Hannah, she ended up with her fourth bloody lip and her first bloody nose! Then when we got home, the girls were playing on the porch swing, and Carrie got her second black eye from walking in front of the swing! They're pretty tired, so I'm sure we'll get them to sleep at a good time. Right now we're up at the playgrounds for a quiet evening.

Oh, yeah, and the other exciting news (most of you know) Carrie has a broken leg! She doesn't have a cast on it. She had been limping for a couple of weeks so a few days ago I took her to see the doctor. He had us go get x-rays and then come back to have him read it. He said it was a "green break" and it wasn't broken through. If we had come in at the first sign of limping she would have had a cast for two weeks, so she was at the point where she was beginning to heal up anyway and it wasn't crooked, so she's limping around! I'm sure it's a lot less misery than if we had a cast on it, and anyway she's getting better every day.

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July! We started the day with a patriotic breakfast. The girls and I made pound cake yesterday, so we had cake for breakfast with strawberries and blueberries on top. Then they colored pictures for decorations. We went to camp to see a girl from our church get baptized at noon. She was a camper here this week, and she was so excited that she was being baptized! After the girls' afternoon nap, Hannah asked, "Is this the day we get to go see fireworks?" I said yes, and she replied, "Ohhhh, this is the moment I've been waiting for!"

We took the girls to Franklin's Masonic Home where they had a huge celebration on their front lawn. The girls got to watch a short 5 minute parade with kids and parents riding their bikes/wagons all decorated for the 4th. They picked up all the candy their little hands could hold and stuffed it into my pockets. The Masonic home's front lawn is HUGE and they have a fountain in the center, the girls had fun by that.

And they played on the big inflatable slide and bounce house. They watched a Silly Safari show with "Amazon John" who showed off his pets: a huge python, a cute little hedgehog, and a gigantic frog. We sat next to a family that was in our small group this past year, we had fun chatting with them. Then, finally, the fireworks. They didn't start until about 10:15 or later! But all three girls stayed awake and watched them. Hannah said, "I didn't know they would be this beautiul!" We got home about 11:15pm, the girls went to bed, and slept until 7:30 this morning. They're taking a good nap now, thankfully, because everyone was a bit grumpy today.


Thursday the girls and I were walking over by Mike's shop at camp and they started splashing in the puddles. Here's a look!
And a few weeks ago, they had giant lollipops. Just thought it was a good Kodak moment.

Monday

What a busy last few weeks we've had here. Mike's folks came to visit two weeks ago. They stayed in Plainfield and were planning on watching Mark and Julie's younger two while the rest of their family went to Ohio to work at a special needs camp for the week. As it turned out, Julie came down with strep throat! So just Mark and Ben went to the camp, and Gene and Kathy took their girls for the daytimes. They came to play here at camp with our girls, so that gave Julie a chance to rest up, and it gave me a chance to finish up last minute details for VBS the following week. We swam, ate at the dining hall, played at the sandbox and playgrounds, fed the fish, and rode around on the golf cart. We had a great time.

Then the week took a turn for the worse. We got a call Wednesday evening that Mike's grandpa (Kathy's dad) had died. Gene and Kathy rushed back to Iowa. We followed on Friday morning. We noticed we had a tire going bad, so we bought two new tires on our way through Macomb, IL, and had them put on in La Harpe. We spent the night with Mom and Dad, and left Saturday around noon to go to Iowa to be with the family. Mike's grandpa will be missed immensely. He and Mike had a common interest in tractors and mechanical things, and Mike really looked up to him. He always had a dream to spend a couple of weeks in at their place helping his grandpa restore his old John Deere "B". It's thing unfinished that make it difficult, but we know that we will see him again soon.

We came back a day late for VBS at our church. I was the director again this year. We had a great VBS, 230 different kids came through the door, with our biggest day being 210! That's a record, last year's highest day was 160. And we had around 80 helpers, half of them youth! The Lord was definitely glorified through the week. I think the kids really got the message, and didn't just try to win silly prizes. We supported the local school system as our "mission" this year. They have a program that provides school supplies to kids who need them. The kids raised $2222.00 for them, and they wrote notes to put in the back packs that told about Jesus. They also completed three other service projects and commited to do one more during the summer. Now that it's over, I feel like the summer is just beginning. I want to do all the summer things we've been putting off because of VBS planning like going to parks, having friends over, going to the zoo, or whatever.

Wish I had some pics to post, maybe later!

Dirt Drying & Dentist Drilling

Actually, no drilling from the dentist, it just sounded good. The dirt is drying, though! The people who were affected by the floods this past weekend are still trying to dry out and clean out. It's on the news every evening, the prosecuter's office, the hospitals, the police station, and lots of homes were flooded, and we are under a boil water order all week. Here, the ground is beginning to be a little less squishy in places, but it will take a while to get all the puddles dried up.

The Dentist...I took Hannah and Alli to the dentist today for the first time while Carrie stayed with Angie. They did great! The dentist said they both have identical crossbites (that's where on one side of their mouth the upper teeth fit over the lower teeth, but on the other side, the lower teeth go over the uppers). He said that at age 8 or 9 they would recommend a palate expander that would push the uppers out over the lowers. He said Alli's front teeth were a little crowded, and that maybe that expander would prevent her from having to have braces, but all this is on a 3 year old, so when the permanent teeth come in we'll see. Anyway, they had a good time. On the way home we celebrated by covering their teeth with sugar at Dairy Queen! But they came home and couldn't wait to brush their teeth with their new tooth brushes. They even remembered Carrie and got her a new toothbrush from the dentist!