The Race for the Cure...

Last weekend we walked in the Komen Race for the Cure...

We walked in honor of Ralph's Aunt Rachelle who is battling breast cancer currently and in memory of his Aunt Debbie whom we miss dearly...

There were so many people...If you look at the street in the picture below, you can see a solid crowd of people all the way to the horizon!

The whole experience was unbelievable and emotional. While it wasn't my first time, it was a first for the kids and they handled the long walk pretty well (only a few minor meltdowns)!

We hope to make this a annual event for our family, so if any of you want to join us next year, let us know!

busy bees...

we love summer!

cool mornings....days at the park...fishing...visiting area attractions...staying up late...eating outside...having "campfires" in our yard...going to the creek...going out for ice cream...catching tadpoles...going swimming...having ralph home more...meeting friends...riding bikes...going to the river....

we love it all! and we've done it all, plus some!

we've been outside so much that i haven't been speding much time at the computer, which explains why i haven't posted any pictures for a long time! one of the cool things we did recently was catch a bunch of tadpoles at the creek...we brought them home and i set up our small aquarium and we have been watching them turn into frogs...within 2 days we had about 4 frogs and so far we have released 19 frogs back into the creek....we still have one big bullfrog tadpole who can't seem to find his legs yet...elli named all of the tadpoles and we made a poster with all of the names...here are some of them: glittery, taco, karen, clara, ess, tomato, brick, butterfly, sal, chip, double u, and a snail named shase...we have all had a lot of fun watching the metamorphosis..

below are a whole bunch of pictures of the kids having fun!

school's out for summer...

elli had her last day of mini-preschool last week...parents were invited to come "play" during the last hour and share ice cream sundaes with the kids...ralphy was so happy to finally be allowed in! elli made lots of great friends this year, a few of which we will be seeing over the summer...and ralph will be finished this week, too...though he's usually just as busy in the summer as he is during the school year!here are some pictures taken at home...

what are you talking about?!

anyone who has ever spent time around a little kid can remember a time (or several) when you just couldn't figure out what he or she was talking about...

we've been listening to "dan zanes" a lot lately...he has a bunch of kids' CDs and he and his friends play all kinds of music - catchy, funky, american folk music...some songs are re-makes of classics that ralph and i sang in music class, some are nursery rhymes with a twist and some are originals...every CD has a million different sounds...the instruments and the "flavors" are so varied (now it's starting to sound like i work for the guy...)

anyway, we borrowed a new one from the library last week and were listening to it today and elli says, "i want to hear the 'bean song' again"....i didn't know what she was talking about....i was thinking about all of the songs and couldn't recall any of them mentioning beans...so i said, "which one? i don't know which one you're talking about."...."THE 'BEAN SONG'," she says...she's getting frustrated because she knows exactly what she is talking about and i haven't a clue...

and then it dawns on me....one of the songs is called "malti" and it is all in spanish...it has a really catchy beat...i had no idea what the lyrics meant, but we had been singing along the best we could...in the song, the word "soy" is used several times...so i said "do you mean the soy 'bean song'?" "YEAH!" says elli...."the SOYBEAN SONG!"...and she laughed that silly laugh and grinned that silly grin because i finally understood and we were finally on the same page (or song, rather)...so, in our family, it's now called the "soybean song"....(even though it's actually about a summer day on the water with the sun and the wind...i looked it up...)

in case you're wondering, our favorite CD is "rocketship beach"...we highly recommend it!

growing like weeds...

ok...is there any doubt in anyone's mind that ralphy is going to pass up his big sister? he is getting big in a hurry...

and elli is no shrimp - she's growing like a weed, too!

we traded in our golden retriever for a yellow lab (just kidding)

the circus!

last weekend we went to the circus...

we had an unbelievably good time...all four of us were thoroughly entertained by the acts and animals... the kids and i rode an elephant...in case you can't tell what i was thinking from my facial expression while on the back of the elephant, my exact thoughts were, "OH SH&#!"

the kids rode ponies...and they each got to buy an extremely over-priced glow wand...it was great! our favorite thing was probably the performing bears...three bears wearing clothes danced, walked on their hands, walked on a balance beam and actually rode bikes! we were amazed...elli also really like the "hula hoop girl"...most of the still shots didn't turn out too great, but we did get some great video clips...but, since we weren't technically suppposed to have a video camera in the arena, i thought i'd better not post those....