Dark skies, bright faces!

We have had an amazing two weeks with family here in North Carolina. For the most part the weather has been picture perfect. I had to post some of these awesome pictures of a storm that was rolling in one afternoon while we were at the beach. I will post many more pics later, but here's some cool ones of the storm as it was blowing in over the water.

Guess who's been playing with my phone......

I apologize now if you have been one of the lucky people to get a call from Nathan.... he loves to play games on my phone, but he also knows how to get into my contacts and push names and dial. I picked up my phone today and found about 50 of these pics that he took of himself...pretty funny!! There are many more just like these, but I won't post them all...... you get the idea!!!!

Loving these summer days!

Hot, Hot, Hot! Another day of 105 degrees! The crazy thing is that I'm actually getting used to it now! We have been having such a great summer with lots of swimming and movies and cookouts and playing!
 Olivia returned from her Costa Rica mission trip with some amazing stories of the people she met. She and the others were very active in sharing the Gospel to the people of the nearby villages.  She loved getting to know the families there, and she has such a heart for just loving on people. I think one of her favorite parts of being there was just being able to play soccer with the local kids in a nearby field. There aren't any language barriers in love and play, and they had so much fun just "being kids together" and playing soccer. She also had some great stories of monkeys in the trees over their heads, and of iguanas running everywhere! I am so proud of her- it was her first time on mission and being bold and sharing the gospel with people. She said at first it was hard, but the more she did it, the more comfortable she was with doing it. It also helped that they had great interpreters!
Elizabeth turned 8 (I can't believe she's that old already!) on July 2nd. I started a silly little tradition about 6 years ago with the kids.... I love to decorate the kitchen the night before their birthday with balloons and streamers and all. But one time I didn't have time to run to the store to get all of that, and so we went into the kid's playroom and brought up some of their toys and decorated the table with those.... we made little signs and cards that the toys were holding up with birthday wishes and all. (Like   Potato Heads and Barbies) Well, the kids loved it, and since then they really look forward to seeing what the "Table Theme" will be for their birthday. One year we did "Toy Story", one year we did all "Barbies", and this year, we did an "American Girl" theme with all of the dolls we have collected over the years with all of my girls. I think they look more forward to seeing what the table will look like than what gifts they will get. It's pretty silly really, but I love it!  Elizabeth picked out a cute little hamburger birthday cake from Walmart! Can't beat an $8 cake!  She had her best buddy Maddie Moeller over and we had a surprise trip to Macy's and the Origins Skincare counter where a sweet friend of mine who works there made them up with a little bit of glittery eye shadow and lip gloss. Then it was off to the American Girl Store to pick out a new doll! How fun! That store is so overwhelming. All Mark and I could do was laugh at the extravagance of it all... a hair salon for the dolls, a cafe for the girls and their dolls (which included doll high chairs in case your doll wanted to eat too) and even special little chairs for the dolls in the restroom! The girls had so much fun! We topped the evening off with dinner at Oishi's and a sleepover! My little Lizzie is such a sweetie! I love her so much! Thank you Lord for my sweet children!

We had a really fun but very low key Independence Day. For the last 6 years we have had a big 4th of July party here at our home with lots of friends, food and of course fireworks. (Mark is a hidden pyromaniac inside)! But this year, we went to the annual St. Albans bike/fire truck parade, then went swimming, and then cooked out some chicken on the grill and then watched fireworks on tv! What a nice day! (I really didn't miss all of the backyard fireworks one bit! In fact, I wish we could do this every year!) Here's some pics from the mission trip, 4th of July and Lizzie's birthday! Happy Summer!