Summer Sunshine

Remember this? "I'm walking on sunshine, woo - oh, I'm walking on sunshine, woo - oh, I'm walking on sunshine, woo - oh, and don't it feel good!!" Or how about John Denver singing "Sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy. Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry. Sunshine on the water looks so lovely... " Or even "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." Ah yes. Sunshine. We have enjoyed its warm fingers and colorful joy much of the summer. After all, we haven't had much rain so the skies have been wonderfully blue and full of sunshine for awhile now. And then there was our wonderful trip back to the beach. But all good things must come to an end. Including our summer. And even though I'll miss it, we can remember the good times by strolling through some pictures.

I know it has been a long time since there have been new pictures and stories of the life and times of the troops, so I'll try to make it up to you. Here are a few of the things we did this summer besides the beach.

As usual, we had picnics on the deck at Mom and Dad's. Senta attends now and then, and seemed to enjoy the attention Jonathan lavishes on him. Senta's a wonderful dog. Very calm and quite well-behaved.

At picnics, it is common for Dad to allow the boys to light the stuff piled in the fire pit and make roast marshmallows or make s'mores. Matthew and Seth are our family fire makers. Maybe they enjoy it just a little too much!

Laura spent the summer wearing her patch for three or more hours a day and it seem to be helping. We won't go for a check up until the first week of October, but her 20/2100 eye seems to be seeing things better as we give her quick checks every now and then. I pray the Lord takes care of this as he's done with so many of her other issues.

Mom and Dad took the kids to a Museum where there were some wonderful outdoor things to explore as well. Here Poppy is doing his best to give them all a great ride - much to the surprise of his muscles! He pulled something doing this and sported a large bruise for weeks. He's such a good Grandpa. :)

These are the slides they had. You'll note that it was never an option to do the smaller slide, even for Laura. After going down the Jonathan...

And then Matthew...

And watching Poppy do it all by himself...

She braved the slide herself! Needless to say, she loved it.

Here's Jonathan making a run for it on his own, too. Note Laura walking back towards the ladder for another round on her own, carrying her sack as she goes!

Matthew decided to try 'surfing' the slide and did it quite easily. Until he saw the sign that said you couldn't do that. So back to the bum he went.

The boys also spent several mornings before the rest of the street woke up learning the physics involved in flying little airplanes. Here Matthew is coaching Jonathan in order to get the best 'lift' that he can get.

The happy pilots.

And Laura vying for attention as she was feeling left out with all of the pictures I was taking of the boys. Poor thing. Do you think she has a future in modeling? LOL

She's so grown up, isn't she? Where did my baby go???

As the school year starts up once again I will miss the sunshine. But I look forward to more adventures as we explore new avenues in our history, preschool with Laura and the joys of high school. And secretly, I really am glad we're back on some sort of schedule once again!!! Shhhhhh!!! Don't tell the boys. I think I'll let them figure that out for themselves.