Summer

Last week we had a couple of realtors come to our house and tell us all the things we need to do get our house ready to sell.  We have been busy trying to work on a few things like paint the front door, paint the back porch floor, change out some light fixtures.  You know things like that. 

You see we need a larger house now that we are expecting baby #5. Yep #5! And we think selling our house might actually make us make a decision about where our next house should be. 

I'm trying to make the kids do as much work as they can since last year's summer of work was so successful. But it's tricky.  

Don't worry, we are trying to squeeze in some summer fun too, swimming and going to the beach. 

Luke has some big news. He learned to ride a two wheeler this past week with no training wheels. I told him no more video games until he learned to ride. It took him two days to learn. I knew he could do it with the proper motivation :)

He learned on his tiny bike and has since graduated to his bigger bike. It was good timing too because we had our neighborhood bike parade on the 4th and he was able to ride the whole way without stopping. He is so proud of himself and is telling everyone he knows about his accomplishment. 

Our bike parade was fun. We put out some signs announcing it the weekend before. Jack and Luke designed and painted their own shirts and decorated their bikes a little. 

We blew up a bunch of helium balloons and met the neighborhood kids at the playground. We rode all around the neighborhood and finished at the playground with some Popsicles. 

Max went to scout camp last week. Doug got to go out and spend a couple of days with him and that's where they spent the 4th. He had a ton of fun. 

Doug bought a soda palooza cup at the local gas station which means he gets unlimited refills all summer long. He brought home a slurped for the boys to share almost every day last week. 

Saturday night we crossed another thing off Mer's summer bucket list. We let the kids stay up real late and swim in the dark with a pool full of glow sticks. It was so cool!

And that's about all that's going on around here. Oh one more thing.  Jack got a tooth pulled today. It had cavities that the filling kept falling out of. And it finally abscessed. Here it is in all it's nasty glory. I know you wanted to see that. Bring on the tooth fairy. 

Until next time.  Happy summer!

Balenas came to stay

A few days after we returned from our Keys trip, the Balenas came to stay.  It was such a treat to have them come to our house. 

We took them to our favorite ice cream spot.

We ate waffles and whip cream together almost every day.

We had 2 great days at the beach with perfect weather and waves we could swim in. 

 All the cousins got along famously!

We took a night to roast hot dogs and endless marshmallows.

 We mostly just played in a sea of toys with an occasional sword fight or weapon war.

Doug tried all week to win this guy over.  He finally got him to come to him willingly the last day.

 Doug had to take them fishing of course so we headed to the bridge for our final evening of together.

Mer was so happy to have Liz around

We miss you more than ever Balena family! Cousins are the best!

The Keys

I know you have all been anxiously awaiting this recap. We had so much fun in the keys last week. It was a little bit of heaven, a little bit of craziness, and a LOT of fishing.

The kids pretty much fished way past bedtime and began the day with fishing before breakfast.

 We rented a house that was on a canal so we could dock the boat and have easy access to it all week. It turned out to be be perfect. 

It was a learning experience as well. We learn that it is very important to tie down EVERYTHING on the boat while transporting it.  I drove the van and followed Doug and the boat. We had to pull over about 5 times to retrieve large items that flew off, save the tail lights, and reconnect them when they stopped working. It was definitely an adventure.

Ya Ya and Pa came to join us for a couple of days.

I'm  told this was not the biggest fish Pa caught, It's a Lane Snapper

A barracuda bit this one in half while Max was reeling this one in. Barracudas are sneaky and huge.

10" Gray Snapper or Mangrove snappers. We ate these for dinner. YUM.

12" Lane snappers. We were going to eat these but we accidently left them out and they spoiled oops.

Striking a pose wherever possible.

More Lane Snappers

We also had the opportunity to go snorkeling at Looe Key twice. It was amazing and beautiful.

We saw sharks, eels, goliath groupers, tarpon, barracuda, amazing parrot fish in every color, along with a ton of other beautiful fish.

Luke stayed out longer than any of the other kids. He couldn't get enough of it.

Key Lime Pie is everywhere and we were on a quest to find our favorite. the Key West Key Lime co. was maybe our favorite.

This one was from Blue Heaven and was probably our least favorite but most spectacular looking.

Grandpa put up with a lot of funny business.

Mischief at Bahia Honda Beach

Lunch at Bad Boy Burrito in Key West. Excellent!

Chickens and roosters are on the loose all over Key West. Who knew?

 We caught a needle fish off a bridge. It was quickly snapped up by another sneaky barracuda.

And Ya Ya and Luke caught another gray snapper.

Our 2nd snorkeling trip

We saw a pod of dolphins on the way home. 

All in all we had so much fun. Doug already wants to head back next year.

over and out!