4th of July Swimming!

 THIS GIRL CAN SWIM!! and I don't mean that she likes to, I mean she can swim the entire length of the pool all BY HERSELF! She taught herself and she is NOW teaching herself SOME SWEET TRICKS!

 Kael is doing SUPER good to! She loves to jump in and her head goes under water!

(and that's a huge step)

 This guy has always LOVED swimming! He is also showing some interest in skateboarding, not sure of anyone to help him with that one!

 We love when dad can hit the pool with us he ALWAYS makes it so fun! It's funny to see all the kids watch Kory with the kids and you can tell they want to play too... We are pretty lucky to have him as OUR DADDY!

The pool was a great way to rebound from a BUNK parade and let out alot of energy before heading off to FIREWORKS!!!

The "PARADE"

 This is our attempt to get everyone in one picture! Didn't Work!!

So again spoiled by the home town festivities, there were SO many options when it came to Parades and Fireworks but we couldn't get the same answer from anyone we knew or talked to so we made our own decision! And man, oh man, we were wrong! So we eagerly loaded up and soon arrived at the SPOT, we put our blanket down in the RAIN and waited :) we were the ONLY ones without a umbrella, but it was plenty warm the kids didn't mind, a Fire truck started the parade and then there were maybe 12 floats total between the first Fire truck and last!! And 10 of them were floats people campaigning for offices.    

 Maddilyn waiting!! She was so excited for the parade, she was hoping for a parade like back @ home :( 

It's always so fun with cousins and family!

 JJ also waiting and hoping for some YUMMY candy :(

 Only picture of Liam I got before he had to put oh a YELLOW HOODED sweater  to ESCAPE the rain!

 The parade was really so short we didn't get any decent picture of it!!

 

I tried to get festive with the girls toes... AND THEY LOVED IT !!!!!

Saturday BEFORE the 4th!!

 WOW, look @ my (mess) of an apartment we live in!! ok they are making some SWEET forts, its not always that crazy, we just have to make due with the LITTLE furniture we have!  

 He is growing up so fast! So we sat around our FORT and tried to decide what exciting adventure we would embark on today! We came up with a plan, got excited and got everybody ready and we are off to the FINDLEY MARKET downtown!

OH, wait this isn't the Findley Market this is the pool at our apartment! Kory and Liam performing for all the locals!

 The girls swimming away! 

(by the way Maddilyn has taught herself to swim pretty stinkin good)

 Here is Liam ! everyone @ the pool always looks at him like he is our LITTLE SPECIAL boy!

Who cares? Our ears are dry and no more ear infections!

It is pretty funny to watch people stare and guess whats going on with him :) ha ha!

 OH yeah this isn't FRESH YUMMY FRUIT from the market, this is a Bagel store Kory found next to his work!

 Maddilyn with her yummy Lemonade!

 And the REASON for our dinner 2 minutes away from home......

YUP..... tires!

Went to take the garbage out and found Mr. Nail hanging out inside my tire!

Minor set back... so we thought.... went to get it fixed @ Walmart and I guess where the nail was they can't  patch so they needed to replace the tire. AHHH... and to make it worse if you replace one tire they RECOMMEND  you replace both tires so the tread would be the same and drive smoother. So we spent our play $ on BRAND SPANKIN NEW TIRES!

And still had ALOT of  FUN!

Quick note: Kory and I don't have callings here because of our short stay, so they decided to put us in charge of PIONEER DAY! so any fun ideas are welcome!

(and we get to talk next week)

Schappacher Park *(have no clue how to pronounce it)*

 THE FARTHEST PARK we have been to! We got on 4 different interstates & drove for 20 mins & still not sure if we were at the right place but figured we are somewhere new, LETS EXPLORE! We were @ the right park & weren't impressed! But how do you know unless you go out & take a risk. Keeping an open mind & preparing to have the best time possible!

I THINK THAT'S HOW THE NEXT 2 YEARS WILL BE!

AND WE ARE OK WITH THAT!

 There were some older girls this time so that made it nice! you might recognize them from the Princess Party, Claire and Mylaha!

 This little guy is constantly making us laugh and picking up on the funniest phrases!

Thanks Liam!

The newest one is "NO WAY".. so you ask him anything & he thinks its so funny to answer NO WAY!

~ PART 2 ~

 So after the Aquarium & POOR Kaels melt down we had Root Beer snow cones, and rested our feet for a bit!

 Directly across the river was the city, and these way cool bridges!

 The blue bridge is actually a Board walk..(so not made for cars but for people only) to get one side of the city to the next! It was HIGH and I was scared but figured its been here long enough, and enough people have walked safely across, I WILL BE FINE!

 THE CITY

 the Board Walk... the kids loved it and of course Kael had to take this opportunity to show of Halle the penguin!

 Maddilyn took this one for us!

 The bridge was BIG and scary!

 The yellow bridge was for CARS  and we actually drove over it!
(the silly things up country folk get excited about)

 the water wasn't pretty @ all!

 I am getting pretty good at asking complete strangers to take our photo!

I hate having a ton of photos without the whole family in it.

And last but NOT LEAST Liams favorite the TUG boat.. / not exactly sure what the boat did / but fun to watch go under you on the bridge! I am sure Spencer would have loved it!

GUY! GUY!

 So we had an AWESOME Saturday spent @ the Aquarium!! 

We had to walk through a Mini Mall and we came across an Irish Pub and above the entrance was Cladagh Ring a symbol of Great Love in Ireland. Kory bought me a Cladagh Ring when we were dating and it was fun to see! And this is where the FUN began!! 

 You can't really see the City behind us but we are in the Mall with a great view!

 The Aquarium was HUGE there where so many different fish shapes, sizes, and stories! Wish we could have read and learned about each one of them BUT with 3 kids we did the best we could! They had so much fun, and were such good sports smiling every time mom felt it necessary to snap another picture. Poor Kael started to not feel so good, running a fever, and not having much fun. So I had a decision to make, leave after paying alot of money or BRIBING her and carrying her through the whole AQUARIUM! 

(my arm was so so sore the next day)

 Here we are PETTING SHARKS!! yep petting real sharks, Liam put his hands in the water and splashed around and we were quickly informed that makes the sharks "ANGRY"  so we were encouraged to NOT. Kory enjoyed petting the sharks too, at this point we noticed our camera battery was LOW of course! So we tried to limit the pictures till we could make it to Barnes and Nobles to charge to battery, it was a great place to wind down and run and grab some motrin for Kael in the car.

 There was an awesome area that looked like a movie theater and you could sit and watch these awesome sharks swim around, they were huge, the biggest one was 9 ft long! There were shark rays (the flat sharks) that were really cool.

 Due to the fact that the fish move around you cant really see all the pretty colored fish in this tank we were trying to take a pick of!

 This was a MASSIVE crab, love how it looks like its eating Kaels head!

Now what is this fishes name again?

 Kory took this picture.. I was using the flash and you can't even see half the pictures I took and Kory got some really cool ones!

 Me and the flash.. again some really cool fish!

Awesome picture of the guys, and above them is a HUGE sting ray!

 some nasty catfish eel looking things, poor Kael was such a trooper!

 Welcome to the Rainforest !

 @ the Rainforest you could purchase some nectar and feed the parrots! SO WE DID! It was funny most birds were so high that the average person could not reach them! But as we all know Kory is not of average height so he could easily reach some high birds! The birds liked the nectar so much it hopped onto Korys arm and so he brought it down to the kids level...

 Maddilyn was nervous but so excited!

 Liam was plain NERVOUS!

 Nearing the end of our journey and Kael was done! But we were still having so much fun.

 There was an entire penguin show with another theater feeling room but getting Kael to sit through it just didn't seem fair :(

 After the entire Aquarium and how awesome Kael was we told her we would get her something... then we saw the prices... $14.99 for a stuffed animal! So we told her to look around at all the fun places we still hadn't seen, inside the mall, and all the vendors around the stores outside. Poor thing, the motrin HADN'T started to work and she LOVED this pink penguin, and after kindof looking around and her heart was set on the new friend she had left @ the gift shop... so we went back and got Halle the Penguin! The smile says it all!

She has slept with Halle every night holding her tight and loving every minute of it... worth $14.99! The other kids got a trinket too, wouldn't leave them out but nothing that meant as much as Halle did to Kael!

The night didn't end there....

(to be continued)