Art Camp

Madison participated in an art camp with her friend, Kaitlyn, last week. I was so happy that it concentrated completely on drawing/painting since that's what Madison is so interested in. She got to do her first canvas painting and enjoyed it so much! I was really proud of the finished project. I'm going to sign her up to continue lessons with this instructor during the school year. I'm so excited to buy her some canvas and art supplies and just watch what she does with them!

Supply And Demand

As long as they have more lemonade to make, the demand for it will be there! It has been so hot here...no one can pass up a cold cup of lemonade. Even the ice cream lady stopped for some...of course, she made money off of the kids too :).

Tennis Lessons

Madison started tennis lessons with her friend, Kaitlyn, this week. They are having private lessons at the college two days a week for the month of July. They have it in the afternoon, so it's VERY hot out there. I was worried about the heat taking the fun out of it, but they are both enjoying it very much. I'm happy to see her doing this. She was very receptive to what Jeff taught her last summer, but I didn't know if she would want to take lessons from anyone else. I think having Kaitlyn there with her helps :).

4th of July

We went to a family reunion....Jeff's dad's side of the family.....on the 4th. It's always a big party when we get together with this part of the family because there are so many of us. Jeff's aunt and uncle who host the party always rent a great water slide for the kids. They also had a pinata for the younger kids. Carter was sad that he was one year over the age to hit the pinata, but they still let the bigger kids run in to get the candy once the pinata was broken.

I took the stuff to make homemade ice cream in Ziploc bags. I put the basic ingredients in each child's bag then gave the a choice of chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or peanut butter to flavor it with. They just couldn't understand HOW they were going to get that milk to turn into ice cream in those bags. We put the ice and rock salt in the big bags and sealed the little bags inside of them. Then came the fun part...shaking the bags until the ingredients turned into ice cream! They were so excited to watch it happen and more excited to eat it! It was the perfect treat for such a HOT day. We almost didn't do fireworks at all since everything is so dry but decided to stop and get some small ones that the kids could light on the driveway. They missed the big ones but loved lighting all of the ones we got on their own. Afterwards, we took a blanket to the back yard and lay there watching the neighbors pop their big fireworks....I guess they weren't worried about the dry grass. We had fun watching until the mosquitoes got the best of us! Of course, the holiday wouldn't be complete without crafts and cookies! We are so fortunate to be a part of such a big, close family. At the end of this month, we will gather with Jeff's mom's side of the family, which is also very big and growing more every year. I love spending time with just Jeff and the kids, but I am appreciating more and more the joy of finding time to surround ourselves with the amazing family that we have been blessed with!

Our Answer

Yesterday, I called the wildlife rehab. man, David, and was told to take the baby bird to the zoo. He wanted to identify the bird then keep it there. It was sad to see him go, but we knew it was the best thing. I knew that I didn't know enough about a bird of prey to raise one.

As soon as David saw the bird, he identified it as a Mississippi Kite. He was very excited about it and said it was a better find than a hawk. He already had one that was a little younger than ours, so he was able to put them in a box together. He said that our bird, Pete, was dehydrated and not doing so well. We had him on the wrong diet....they don't eat worms. We got to watch David feed Pete and Darryl, their bird, a rat while teaching us all about kites and what he does there at the rehabilitation association. Afterwards, we got to go outside and see the older animals that have been saved. It was so much fun and such a great learning experience. We were also shocked to find out that we could have been fined $5,000 if we had kept the kite and been caught!!! David told us that we could come back and see Pete again once he has been moved outside with the older animals.

When David was finished, he invited us to stay at the zoo for as long as we wanted. I wouldn't have chosen to go to the zoo in this heat, but I certainly wasn't going to turn down an invitation to go for free :).

You can look at Carter's face and see how hot it was out there. We reached triple digits again yesterday!

Here is the cutest monkey I saw in the entire zoo!!!

Someone hasn't been taught not to give the monkeys food, much less gum!! This monkey knew exactly what to do with this piece that he found!!!

We had the best time with the birds. There was one little white one that would dance every time we gave it a beat...humming or clapping our hands. A beautiful red one kept telling us "hello", and I was able to tape him doing it!

We woke up yesterday morning with no plans for the day and ended up having a very busy, fun day. Like I've said before, the greatest times are those that we don't plan for!!

Beautiful!!!

Our neighbors found this amazing baby bird yesterday. We think it is a hawk, but we aren't sure. It has a huge wing span and stands pretty tall already. We know it is very young because it has just started getting its feathers. The kids loved feeding it worms and holding it. So, do you think it is a hawk?I'm going to call our Wildlife Rehabilitators Association today to see what they think needs to be done with it. It's such an amazing bird....what a find!!!