The Rope Swing:

Family Reunion Day 2

Uncle Brian built us a rope swing!

It was very much like a tarzan swing. It made me think of when we were little, Nick and Anthony and I used to sing, "George, George, George of the Jungle, watch out for that tree!" And of course in the movie preview where I think it was from, he crashed into the tree!

Well we also had our own tree to swing into. (Eventually, Uncle Brian moved the rope so we wouldn't hit the tree but it did give us some pretty gnarly scratches.) Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the tree that we swung into..

See? You grab the rope, stand on the ledge and with a running start, you run and jump and hold on for dear life!

Cam--was not always so great at the hanging on for dear life part. Just kidding. He was pretty good.

Dylan was pretty good though! ^-^

Ben was really good at it too! (The Washington Tylers have a rope swing in their backyard so they were more experienced than Cam.)

There's that tree I mentioned earlier. I think I got the best swings since I weigh significantly more than the boys do. And I was able to swing myself around in a circle so I could (sometimes) avoid hitting the tree.

Family Reunion- Day 1

Warning, these family reunion posts are going to be VERY photo heavy. =)

When we got there, the Washington Tylers had already been there about 12 hours or so. We just chatted, caught up on life. The boys went down and played at the creek.

They had tons of fun! The boys are getting so big!! When I realized they were there, I ran into the house to see them and I was like, "Oh my gosh!" They were a little distracted because they were watching a movie but they said their hellos. And they were so sweet!!

Grandpa had a raft!!

The boys spent so much time at the river throughout the whole trip.

Jack.

Dad was teaching me how to work my camera so I demonstrated a jump for him. This is on the "action" feature. Dylan is in the background. =)

Mommy! And more camera practice!

After dinner, we (the kids) played games and ate carrot cake in the dining room. Jack Jack sat on my lap and I helped him play Whunu with us. Whunu is very similar to Apples to Apples in which one person is the judge and they "rate" the items from favorite to least favorite and you can score points based on how they rated your card.

I found out that Dylan is not really a fan of dinosaurs, Ben really likes the Olympics, and Jack definitely does not like spiders. Who knew? Needless to say, I don't think I won this game. But it was great getting to know the boys playing games with them.

The Greatest Smoothie in the World!

 So, last night I invented the greatest smoothie in the world.
It has four ingredients (in no particular order or quantity):

• Sobe, the white kind. (pina colada)
• chunks of pineapple
• vanilla ice cream
• ice

 All blended up in a blender and viola!!! The greatest smoothie ever!! I only added a few chunks of pineapple so it wouldn't overpower the coconut flavor of the Sobe. It is so tasty! I love my tropic flavors!

Wardog's Auto Repair

Dad has been fixing a lot of cars lately. Putting new shocks on our own cars, our friend's cars, fixing leaks, checking engines... all sorts of great stuff. (He should've become a mechanic, he's been doing it so much!)

Every time he works on the cars, he comes in with a nice "tan"

lovely isn't it? That is not sun, my friends. That-- is dirt and grease.

He charges a little for the parts and sometimes for the labor and our friends (mostly the Coffins) don't mind. In fact, I would say they are grateful that Dad doesn't charge them like a mechanic and give them a huge long list of everything else that's inherently wrong with the vehicle.

Spontaneity at Youth Group

I love my youth group. I really do.

This week, we were appalled to discover that Joe was "too tired" to come to youth group because he was going to run at 5 am the next morning. "Excuses!" we said! So we decided to drive to his house and kidnap him and make him come to youth group.


It was pretty epic.

When we got there, Jake outlined the game plan and firmly warned us to be verry quiet and not laugh.
We crept towards the house (for we'd parked around the corner so Joe wouldn't know we were there.). Jake went up to the door to peek inside to see where Joe was. Then, on a whim, he changed the plan and rang the doorbell!!! Then he told us to run away!!

Sydney fell in the street.

 Her first youth group ever and she gets a nasty scrape! She was a tough girl though and handled it well, like all her injuries. Yay Sydney!! We all felt bad about that; hopefully her mom will let her come back to us.

Then, Jacob blew our cover by passing in front of the window. Jake and Daniel broke into the house through Jake's room and while Jacob "distracted" Joe at the front door, they came up from behind and grabbed Joe.

They had duct tape.

 We watched.

 They wrapped Joe all up with the duct tape (and he put up a nice fight)....

 And carried him out to the car!! And while all this was happening, Mr. And Mrs. Coffin were sitting in the living room as if nothing was happening.

 Nicole and Hannah

It was the awesomest youth group ever!!!! I love my youth group. We need to take another group picture sometime..