finally back!

Where to begin...we got to St. Louis, looked for housing for about 3 months while living with my parents, had 4 different contracts on houses, found one we saw in the very beginning and then came back to it, bought it, moved in, Jason started up his school year, we started homeschooling while trying to unpack. While unpacking I finally found the cord to my camera, downloaded my pictures (all 181) of them, got overwhelmed with where to begin, couldn't find the time to actually blog anything.

Now it's Friday night. I have a little bit of time to sit and think, so here we go...I think I will start with summer photos and eventually catch up to more recent things...

 Slip-n-sliding is always a fun summer activity...especially with cousins.

 Grant's Farm where they give innocent children little bottles of milk and tell them to go into the pen with cute little "baby" goats that appear to be starving. I have never seen so many crying and screaming children in all my life. These goats know where they get the milk and they will hoof and jump on legs to get it. Poor Jude was pinned up against a fence when I found him and he was in tears. So as you can see when I said "Jude pet the goat so I can get your picture", he was a little nervous.

 Part of the $5 summer pass was a "free" slushy. So the rest of our pictures of the kids from then on have bright red and blue lips. So lovely.

 My dad put the boys to work this summer by helping him dig out a trench for a new retaining wall. You would think they would have complained but the boys were having a blast. This was a highlight for Jude this summer.

 Look at my amazing tomato plants! This is when they were small. I'm not trying to brag it's just I tried to grow tomatoes in Hawaii and they never did much. So glad to be back in normal vegetable and plant growing soil and weather.

 We went blackberry picking and picked the sweetest most delicious blackberries I have ever tasted. This was before the 100 degree weather days that seemed to never end this summer. Thank goodness for AC.

 Our friends from Hawaii came to visit their parents and we got to hang out with them for a day. The boys were glad to see their buddy again. Tubing was a new experience for the boys and they still haven't stopped talking about it.

 Of course they were trying to knock each other off...such boys.

And my baby learned to walk this summer. I forgot about that until I looked back through my pics. Now it seems like she's walked for forever.

 Stay tuned...