Father's Day

Father's day was a success with a superhero chocolate bar from Rebekah and a requested blue shirt from me.

It was made even better by mom coming down for the week and bringing with her a Pizza King Pizza for Don. Soon after presents, Paul called and chatted with Don. While we were waiting for grammy Rebekah practiced her handwriting and conversational skills by writing another letter to uncle Michael and aunt AmySue.

Mom finally made it down with the pizza and we reheated it in the oven. Don was in heaven. Mom got me and Rebekah a small half veggie and half cheese. So thoughtful!

Right after dinner Kayla called in to FaceTime. It's always fun to see the joy family brings.

Paige lost a tooth.

All the kids on Kayla's end worked hard to produce this smile from little Cole.

Then they compared genetics: who can roll their tongue?

After the phone call we played games and such.

That evening Rebekah had a rehearsal for the upcoming stake conference. Since it was a rehearsal I figured recordings for extended family was fair game.

Such a little cutie.

When we came home I saw a deer out in the field behind our retention pond and stepped outside to get a picture. The deer obligingly came right up to the water for me and posed before turning to run back to the tree line.

Cummins 100 with Dad

Don wanted to give me a few hours off so he took Rebekah to the Cumins 100 year celebration. Rebekah created a 100 mask to wear for the occasion.

Don was kind enough to send me pictures of their journey.

Rebekah got a little screw driver

HUGE engines.

They were next in line and ready to get Rebekah's face painted when the thunder and lightning came and the party ended. They came home with wet clothes and Rebekah was not yet over the disappointment.

I got her cleaned up and snuggled her and she started to feel better.

A few days later Don sends this from his work. Apparently a photographer took this photo and printed it in the local paper. They're famous!

Swim: Week 2

Swim week 2 went pretty well. We arrived in time to do open swim on Wednesday. Rebekah felt right at home.

She's a goldfish girl at heart - still loves the weekly rewards. And let's be honest: she does rock the bear ear hat.

I played around with my camera and found the slow motion setting:

That evening we picked up grammy and headed to swim team. Rebekah looks so grown up with the swim back pack. Seriously, wasn't she just 3?

Rebekah tends to get through her laps before the rest of her lane. When she does, she relaxes with style. 

She got the red white and blue swim team ribbon. 

The next day she started private lessons with Mr. Chandler. She was somewhat nervous but soon they hit it off.

After we went to Culver's with grammy. 

We drove grammy back to her house, packed up, and got back on the road towards home although we ended up stopping to play at the local small town playground. Once home we stopped to get the mail. One of Rebekah's summer project is writing letters to family and friends. Grandma sent a letter back. Rebekah was so exited she read it in the car. 

Then we took inventory of our plants and found some beans. 

Yum!

Our cone flowers are doing great. 

Once inside Rebekah replied to grandma's letter. Sure love this girl!

Had to get a close up of the picture: grandma wearing a cooking hat bringing a rather large cake out of the oven to Rebekah who is sitting at the table in great anticipation. 

Wanted: New Tree to Love

A while ago I noticed the tree in our front yard was not looking healthy. A few weeks ago I noticed the tree was filled copious amounts of bugs and bees. After Don inspected it, he agreed the tree had to go. Unfortunately Rebekah had become attached to said tree and its demise was quite tragic for her. I promised her the tree was sick and going to get worse, adding we would get a new tree and she could help pick it out.

The next day it fit in our schedule we made the drive to the closest nursery (a 40 minute drive... however it's the largest nursery in Indiana, so I guess it's worth it) to look at trees.

Rebekah found one she liked right away. An Eastern Redbud.

Notice heart shaped leaves.

Pretty pink blossoms. (She took my phone to take the pictures while I was still talking with the salesman - she was that enthusiastic).

More details....

But I assured her we needed more than one tree to show daddy. So we continued down the line.

This was Maple. Don and his mom like the Maple.

I liked this one:

But it looks like it will be bigger than we want. So we moved on to another of Rebekah's choice. Another Maple.

I liked this one a lot.

But we are concerned about it needing partial sun rather than the full sun the tree will get in our yard.

Another salesman came out and pointed us towards this tree:

Then we made the drive home and had lunch. After we went to gymnastics were in the process of getting dressed Rebekah had a new option for shoes: her Wellies inside dad's shoes. Quite the look.

After gymnastics we came home to a somewhat dry day and so I decided to get some much needed yard work done. Rebekah helped. Afterwards we came in and she decided she was hot and got the lunch ice packs to cool herself down.

A little crazy but it worked pretty well.

Return to Goldfish

Summer officially started on the run.

Monday: tumbling
Tuesday: ice skating
Wednesday: swim at Goldfish...

Swim has been a rough thing for a while. We quit swimming back in November but it was so hard to not have her swim. Not only is it good exercise but she is so good at it. And she loved it! Don and I discussed putting her back in Goldfish for the summer vacation. It's quite the drive and so we make it a day trip and stay at grammy's. During our off hours we try to visit old friends.

Starting with Grayson and Hannah. They recently moved back to the Indianapolis area! Yay! I loved watching them play and chatting with my good friend Miss Sarah.

Afterwards we drove to grammy's for a quick bite to eat then headed down to Goldfish for swim team. Rebekah picked it up right where she left off.

She walked into swim team somewhat shy and nervous. I was worried we were going to have the same issues here as we did at her last swim team.

However, once she got in the water....

I think the swim coach saw her nervousness and put her in the slow lane. He even told her to take it easy and get use to things. Then she jumped in and swam circles around her fellow lane mates.

She was happy. Really happy.

Back to her old swim self.

Then we went back to grammy's and had ice cream.

The next morning we woke up with grammy and went through Don's memory book.

Mom showed me a letter Don wrote her when he went away to basketball camp for a week.

Apparently he's always been a man of few words.

Next we met Tenley at the local library.

They got along famously.

On the way back Rebekah found a Redbud leaf and thought the heart shape was way cool.

We had a quick lunch at grammy's and then headed back to Goldfish for open swim. We met Miss Pam and did our annual "see if I'm tall enough to be a swim teacher" measure.

Rebekah has grown!

After open swim we started the long drive back home, stopping at the local small town playground as a rest stop.

Love static!

On our way out Rebekah saw a squirrel eating lunch at the picnic site.

We finally made it home to discover a package for Rebekah. I had told my mom about our telescope wows. (Rebekah asked Santa for a telescope years ago and I could never get it to work. After spending much more time trying to figure it out, asking friends, and finally sending it to the school district to have science teacher look at it, and they couldn't make it work, I gave up and threw it away telling Rebekah Santa brought a lemon. However, my mom had Santa's back and bought her a good one.

That day we were able to scope out some far away road signs. A few nights later we were able view the moon. Rebekah actually saw craters.