Typical Summer Days :)

Volleyball

             Kate and I just finished the Anthony volleyball camp, which was a blast! We are both planning to try out for the team next year and this was a great insight on how that may go. Speaking of volleyball... my first Flint Hills summer game is tomorrow! Our team is called Blaze and we will be playing freshman players for all of our games which is a little nerve racking considering I'm in the eighth grade! I'm excited and also nervous about our first match. Our team hasn't had a practice with all of our players yet so I'm not completely sure how we are all going to work together. Wish me luck!

Summer Fun

             I feel so blessed to have fun neighbors to hang out with during hot summer afternoons. Kate and I will often be seen walking over to the Rymer's and ringing their doorbell. Our little "neighborhood gang" will gather on endless summer days for some fun. Whats summer without a water fight? During the summer we love to play with water balloons. Not your typical water balloons however. Last summer we ran out of water balloons and didn't have any water toys to play with. That's when the ginormous water balloon became a part of our regular summer games. Why waste time on little water balloon that break easily? We came up with the idea to use regular  balloons instead. We like to fill them up with so much water that it takes two people to carry the water balloon! For even more fun, we tested these humongous balloons on the trampoline and found out that they don't pop when we bounce!  I like to say that we took water fun during the summer to a whole other level!

A family dinner

day 2~Kate
     Anna and I made meatballs tonight for a family dinner!We wanted to give the parents a day off for a change and made a whole meal together all by ourselves.We had cheesy meatballs, salad, noodles, and potato chips!

 those are the before and afters of the meat balls and potato chips!

Summer 2013 Day 1 ~Andi

We're starting off with a lazy day, appropriate for the first day of Summer break! This blog will be a combination journal for the summer, and a record of the projects we accomplish.  Who will write it?  Probably mostly the girls, but I'm sure you'll hear from me, too.  It's going to be an adventure to see our different writing styles, our attempts at making "Pinterest worthy" projects, and the things that we consider interesting to share.  Bring it on, Summer 2013!  We are ready!

Dan and the kids were here last night and will return this evening to play a little more before camping out in their backyard Saturday and Sunday.  Dan and I were up until 2am last night, just talking and talking.  It was good.  It also makes it a little harder to get going today, even though today promises to include a trip to the library.

The best part of the first day of summer break is that Shannon comes home tonight after a long week in Ohio.  Praying for safe travels today as he makes his way back to Kansas City by air, then drives into Manhattan late late tonight.  Can't wait to have him home!

Here is a silly first set of pictures for this blog.  I kidnapped a closet earlier this week, and we'll finish it up next week.  What a bizarre little closet we have where our angled hallway begins.  I'm grateful that the builders didn't just wall up that space.  They could have done that, and do in most places.  However, it's an odd shape, and there has never been a good, designated use for our closet.  Covered in stained louvered bifold doors, it was never really going to fit into the new white trim, sleek door, antique bronze hardware theme we've got going on in the hallway/upstairs.  So... I took the doors off.  I'm sure Shannon will be surprised that I actually filled and sanded the holes where the door tracks used to be before I painted the trim white.  Of course, we still need the surrounding trim, but that will come!

What was once a catch-all closet will soon, with the addition of some coat hooks, be a landing strip for our whole family.  Backpacks, daily jackets, maybe even keys will live here. Regardless of what we put here, the hallway seems bigger and cleaner and way more modern.
Here we go:  Before and after.
 

  
And that is day one!  ~Andi