An Olympic and ABBA weekend

Those are two weird words for a post.  That's what our weekend was filled with though.  The Olympics and ABBA.
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I  love the Olympics.  I'm trying to get my kids to love them too.  Now that everyone is old enough to understand the games we thought we would have a little fun with them.  This year is even more fun because the Olympics are in a city that we love.

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                                       I think I love this more than the rings down in Sydney in 2000.

We all picked a country that we would support during the games (of course we really only want the U.S. to win).  Adam- U.S., Lily-France (there's a suprise), Noah-Brazil, Damon-New Zealand, Rachel-Australia, Nana-United Kingdom, Papa- China.  We decorated the house with Olympic flags and flags from the countries we are cheering on.  We are also keeping a medal count for our country.

For opening ceremonies I tried to sell the kids on English food, but they weren't to excited by that.  We settled for a union jack flag appetizer, hamburgers and Olympic cupcakes for dessert.

 The kids got to watch the ceremony until 9:30pm and then finished it up in the morning.  They kept track of the number of athletes their country had.  It's been fun this year.  I know a lot of people said that the opening was boring, but I loved it.  It had bits of craziness and silliness, but I loved seeing Kenneth Branagh, J.K. Rowling and Mary Poppins and Voldemort.  They didn't sell me on a nationalized health care system though. 

Saturday we camped out in front of the TV and squeezed chores into watching the Olympics.  It's a good thing we have a DVR.  It makes watching it easier.  We've loved every minute of it so far.

Saturday night the Mortensen's and Grandma came down to go to the Summer Pops with us.  They had a tribute to ABBA band.  It was fabulous good fun.  We love Summer Pops.  It's the best thing to do during the summer.  I think my sister sang along with every song.  We met some parrots on the way to the concert.

  Lots of fun this weekend!  Riley is here to stay with us for a few days.  We are very excited about that.  It will be a fun week too.

Nana Camp 2012!

The kids just returned from Nana Camp and they had a blast.  They did a lot of fun things and were sad to see their parents show up.  Here is highlights from their week...

Zach and Alex came for a few days during Nana camp this year.  Everyone loved time with their cousins.  Tavita and the twins, Angelina and Brianna, were there too.  Lots of kids+lots of fun= one tired Nana!

Swiming

Anti Gravity-Lily celebrated her birthday at a giant trampoline place.

Birthday

 Lily pulled out her other front tooth.  She wouldn't let anyone touch it for weeks and then on her birthday she walked into the bathroom and pulled it out all on her own.  She's 7.  She can pull her own teeth and everything.

 movies/Staying up late- the kids all went to see Ice Age 4.  Zack and Noah kept staying up late and talking.  Just like at a real slumber party.

 crafts-Lily was so happy to have a girl to do crafts with.

They had a blast and can't wait to go back.  Thanks Nana and Papa for the memories.  This is what summer is all about.

Last day of School, Ballet and saying goodbye

 It was a busy week as always.  It was the last week of school for us.  The kids are missing the last week of school.  They are headed off to Nana Camp for a week.  The kids wanted to celebrate their birthdays at school so on the same day I brought 5 dozen donuts to school for their classes.  They loved that.  Lily also had her geography bee.  She did a great job and ended up in 4th place.

Nana and Papa came to visit.  They wanted to see Lily's ballet recital.  All of us went to her dress rehearsal on Friday night.  It was long.  We went out to dinner that night to Red Robin.  It made the long afternoon seem like a distant memory.

 Lily's ballet recital was Saturday.  She danced in 2 dances.  She did a fabulous job.  Nana and Grandma came with us to the recital.  We were so proud of her.  She worked really hard.

 Today I had to say goodbye to a dear friend of mine.  She is moving across the country.  We've had so much fun over the past four years.  Our girls are great friends.  We are all sad that the Fellars are leaving.  We wish them well, but are sad.  We hate saying goodbye.

Love these girls.  Hate to see the twins leave.

Lily's Early Birthday Party

Lily is turning 7 in two weeks.  Her friends, the twins, are moving at the end of next week.  She wanted to celebrate her birthday with them like she has over the past 3 years.  So we decided to have her party a little early this year so the twins could come.

 We had 7 silly girls here on Friday night for dinner, crafts, dancing and cake.  Hopefully they all had a good time.  I know Lily did.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July.  My dad always says "Happy Independence Day!"  I think he does it so we remember what the day is actually about.  We try to stress to our kids what this day is about.  Hopefully one day, it will actually stick.

Until that day happens we continue to use the 4th as a day to celebrate, relax, eat lots of food and have lots of fun with family and friends.  This year wasn't any different.  What's the 4th without a flag cake!

We went up to Mortensen Manor early on the 4th to start the day off with crepes and blue waffles.  The kids loved the toppings choice of peaches, syrup, ice cream or whip cream.  After breakfast and doing a few chores (gathering eggs from the barn and hosing down the pool furniture) they got to go with Uncle Brent to pick out fireworks for later.  They had a blast.

Swimming, eating, talking and running around the back yard filled the rest of the afternoon/evening.  We got to see the new chickens and could even hold them.  We played with sparklers and smoke bombs.  After it got dark we let the real (legal) fireworks go.  We hummed a terrible rendition of Stars and Stripes while the explosions were happening.  After that was over the kids burst into the national anthem, but then starting screaming and ran behind a fence when the fireworks made to much noise.

All and all a grand night.  We are so fortunate to live in this great land where we enjoy so much.  We feel so blessed.  We hope to never take it for granted.