Jungle Boogie at the Zoo

This past Friday, we attended the free concert at the STL Zoo.  Their summer concert series goes by the name Jungle Boogie.  The featured band this week was The Funky Butt Brass Band.  New Orleans style music - talented brass players that bring out the dancing bug in everyone within earshot.  Even those who can't dance...like me :)

Maria was particularly into the music that night.

Waiting for the concert to begin

Dancing (aka spinning) with Aunt Bert

"Gettin' Down"

Ahren even humored her by dancing with her

Such a fun time to be with family and a perfect evening to be outside.  Loved the music and the memories being made this summer!

Two photos

Two photos that made my heart smile today:

We noticed a hummingbird buzzing around outside our empty feeder.  Lydia took the initiative to fill the feeder. After some help filling it, she sat outside to wait for "Mr. Hummingbird" to return for his meal.

Tonight was family dinner at "Gra" and "Pa's" house.  A weekly event that my kids (and I) always look forward to!  Tonight's menu was chicken caesar salad, pizza and fruit along with blackberry cobbler (with handpicked berries and homemade topping by Tim) and ice cream for dessert.  Maria decided she wanted to help "Great Gra" with the salad.  So determined as an almost-three-year old!

A little bit of summer

Summer has been busy and fun!  Last week, Tim and I got to go to two Cardinals games (one by ourselves, and one with kids and grandparents).  

Grandpa got to walk on the field with Ahren.

Ahren's team got to walk on the field before the game...they are in the gold shirts.

The game was a first for Annie and Maria.  Maria was beside herself excited, and Annie...was tired.

Lydia took everything in stride and was excited for her brother to be able to walk on the field.

Over Father's Day weekend we were invited to a friend's farm.  We always say yes when we can, because we have so much fun!!  It was a hot weekend and they had found this swimming hole in the Bourbeuse river just a few days earlier.

Tim would proceed to jump off of this cliff.  Ahren climbed to the top to jump off, but changed his mind when he got up there.

The girls and I were content to just watch the boys jump and cool off in the shade.

As we were leaving the farm for the weekend, we got a flat tire.  So, we detoured a little out of the way to the closest wal-mart (thankfully their tire dept. is open late on Sundays!).  In the process of putting four new tires on the car, Tim asked to have the whitewall side of the tire facing out!  When I asked him why he did that, his reply was "I thought that's what everyone was doing."  So, we counted the number of cars on the way home from Rolla that had whitewall tires showing.  The number we counted was ZERO.  But, at least now I will always know which van is mine...sigh...

Settling In...

Last week was the move.  It was uneventful as moves go.  It took a lot more trips to move all of our junk precious belongings from one house to the next than we thought.  But all of us, and all our stuff is here.  We're mostly unpacked, although you couldn't tell by looking at the garage!  Still much to do.

We decided to take a morning off from unpacking this week and visit the State Park located just minutes from us.  Babler State Park is a HUGE piece of land, but not much is on it.  A few hiking trails, some private horse stables, and a very small playground.  On this day, that was enough for us.  The kids got to run and we were not working, but being with them.

Love that Maria and Ahren were holding hands 

A lesson from daddy on what Poison Ivy looks like.  I even learned how to spot it!  The three leaves each look like a mitten.  The kids are now going around saying, "leaves of three, let it be!"  Very good lesson to learn :)

Ahren likes to take our picture...a little fuzzy, but that's ok with me :)

Love, love, love, love these little faces!

Hoping to create many more memories like this during the summer.  The kids are feeling more settled and we even visited the pool.  Swimming lessons start next week, then a week of VBS.  We're praying for friends and enjoying each other in the meantime.