Where's my driveway?

So today, the road crew demolished my driveway.   At first I was horrified at all the dust and continual noise, but the silver lining has been the entertainment factor.  All three kids sat in the shade with their lawnchairs and water bottles and watched for two hours.  That was priceless.  They had front row seats to a wreaking scrapper, backhoe, digger, and a dumptrack.  Alex was speechless.  A dream come true for the little guy.  

Thank god for the neighbor's pool!!

Our former neighbors, the Brethertons, came back from Montana on Monday to visit the old neighborhood.   We had a great picnic at our neighbors, the Odenthals, and then proceeded to go swimming next door at the Christiansons.   It was perfect swimming weather, 92 degrees at 7 pm.  The kids had a blast, and the parents got to visit and down a few cold drinks.  Today is worst... the weather is too hot to go outside but thank god for swimming lessons and movies, otherwise I am not sure what we would have done today.   In fact the construction workers working on our road even quit today....after they struck a gas line.  Hmmm......not too smart.  I will have to take some pictures of our front road.  It is a pain in the butt.   The kids love to watch the trucks and scrappers, but I have already killed one scrub rose bush transplanting it.  Oh well.   It will be done in three more months.....yikes.  

Summer camps,camps,camps.......

                                           Alex shooting a freethrow at Avon's bball camp.
                                         Darby Noreen, Alex, Emma and Jennie Noreen 

Darby and Jennie are the camp counselors.

                                               Emma and Kaia.  Kaia is our neighbor.

So here it is, summer.  And this means that all my children are in camps all summer long.  I did this on purpose so that A) they were not bored, B) I wouldn't have to entertain them all day long C) I could get some cleaning done....some.    However I didn't realize how much running around I have done the past two weeks.  It has been fun, to see Emma and Alex  get so much better at their athletic skills. Not that we are requiring them to be superstars, but to see so much improvement has been amazing.  Alex went to football camp at SJU last week and while the rules said third grade or higher, Jimmy Gaglairdi let him in.  Alex lives, breathes, eats, football so he was in heaven.   Watching Alex compete with such older kids made me really nervous, but he proved to be a quick little dude that few if any kids could tackle him.   Emma is in basketball camp at St. Ben's this week and was a little nervous to go without knowing a soul.  But Emma is such a sweetheart that when I pick her up, she is surrounded by cute little girls all trying to talk to her.    So I am off to golf lessons for the kids.  Maggie informed me that we are going to bake some cookies. Yum.

The cousins

Grandma Micky came up last weekend with Katie and Addie Lex, our nieces from Iowa.  It's rare that all the cousins are together, so I snapped this picture.  Addie was such a great baby, never cried!  It was nice holding a three month old baby and Emma especially loved it!  

All the Kids..

This weekend was full of fun.  The Sonju's came up for the weekend.  The adults actually got to golf Friday night in the Albany Couple's League...and we came in third place.  We got a babysitter to look after all six kids and they were great!!  Willie and Jeff left Sunday morning for a golf getaway in Brainard with their college buddies.   Too bad the weather isn't a bit warmer....it's freezing.  So I told my children we'll spend the afternoon at Bounce Depot.   The picture is my kids with Maddie, Kate and Lillie Sonju.  

trying something new here.......

I am not sure if this is going to work....but I had to show my class how to make an imovie today and I showed them mine from England, so I thought I would post it here as well.   Hopefully this works....after all I am a tech teacher.....hmmmmmm.....If this works, kudos to me!!!  Just to preface, it is really a slide show of my favorite pictures from England and I had to incorporate my favorite English writer into my slideshow.....kinda dorky, but I did like the end results.  Ciao