How's this for a couple in love?! Come July 25th we will be married 9 years. Other important dates to remember are: little J turns 3 on June 30th and big J turns 29 on July 13th!
We had a great Father's Week and took some cards and an E home-made collage to Daddy's 'office' to hang up. He will be able to look at some great art if he needs a break from all his theology reading. E has enjoyed her creative dance (pre-ballet) classes so far and we love that we only have to walk down the street to attend. J really wants to go along. I am going to have to find some class or group for him to be a part of on his own. He is really getting big, but continues to love having Mommy or Daddy close. C is babbling so much that I think she said 'octopus' this evening in the bathtub while playing with the bath toys from Grandpa K. The weather has been really nice lately and gives us time to tackle those weeds and put in a brick walkway from house to garage made from the old bricks that use to pave these streets around here. The neighbors behind us offered them to us as they had no more use for them. Our neighborhood is rich with history and diversity. Come visit when you can!

We have been outside so much and just having a good ol'summer that I haven't had much time to blog. Daddy was gone for Father's Day so we decided to have a Father's Week for him. Today we took some flowers and a balloon to his 'office'. (It's really a closet in the library....all the grad students have the option to use one). The three kids had their own balloons as well and some treats for Daddy. Sad to say, we lost J's and E's balloons outside.....at different times. We think they are either flying to India to be gifts for some other little children who have never had a balloon or maybe God will make them into stars up in heaven. We had some big tears. Can you tell where we are standing in this picture?

The first picture is of our family at Fernwood Botanical Gardens. What a luscious treat to be there when all was green and the woods were not too buggy. The kids, of course, are looking over a railing to some water. We love to get out into nature. We have planted more sunflower seeds around our garage and fence and the morning glories are starting to climb onto the front porch. My rose bushes are slowly growing and we planted two tomato plants (one is a Santa sweet grape tomato plant....YUM!)

The second picture is of a press conference held in front of our house and the next door neighbor's to our north. Our Mayor was speaking about all the vacant houses in our city and what the city and other grant funded groups are doing to fix that problem. Our house was rehabed by a such a group. We saw our house briefly on the news. I had been interviewed as well, but I don't think they used anything I said.....I was holding Constance at the time and she was dropping bread crumbs, pulling on my shirt, had a runny nose....you get the picture...probably too distracting. Oh well, I'm not a T.V. star, but I have a nice house.