Flower Garden

Flower garden in the front of the house.

One of two sunflowers from seeds we started.

Flowers on the side of the house.

More flowers on the side of the house.

Vegetable Garden

Here is my small vegetable garden.
Two tomato plants, but only one tomato so far.

Six cucumber plants with lots of cucumbers.

Two pumpkin plants with pretty flowers, but no pumpkins.

Two pea plants with several pea pods.
Also a few watermelon plants, but they are not growing very fast.

Joseph's Excitement

Joseph took a picture of his near perfect score on Mario DDR game.I took some pictures of him in motion

Road Trip

Our road trip consisted of a day and a half at a track meet and a day and a half at the beach. Joe spent two days with us and then went to Philly to watch a baseball game with some of his friends.

We stopped at the Maryland Welcome Center on the way north.
Joe had gotten behind us, but didn't realize it, so he stopped and waited for us to catch up. We ended up waiting about 30 minutes for him and the kids with him to arrive.

A group shot at the state line.

We all wondered how this city name is pronounced.

Regional Track Meet

Taylor competed this past weekend in the Region II Championships in Dover, DE. All of the girls in this photo were born in 1995 and as you can see, Taylor was a half to a whole head taller than the other girls. Taylor ran in the 3000m and 1500m events.

3000m event
Taylor beat her best time by 45 seconds to post a final time of 14:03.

1500m event
Taylor beat her best time by 5 seconds to post a final time of 6:10.

Taylor relaxes after one of her runs.

The kids played Limbo using a pole vault.

Bowling Fun

Natalie liked to watch the balls come out of the ball return.

Bailey did a great job!

Joseph tried one game without bumpers and got a 35.

Everyone had a great time.

Bailey beat Rachel in 3 out of 4 games.

A Tale of Two Beaches

We went to two different beaches while on our mini vacation.
The first one was on the Delaware Bay.

The water was murky and only a few inches deep.
Natalie loved it.

The second beach we went to was in Ocean City, MD.

As you can see, the water was much deeper.
Joseph and Bailey spent much of the time in the water.
The water was very cold, but they didn't seem to mind.

Rachel buried Taylor in the sand and made her look like a turtle.

Sisters Up Close

Addition to Family

Joe found this turtle in the garage and let the kids keep it.
They have named him: Michaelangelo

Do turtles like to swim?

New home in Joseph's room

Joseph seems to like the turtle

Backyard Fireworks

Joe loves to put on a small fireworks display in the backyard

The master at work!

The kids sat on the porch and seemed to enjoy the show.

Neighborhood Fireworks

Sparkler Fun

Mallory and Natalie

Taylor with two sparklers

Joseph's turn

Bailey takes a turn too

Natalie posed for the camera when she saw I was taking her picture.

Natalie pedals her Bike

Natalie has finally learned how to pedal her bike. Now she needs to learn how to pedal the bike without having to look at her feet.

Today's Track Meet

Taylor ran in another track meet today. This one was local, so some of us went home between her events since they were about seven hours apart. Six of us went this morning at 9am to watch her run the 80m hurdles. See next post for those results. Just Joe and I went back later to watch her run in the 1500m run. I have decided that Taylor does much better running first thing in the morning than in the heat of the day. Both times that she ran later, she ran much slower than when she ran earlier in the day. In two weeks, we head to Dover, DE for the AAU Regional Meet. Taylor will be competing in both the 3000m run and the 1500m run. Both events are at 8am, one on Friday morning and one on Saturday morning. We are turning the meet into a mini vacation for the whole family since we have to stay over night for two nights.

Joseph added this comment when I walked away from the computer while writing this post: Blah blah blah!

More Hurdles

Taylor ran the 80m hurdle event again today. She is to the far right. She came in forth, but improved her time by 1.8 seconds from last week. Her time today was 17.28 seconds.

Up

And Over!