Father's Day 2009

picture taken by Ben

The summer seems to be chugging right along. I can't believe that the kids have been out of school for about a month already. This week was filled with fun as Cami spent time with her friend, Ianna, on a play date, Ben attending VBS at Lake City, Justin's parents and Keri, Joe, and Natalie coming down, a graduation party, and St. Paul's Family Fun Days.

Cami spent Tuesday morning with her friend, Ianna, from school. She loves playing with Ianna and has missed her since they finished up preschool. We can't wait to have Ianna come over and play at our house soon.

We spent Wednesday making Father's Day presents for daddy. Ben made a paper tie (sorry no picture) while Cami and Ian fingerpainted wood picture frames.

Ian's frame for daddy

After the picture frames were completed, they continued their fun of fingerpainting. This is a fun project, however, the clean up is something I like to take on only once

in a while.

Cami working on her picture for daddy

Ian fingerpainting

Ben attended Lake City Church's Vacation Bible School on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. They have a 3 day VBS, where the kids get a choice of learning and playing basketball, soccer, or doing crafts. Ben was able to attend with his friend, Christian. Ben was sad that it ended as he was really enjoying learning how to play basketball. His coach stated that he was very impressed at Ben's coordination and skills since he has never played before. We hope to get him involved in Door Creek Church's Upward Basketball team this fall.

The last 2 weekends we were able to celebrate graduations. Last weekend our friend, Ethan, graduated from Milwaukee Lutheran. Dana is starting to feel old as she use to babysit for Ethan and his 2 siblings when he was younger. We had a great time reconnecting with many friends.

Saturday we started out the day going strawberry picking at Berry Hill Farms. The kids enjoyed a breakfast of strawberries. Ben and Ian did a great job helping pick the berries, while Cami enjoyed picking flowers off the grass. We love that she is such a girly girl!

Cami with her bucket of flowers

Ian is so proud of his strawberry

In the afternoon, we celebrated Justin's cousin, Josh, graduation from Oregon High School. We were able to spend time with Justin's aunts, uncles, and cousins. We even found out that his cousin, Katrina, recently became engaged to her boyfriend Chris. They are planning an August 2010 wedding. Justin's parents, Keri, Joe, and Natalie were able to spend Saturday night with us. It is always nice to spend time with them.

Aunt Keri pushing Ian and Natalie on the swings at Josh's graduation party

We all went to St. Paul on Sunday morning. After the service, the church held their annual Family Fun Days. Dana helped run the Kids tent, which was filled with games, prizes, crafts, a guy making balloon creations, and a bounce house for the kids. Food was abundant! The church provides this event for the community for no cost.

Ben's shark hat from the balloon man

Ian enjoying a piece of corn at Family Fun Days

Rollercoaster

It has been a rollercoaster of a week. Last week Wednesday, I celebrated my 33rd birthday. I thought it was pretty cool to turn 33 on the 3rd (6/3/09). I was surprised by an amazing email telling me that our party won the Clairol Hair Color national contest. What a gift! The trip is for me and 6 of the people that attended the Clairol Hair Color party that I had as a part of houseparty.com. We all received hair color coupons to pick out our own color to use at the party. We also each received a gift bag full of products. It was a fun party and we were excited to enter the contest they were holding with totalbeauty.com. Because my friend, Erin, received the most votes, I became the winner (they awarded the host the prize). Our group of 7 will be headed to L.A. this coming January for the People's Choice Awards. We get airfare, 3 nights in a 5 star hotel, limo service to the show, we get to walk the red carpet where the celebs walk, see the People's Choice Awards, and attend an after party. I can't wait. We hope that Midwest will stay in business so that Justin and the kids can fly out with us and stay in my hotel room. We plan on visting Mike and Allison while we are there and possibly even going to Disney! Here is the video we made... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2fzv2O_2t4

All the excitement quickly came to a halt when we got a phone call from my mom and Bruce on Thursday telling Justin and me that my mom's cancer had returned and they wanted to do surgery that following Tuesday. She had been in remission for 3 years and on her annual check up to the specialist, the tumor had been found. We thank God that the doctor suggested a CT otherwise the tumor would not have been found. I flew out on Sunday, since the surgery moved up to Monday. The surgery went well. We are hoping that she is able to go home today or tomorrow.

This past Monday, Justin bravely took on our 3 kids and our friends kids. He is a very patient guy, although he was exhausted by the end of the day!

We are enjoy the beautiful weather by playing outside. The light wind is keeping most of the bugs away, which makes it even more enjoyable. This weekend we will head to Milwaukee to celebrate the graduation of our friend, Ethan Wartick.