Steven's Home!!!

Summer is busy for us especially with Steven. We have to balance his dad and camp and sometimes it's difficult. I hate when he is gone so long. He came home Monday night after about 2 weeks. He has grown so much this year. We picked him up from boy scout camp on Friday night. He was so grown up! They really rough it out there so I have to say Yay Steve! It was hot last week and he was out in the woods!!! I will add pictures soon, they are on my mom's camera. He earned his scout badge and 4 other merit badges while there. He is also ready to advance again. They are off this week but are going to a star's game next week. Football started today and he hurt his ankle. It is swollen but I tried to tell him he had to be tough. We have some ice on it and I'm going to re assess in the morning. So pray for Steven's ankle to heal quickly and for God to give him the strength to give it his all!

Bryce's Favorite Movies

Summer Weekends

Nothing beats a weekend of fruit and water. Nothing really exciting this weekend...just a great time at home.

Phish Summer Tour Returns!!!

Phish is the band I have always wanted to see after the Grateful Dead. We all know that I will never see THE Grateful Dead so way back when in September it was announced that Phish was getting back together!!!! I was pumped! They are very accomplished musicians and together they are just amazing. However, even though I love hippie music and am a closet hippie there are always a group of "heads" that follow the band. Now I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this if you have little responsibilities but for pete's sake can you take a bath!?! I mean come on even gas station bathrooms have water! Most of the really nasty people don't even listen to the music, they are just there to make money off people. Anyway I digress, back to the most awesome time that Blake and I had being phishheads!

Always interesting! Men in skirts.........

Traffic beyond belief!

This is Deer Creek in Indianapolis.

The amount of people is outrageous! But for us phriends it makes no difference. Going to these types of shows are just so freeing because no one cares what you look like or who you are. You hear brother, sister, and have a good show all over the place. Truly a great experience!

PAGE IS AWESOME! He is one of the best pianists that I have heard. Each member of the band studied music in college so they do have a great background in the arts.

Our tickets. They were mail order so they were very pretty! Phish and jambands sell a certain amount of tickets before they are released by ticketmaster! If you are lucky to get one after weeks of excrutiating waiting they fed ex you gorgeous tickets right to your door. I am getting them framed.

We had lawn tickets but it was still great! There was an awful storm coming through and at the end of the first set the lightening was wicked. It was as if the thunder was in tune with the music. It would finger out all over the top of the sky! WOW!

This is Trey! I have seen him twice before. Oysterhead included Les Claypool and the drummer from the Police. And Trey also has his own band. He has a lot of talent.

So I have really figured out how old I am....after the first set the lightening had gotten so bad that Page came out and told the crowd that the lawn had to evacuate to their vehicles. Well knowing how bad the weather has been lately Blake and I bolted as fast as we could! After walking the 2 miles to our car we decided we were not going back. Originally I was trying to save money and sleep in the car but my daddy was not having that and he gifted us some points to stay at a hotel nearby! Thanks Guys!!!! After a lovely nights rest in a bed rather than our car we headed towards Chicago! Two great things were about to happen! One: We had a great hotel in Chicago! Two: We were going to eat at Portillo's! ONLY THE BEST HOT DOG PLACE EVER! Blake had two Chicago Dogs and I had chili cheese dogs! YUM

I don't know how it happened but I lucked into a great deal on our hotel with some benefits also. We were on the first floor in a suite with patio access.

Saturday nights show was at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wi! It felt amazing to be somewhere with no humidity. We got right in and headed towards the gate. Alpine is very steep!

I hate to end so quickly but I tried to upload a video and it took forever and I am going to bed. Have a great night. Tomorrow I get to go pick up my big Steve-O from camp! I can't wait! More to come and I promise I will get caught up very soon!

Had a Good Show!

Blake and I just got back from going to see Phish at Deer Creek and Alpine Valley. It was great and I am so glad that they are playing together again. I will catch you guys up on our mini vacation tomorrow.

Wordless Wednesday!

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done

Okay so maybe we didn't get all of the housework done but for Bryce he did a lot of painting and coloring while it rained. What to do with a toddler who loves playing outside while it rains? FINGERPAINT!! We (that does include me) love to do arts and crafts. I have a special cabinet just for our paints, crayons, glue, markers, and stickers. Bryce loves to do this and so does Steven. Steven is gone to basketball camp and without having that extra activity around I had to find new things for Bryce to do this weekend and painting just seemed so fun. I stripped him down to his skivvies and let him loose on the paper. He did get just as much on the paper as he did on himself. I do know what I am doing though. They are washable paints and they came right off after we did something else Bryce loves: take a bath! Here is my little Van Gogh in action!

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt

The garden is growing! Praise the Lord! I am always looking for more ways to save money on our everyday spending so this year we planted (or Blake planted) a vegetable garden. I am hoping to get a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, beans, peas, carrots, and corn. We are going to make pickles with the cucumbers from using Granny's recipe. I have not ever done anything like this so this year is our learning process. We plan on canning the tomatoes so we can use it all year long. Here's a shot of it all. We are going to expand greatly next year!



Here are the starts of the purple whole peas.



Blake and Bryce are looking at the tomatoes. Well, maybe just Bryce is. I think that Blake is trying to get some sort of bug away from him.



Here are our cucumbers and they are everywhere!



Some pea pods



And my favorite....a little Bryce on a tractor! I could just eat him up!



There wasn't too much to do this weekend. We had very scattered showers and had to get outside in between storms. At least everything is so plush and green!

Start of Summer Fun for Steve-O!

Steven left Friday to go to his dad's. While he is there, he is also leaving for basketball camp. Steven is not new to spending the night at camp. He has been to Space Camp and Boy Scout Camp in the past. I have no fear that he will love it there! My only worry is that he doesn't play too much basketball so he doesn't know the terms as well as some of the other boys. He is going to Lipscomb Camp. His dad and his Aunt Erin both went to this and they both really enjoyed it.




Here he is with all of his stuff. He even packed an extra toothbrush in case his roomate doesn't have one! Way to think there Steve!



He returns home on Wednesday night. I am packing currently for scout camp that starts next Sunday. Steven will leave early on Sunday morning to go to Boxwell Summer Camp in Nashville with the scouts. He will earn merit badges and he is one of the senior boys this year, so he will have to be the example and help the first timers out. I only dread the laundry that comes back from camp! It always looks like it has been stomped in the mud when it comes back.

Happy Birthday Love!

This man has a birthday today! What a great day this is! Without this day I would not have all of this happiness that he gives to me. Thank you for loving me and providing for our family! Here's to many more years!

Heart Attack Burger

So when you get a call from your brother asking, "Do you guys want some hambugers tonight"? I was thinking I would be getting a hamburger, not this:





Don't think that I ate one of these. I am trying to eat better. Note that operative word of trying! But I would never eat something like that, for fear of a heart attack on the spot. Michael and Blake had no problems, however, poor Steven couldn't even get it in his mouth! When he finally did get a couple bites, he was finished. I settled for a hamburger steak and some watermelon!

I have a brand new toy!

Did you guess?

It was a new camera! Well....sort of a new camera. Mom bought a camera last year that was an upgrade and now Daddy is having to take some pictures for work. They went to look at just purchasing a body because he already has a lens and you know what.....The newest camera was only a little more for the full package. Mom cannot turn a deal like that down so I received a hand me down that is less than one year old, mom received a new camera(15 mp and a whole lot of sweetness), and Daddy is getting the camera that I have for work. I think that it is a fair trade. So you can see where I have been just taking fun pictures. I am trying hard to steer away from that stupid manual setting it is just so hard!

Monday

We had another uneventful weekend and I am so glad. Blake had to go and help Brandon put in a new front door so Bryce and I ran around town and finished up some errands. Thankfully, Daddy was ready for some swimming action so that is all that we did this weekend. I guess I can't say all because Blake did mow the yard and stake the tomatoes. It was a nice weekend but Bryce is starting to miss Steven a whole lot more when he is gone to his dad's. He asked about him all the time. Too bad because when Steven did get home Bryce was so tired he couldn't even enjoy it. I believe that swimming in the plastic pool is on the agenda for tonight for the both of them. Happy Monday Everyone!