Some of Summer, Part One

My blogging hiatus is over! 

I snapped a few pictures during the course of the past month, but mostly we just enjoyed life.  Just a little run-down of what we've done, certainly not inclusive to everything that's kept us busy but you'll get an idea of our summer thus far:

If Josh is working on something in the shop and its not too hot, we'll hang around him.  Admittedly, its more for adult company for me than it is for any sort of company or help to him or playtime for the kids, be we all enjoy it... I think!?

"Hey!  You still back there?!" 
(The chain would disconnect every once in a while and he would lose her!)



We decided it was time for Caleb's training wheels to come off his bike. (Actually, I was extremely bored one afternoon of playing the same games over and over and decided that taking Caleb's training wheels off and teaching him to ride would be the perfect cure for the boredom I was having.  And it was!)  After removing the training wheels, we discovered that we didn't really have a good flat, hard surfaced area where he could learn to be a two-wheeler (everything's graveled on our yard), but we made do with what we had and he learned pretty quickly.  He still has a lot of practicing yet to do and muscle to build up in his legs, but he's good enough to be considered a big-boy-bike rider!

First thing you have to do before you can learn to ride a two-wheeler is to take off the third and fourth wheels!  We surprised Caleb by just turning his bike over and taking a wrench to his training wheels.  To say he was a little excited would be an understatement!



Um.... what now?!

After a lot of pushing and encouraging....

.... we finally had a rider!  It started with Josh and I pushing him around in the shop.  And then we started pushing him down the hill from the shop to the lower driveway...

...but eventually we were able to work up to just a push start on the lower drive.  Then he rode the whole flat section between driveways!  If you look real close, you can see him right smack in the middle of this picture.  He kept losing his balance when he would look back to see if I was still hanging on holding him up.  So I gave him the incentive of being able to ride through the mud puddle (that's when we still had puddles, so you know its been quite a while ago!) if he made it all the way across.  Nothing like a little mud to get a boy going!

In the last few weeks, we've had two litters of kittens.  One litter is still itty bitty and way too little to play with, but the older litter is just perfect playing size for youngsters like my own!  Unfortunately, Sarah Rose can only play for just a few minutes before she starts breaking out, itching miserably and sneezing, but those few minutes are heaven to her!

Our best attempt at a group shot.  Look carefully and you'll see five furry feline babies!

My favorite (and I use the term "favorite" very loosely: I DO NOT like cats (and dogs) and am secretly jealous of my daughter's allergy to them!  If I were allergic, I would have a better reason to dislike them so much other than my reason of "I just do".)... kitten is a white one that has gray tipped feet and tail.  He (she?) is graying a little more with age, but still is the one solid color and still has the pretty blue eyes!

Our kittens are very smart.  See?  This one's reading!

AND they're very talented!  Playing tricks at such a young age is a sure sign of talent extraordinaire!  Barnum and  Bailey, here we come!

We've also taken a couple of trips to our local swimming pool in Albia.  We were introduced to the pool last year at our friend Alec's second birthday party and now its a family treat for a special day!

My three favorite people enjoying an afternoon in the sun!
(Notice Josh is using the kids to hide himself from the camera, silly boy!)

While Mama and Daddy were taking a breather, the kids played on the edge of the pool in the fountains.

Sarah likes to "shake her booty" and its doubly fun to shake it over a fountain!

Uh oh!  Looks like something didn't go her way...

...but it didn't slow her down for long before she was right back out there.  I don't have too many pictures at the pool since I was in the water most of the time with the kids, but be assured that we all had an absolute fun time whether or not there are pictures to prove it!

That's it for this post, but there's much more to come!  Stay tuned for more adventures of the Van Zante clan.... bum bum buuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!