and, the summer's half gone.........

....................................My favorite vacation picture!!.................................

Future Charlies Angle????

...............................................Why is my stove in the dinning room again????

Digging a hole, Brynn's vacation friend, Nia

Nanny and Sam

..................Brynn made friends with the cheerleading squad!...................

Pool side activities for the kids....hulahoop winners are the Kentucky girls.................

................................... crab eating party on the balcony................................

......the view from our balcony, aaaaaaawwwwwwww..........great for morning coffee!

Will's first time in the ocean!

but we sure know how to keep the fun going! Some of it is old news, pool time, fun with friends, park ect...The fourth of July was alot of fun, but apparently I let my camera behind...bad Mommy.

My kitchen remodel is under full swing and mostly finished! A BIG thanks to my dear friend Cara and her family who stayed at our house while we were on vacation and put up with most of it and watched my beloved furry babies! For ONCE...a contractor OVERESTIMATED the time of a job! The quoted 3-4 weeks for a completion and I came one week one to find it mostly complete...FAINT!

Oh, and did I say VACATION! Just back yesterday from FABULOUS Hilton Head Island and a week with Nanny and Pappy. Will's first experience at the beach and he really liked digging and filling buckets....the ocean was fun until the water got in the eyes.

Here are some highlights:

Poor Sam got stung by a jellyfish and never really got comfortable again in the water, but who can blame him...funny thing was he kept saying he got stung by an octopus and he couldn't go back in the water because it would sting him again and take his arm off!!! Not to many 4yo survive an octupus attack!!!

Mike, Pappy and family have been avid crabbers since their first summer in HHI (over 35ys ago) My girls love it too, I however prefer NOT to stand in dirty murky water holding a string with chicken on it while getting bit by shrimp ("sprite water" as Kenna calls it) Plus, I like my food dead under celephane from Kroger's....NOT the hissing snapping pissed off things that come home in the coolers....THEN the horrid!!! noise they make when you throw them in the boiling "old bay" water....NO THANKS! I love the crab meat, just not the horror it takes to get it.... This year a few escaped while being tossed to their death and their are three snapping running crabs on the kitchen floor.....Pappy's yelling and chasing them with tongs, the boys think its great and are watching the action from the bar stools and I'm yelling "Let them live, they have a will to live" Pappy comes over and pinches me with the tongs once they to are boiled to their death....I guess it's a good thing I wasn't a cavewoman huh????? It would have made a great funniest home video....

Brynn and Kenna won the hulahoop contest along with a 6yo boy....they were the last ones left and noone could stand on one leg and successfully hullahoop...I bet they will be practicing for next yrs competition! (and if I may brag I'm a MEAN hullahooper myself...hahahaha)

Saw the last Harry Potter movie....tear!!! LOVED IT!!!! Missed Jessa, I've always gone with her, but it was fabulous and I went with another hometown girl and Mike!! (Hi Olivia)

Jessa's is continuing her 4H rifle team and has had a few competitions...a bit difficult for a mom who really doesn't love guns, but when you've got a kid with a crazy talent to hit the target and when you find out there are LOT'S of girls scholarships and when UK rifle team wins has won the SEC championship repetitvely the last 5yrs...and when the economy wipes out your college fund and you got 5 kids to help through college....SHOOT GIRL SHOOT!!!!

She also took her first flight home from HHI Monday by herself so she could start Drama Camp which she is LOVING...did great, got herself home safely, but the carry on bag got lost....coached her through it all, what to do if..... EXCEPT forgot about what to do if the plane from HHI to Charlotte is so small they don't let you take your carry on with you and put it under the plane...YIKES! Props to US Air for getting her bag to us despite No pink/yellow tag...only an ID tag on the bag!! THANK YOU so much...it had 2 weeks of clothes since she stayed with family/friends while we were gone and it would cost me a FORTUNE to replace all that stuff...Not to mention the nearly paniced crying 14yo I got on the phone when her luggage didn't make it home!!! WHEW close call!

WOW! Long post, lot's of pics, hope a FEW of you made it to the end!!! ;)