County Fairs, Birthdays, & (more) Summer Camps...Oh, my!

Where did the month of July and August go? If we didn't have so many pictures to memorialize our summer, we might be convinced that it never happened! The summer days just pass too fast.

Paul and I both celebrated another birthday in July. For my birthday, Paul brought home the most beautiful bouquet of flowers that one of his landscape customers cut and personally arranged for me that day. One of the flowers (a Dahlia) was 10 inches in diameter. It was absolutely gorgeous...and oh so sweet smelling! He also got a very large ice cream cake that we ate for nearly one month. The best part? Finally getting cute pictures of mommy with the kids! It seems that I'm the one always taking the pictures.

The end of July, Ryleigh attended her second gymnastics/dance camp. It was a "Think Pink" Barbie Camp. There were only four girls in the class...well, eight, if you count their Barbie dolls. Ryleigh really enjoyed it. She said she liked it more than the Dora & Diego camp she attended just two weeks prior. Why not? She was an 'ol pro now!

The same week, Ryleigh also attended our Vacation Bible School for the first time...and loved it! She really gravitates toward the older children and was quite proud to sport her very own VBS T-shirt during their closing program.

The beginning of August, we went up to visit Grama Susan, Papa Gene, Grampa Tye and Grama Geri. During our visit, we spent a day at the county fair in Traverse City. Ryleigh and her cousin Emilee had a ball together. Dylan, of course, was too small to ride anything, but spent some quality time with Papa and Grampa Tye.

It was at the fair that we caught the first glimpse of Dylan's funny face! He was very amusing and was loving the laughs from all of us!

The kids also spent some time playing at Torch Lake. Dylan wasn't sure at first about getting into the water, but Grama Susan quickly changed his mind....and then he didn't want to get out!

And just some miscellaneous notes:

Dylan enjoyed his first ear of corn this summer.


Dylan can now open nearly every interior door in the house. Check out the tippy toes!

Ryleigh had her second visit to the emergency room after crashing (hard!) into our bedpost when coming into our room during the middle of the night. She split her bottom lip wide open and pushed two top teeth in. It was a horrific sight! But praise the Lord, it has almost completely healed in just two short weeks.