SISTER SUNDAY

Just a few of these darling ladies lately!

I love that they are such good friends!

DANCIN' IN THE RAIN

So what if it drizzles, 

And dribbles and drips?

I'll splash in the garden,

I'll dance on the roof.

Let it rain on my skin,

it can't get in -

I'm waterproof.

-Shel Silverstein

IT STARTED OUT INNOCENT ENOUGH

Just another super hot day in Ohio.

Mama and the girls trying to keep cool...

...until daddy came home...

IN OTHER NEWS

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics were Friday night...

and, as we all know, I'm a bit of a weird, over-excited, almost embarrassing Olympic FANATIC!

So... it was a big deal

When I mentioned to Brinlee that the olympics were starting, she said "Fun! What's the olympics?"

Sheesh.  I can't have questions like that in my house!!!  So, I decided we'd better get into the spirit a little.  

Starting with food, of course.  

How do you like our olympic ring lunch plate?  

And our decorations? 

For dinner we decided to go Rio style and try our hand at some Brazilian cuisine.  And it turned out really yummy!  We had mocqueca de camaroes, feijao e arroz, sumo de manga, and bolinhos de chuva. Translation (thank you translate.google.com): We had Brazilian shrimp stew, beans and rice, mango juice, and Brazilian raindrop donuts.
Delicious.
I was more proud of it than I should have been...

McKenna was in bed before anything started, and Brinlee didn't even sit still long enough for me to take a picture.  Once the ceremonies started and she saw what they were, and then realized we weren't actually going to Brazil, well then she had had enough. But she did wear her "America flag" shorts. And it did seem to put her in a go-get-em spirit.  She volunteered to finish up the dinner mess, and then did an awesome job! The gold medal for dishwashing definitely goes to this darling little champion.

We're pretty pumped for the next two weeks!
Ok, well at least I am...
Woo!
Go Team USA!

And as long as we're traveling the world from home, why not hit Ireland next?  

Dublin Ohio does an Irish Festival every year that we figured we should probably go check out.

Now this is rare footage here.

A sight not seen very often these days.

Proof that Tim and I do actually get out of the house together once in a while without kids,

and still do occasionally do fun things!

Irish things, in this case.

This moment was brought to you by our fabulous friends/neighbors/babysitters extraordinaire!

Thank goodness for date night!

A QUICK TRIP TO B-TOWN

Do you remember back in December when we went home for Christmas?

And do you remember how the airline gave us a bunch of voucher money for letting them move our flights around?

Well we got to thinking about those vouchers a little while ago.  

Tim is into rotations now (read: Tim has a totally crazy and fairly unpredictable and inflexable schedule now), and we were feeling less and less sure that we were going to be able to work out a trip back home again for the holidays.  Boo, I know.  But so it goes.

But then the question: oh what to do with all that flight money?...

Ah ha! Why not send mama and the cute girlies out west for a visit while daddy stays home and studies for the shelf exams? Brilliant!

And that's how it came to be. The girls and I spent all last week in Boise running around and living up some serious family time, while Tim hit the books and held down the fort back in Ohio.  Not so fun for daddy... but wonderful for us!  It was the perfect little trip.  

I had been super worried about the traveling parts. A 2 to 1 match-up with odds not so much in my favor.  But these troopers were just the perfect little airplane buddies.

In Boise we snuggled 2 grandpa's and 3 grandma's, we played with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, we visited Maw Maw and Paw Paw great, we ate lots of good food, we ran around and did some fun things... whew! Basically, we just had a blast! Here are some highlights.

Swimming with Borup cousins.

Restaurant ice-cream and the aquarium with Lords cousins.  

I'm pretty sure Boise is where Brinlee thinks heaven is.  She actually got to touch a sting ray! 

Dream come true!

Paw Paw Great's chair!

A visit to the Boise temple.

I brushed the dust off my poor camera and got some photo practice time with this crowd!

In case you were wondering what one does with a stuffed orange squid (lovingly named Hank), here it is.  Hank is not only a great little playmate, but he also makes a pretty good backpack and airplane pillow too!

And in case you were wondering, the proper way to handle earphones is in fact to wear them down on your cheeks while you stuff your face with mini pretzels.  Who knew?!

The girls traveled home just as awesome as they traveled away from home.  Angels.
And boy was that daddy ever happy to see us!

It was a fabulous week!
We're glad to be back home with our lonely daddy, but it's always hard to say goodbye to everyone in good old B-town.  We're lucky to have such a wonderful family.

Thanks for another fun adventure!
Hopefully we'll be back soon.