These are pictures from Malaya's 7th birthday party. She wanted to have it outside at the park nearby which seemed like a good idea. I wouldn't have to clean up the house before or after the party. However, it turned out to be a rather chilly day with a nice breeze. The kids had fun anyway and that's what's important!


This was Malaya and Sirena patiently waiting for the kids to arrive. We had to get to the park early to set up and decorate. This really test the girls patience.


When we got a good group of kids, we all went to the playground part of the park. There were swings and slides and other fun things for the kids to do to build up their appetites.


This was Malaya's birthday cake. The theme of the party was butterflies. The ladybugs were a special addition for Sirena since she loves ladybugs.


She blew out all the candles in one breath, without any help from Willie! Willie blew out Sirena's candles when she had her party so I had to remind him that he wasn't allowed to blow these candles!




Of course everyone loved the cake. It was super yummy!!


We also had bubbles for the kids to play with when we weren't at the playground. I think most of the solution ended up on the ground!



Here are the kids after the pinata was broken.

People often think that the girls might be lacking "social" skills. But I think it's evident from these pictures that they aren't hurting for friends. In fact, both Malaya and Sirena had declarations of love made to them at the party so I don't think I need to worry about them except to fend off the boys when they get older!

For the two of you who "follow" this blog, check out my new blog. It's different than this one but may be fun to check out now and again. I just posted a recipe to a fun and easy meal I made tonight.

We've been very busy this summer. This is Malaya at the VBS final program. What is she doing? Well, of course, she has joy like a fountain in her soul! What really shocked me about this was that she volunteered to go on stage and do the motions for the entire song. My super shy girl loved VBS!

The week after VBS, we took a mini-vacay to the Great Wolf Lodge. The girls had a much better time this year than last. They were both brave enough to go on the medium sized slides! We also tried the MagiQuest which was lots of fun too. We split into teams and raced each other through each quest. Needless to say, mommy and Sirena won every time :)

On Saturday we went geocaching again. It was a very hot day but we were out in the forest enjoying the shade. It was actually quite beautiful. Joey took this picture which sort of shows the trees and area we were hiking in.We found three caches that day. Here is one that we found in the trees. As you can see, sometime they are quite large. That makes them easier to find.

When we walked out of the trees, there was a police officer standing on the trail waiting for us. He said to me, "Hey. What are you doing back there?" Joey laughs at me because I got a little nervous by this. It's not normal to have police officers come up to you when you're not doing anything wrong. Anyway, I hesitated for a second and then decided to tell him the truth. Because geocaching is not illegal, right? So, I said, "we're geocaching." Then he said, "I just wanted to see if you would tell me the truth! I'm geocaching too." Ok, I let me breath out. He wasn't out to get us. We talked with him for a bit and then we all went on our way. We picked up our first travel bug and we placed our first one also. The one we picked up came from England. I can't wait to see where ours travels to. In the end, it was a fun time.

That afternoon, when we got home, Joey found this little critter behind our shed.

Do you know what it is? It's a possum. He seemed really cute and we wanted to catch him to remove from our property and release him somewhere else. It's unfortunate though because if you look real close in the picture, you can see blood on the wood and the wound in her side. She was probably attacked by Ko-Ko or Chloe (the dog we were baby-sitting last week). Joey still got her out and took her somewhere else but I'm pretty sure she died. It was super sad. They say that possums don't carry rabies and they are really not harmful. They have poor vision and will "play dead" when attacked. Overall, they seem like an ok animal to have around (at least they are better than mice).

We went to the beach again this weekend. Papa was here visiting and we wanted to do something fun with him. The weather forecast was for 70 degrees and mostly sunny. As you can tell in the pictures, it was not even partially sunny. It was cold, probably 60 degrees. We still had fun but will be sure to pack SEVERAL changes of clothes the next time so we won't be unprepared. Fortunately, I took several changes of clothes for Malaya and Sirena and they were pretty comfortable except when wet. Here are some of our pictures.




They built a sandcastle which was mostly a pile of sand with a moat around it. It served it's purpose which was to get the girls digging in the sand. I think they really like the feel and texture of the sand. Sirena could just sit and move the sand around all day long I think.

I don't know who took this picture of Papa but it wasn't me! It was probably Malaya. I think she did a pretty good job.
This last picture is mostly to show Ko-Ko and how she magically fit herself into a small space between both car seats. It was a pretty tight fit but she seemed comfortable.
I didn't take any pictures of our geocaching that day. I was super excited because we found 5 out of 6 caches that we looked for. The more you find, the more you want to go looking. It is a rather addictive activity. Really fun and I highly recommend the GeoMate Jr. It is really easy to use and seems pretty accurate, now that we've found a few and have tested it better. It comes preloaded with geocaches so you don't have to download any info to a GPS receiver. With the new update kit coming out soon, we'll be able to have the most up-to-date info for all our geocaching adventures. I really can't wait to go hunting again!

We have been working hard in our yard this week. The weather has been so awesome that we just had to get outside. The girls weren't too helpful with putting down the dirt and steer manure but really got involved when we started planting the flowers. I will have to take some pictures of what we've been doing because the planter around our deck looks so nice now after all of our hard work. So, here are my little helpers.

Here is Sabbath at our house! I couldn't resist taking this picture. Actually, none of them are really asleep. They were just resting after lunch but they looked so comfy. Now, how do I get rid of this underlined text?

What we really did Sabbath afternoon is go to a park and try geocaching again. This time, we had a GPS unit that is super easy to use. We looked for 4 caches but only found 2. I'm guessing we still have to gain an eye for where things are hidden. Sometimes you really have to look hard to find a cache. Here's a picture of the girls sharing a toy they found in the geocache. I haven't let them take anything before because you're supposed to replace whatever you take with something else. We haven't carried anything with us to put in the boxes. However, since we've found three caches so far and each time the girls get excited to see what's inside, I decided they could take something this time. They chose a rubber snake. The next time we go to that park, we'll have to put something back in the box. So, this picture is them standing on the tree that the cache was hidden in.

Today is the 4th of July and we've just had a great day. The weather has been awesome. Now, we're resting and cooling off until the sun goes down a little and we can light some fireworks. Hopefully we'll be able to stay awake until then!