My parents have come and gone. It’s always tough to say goodbye. But it is so nice knowing that we will be home for Christmas this year! I have tons of pictures to post but I bet it is going to take me a little time to get myself organized and motivated for a big post of pics!

The weather forecast is looking up so hopefully next week will be a week of summer!  I am looking forward to a few more “pack the pj’s and come back at bedtime” pool nights. Hope all of you are enjoying summer in your neck of the woods! Speaking of neck of the woods, starting early next week Seth and I will be doing our own new search for which neck of the woods we will be relocated to. Pray for guidance and wisdom!! Just to sum up the process we will get a LONG list, narrow it down and submit bids. Then we will WAIT and WAIT until around Thanksgiving.

Here are some weekly pics to leave you with!

park bliss

busy bees

he may be smaller but he has his way of thwarting Jackson’s plans!

burning off some extra energy…this was before the wipe out!

first tomato from the big plants! My dad counted 62 more on their way!! I see lots of homemade salsa and pasta sauce in our future! And tomato pie of course!

fried green tomatoes

Have a great weekend!

We celebrated Jackson’s 4th birthday on Saturday!  For months he has been asking for a camping party. I browsed a few blogs to find some ideas and here is what we ended up with!

there were big storm clouds all day so Seth put the tent up in the living room

I made fish using cardboard and duct tape. We put magnets in at their mouths. Unfortunately we used a metal bucket which more often caught the “hook” than the fish

One of Jackson’s friends father makes amazing cakes. He brought a chocolate truffle cake. I had things ready to toss on the top for decorating. We found marzipan rocks at a shop here that looked like real rocks!

Nama read Curious George Goes Camping in the tent!

overseeing gift opening

And due to the weather and being nervous about lighting a fire with a bazillion kids we continued the fun and on Sun night we roasted marshmallows and made s’mores!

At bedtime after the party Jackson was already brainstorming next yrs party. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we will be living out of suitcases, moving who knows where and that his guest list would be none of the kids from this party. Each yr is quite different for him. Proud of the little guy he is growing into!!