Yeah, I'm way behind in my blog posting, even for me.  There is too much to catch up all in one post so I'll start tonight and finish up tomorrow night.  Tonight I'll catch us up to just before our beach vacation, since that one week will be more pictures than I have managed to take in the last two months. So, without further ado, here goes the catch up:

June 5, 2010
Sammy turns 8 years old!!!!  Can you believe it?  Actually she turned 8 on June 3rd, but we didn't celebrate until the weekend.  So as not to embarrass Sammy for all posterity, let's just say that this year rather than having a big party we decided to spend the time focusing on the attitude that an eight year old should have.  However we could not let such an occasion go completely uncelebrated and so we invited Sammy's friend Laney over for some swimming and a cookout over the fire. 

I'm not sure that this effect was intentional, but it looks like Sammy has marshmallows for eyes:

June 7, 2010
We live at the top of a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain is a river (well, it's more like a creek here, but it becomes a river further downstream).  We drive over this creek almost every time we leave the house, and we go over this bridge:

It may look like an old trestle, but I assure you that it's wooden plank bottom covered by asphalt with steel supports is considerably more modern than the low water bridge that used to serve this area:

The low water bridge is no longer in use of course, and it leads to nowhere, but it does make for an interesting place to walk to when the water levels are low enough.  I took the picture of the new bridge from where you see Sammy standing in the above picture.  It was a warm day and even Bob, who tends not to be all that fond of getting in the water, was happy to splash around and cool off:

Instead of walking back up the road, we decided to follow the train tracks that run along the side of the mountain to where the emergency fire road comes down from our development.  We were even lucky enough to see a train:

which isn't all that surprising considering they come through day and night - no one who lives anywhere near a Norfolk-Southern railroad believes that transport of goods via train is anything but alive and well.  We hear them off in the distance so often that we don't even notice them any more.


June 19, 2010
Sammy lost another tooth!  This one is on the top, next to her two front teeth.

June 25, 2010
An artsy kind of day. I got Sammy a book called "365 Things to Do" to help her pass the time in the summer. One of the projects shows you how to draw little monsters.

June 27, 2010
Ahoy Mateys!  Another one of the 365 Things to Do is to make hats and Sammy has made a lot of hats. Sometimes she wears them all at once:

And her brother likes to wear one while he studies his comb intently:

June 30, 2010
My budding fashionista:

July 1, 2010
A big day in the life of a growing girl - Sammy learned how to make an omelet!  Today's menu was a ham and american cheese omelet, and she made this exquisite specimen all by herself:

July 2, 2010
Hanging out...

July 3, 2010
The 4th of July celebrations were held on the 3rd this year because of where the weekend fell.  In past years we have gone to a nice celebration in Green Hill Park, but they didn't have one this year due to budgetary problems.  So we decided to try out the local one in Shawsville this year.  They hold them at the middle school where there is a convenient farmer's field across from the track and field stadium where they can send up the fireworks.   All of the vendors and stuff to do are lined up around the track oval, which is great for Owen's stroller so it turned out to be a good venue for us. They had this nifty steam tractor that they had up and running:

Daddy and I won a Sunday Brunch at Mountain Lake resort (where they filmed Dirty Dancing, it's not far from us) in the raffle.  The kids seemed to enjoy the sights:

but I think what they both enjoyed the most was the cotton candy!

The fireworks show was really nice, especially for a little town.   I wish I could have gotten a video of Owen watching the fireworks, but it was too dark. It was great though, every time they would have a pause in the show he would start signing "more, more"!  And then when they would start up again he would start clapping and doing his "happy dance".  I think he thoroughly enjoyed himself. 

July 4, 2010
On the night of the actual holiday we lit some sparklers and set off a bunch of fountains.  Here in Virginia fireworks are legal as long as they don't move.  You can have a huge shower of sparks and noise and color and just as long as it stays put while it's doing its thing it is legal.  (If you want the good ones that shoot up in the air without a permit you have to go to South Carolina I'm afraid).  So every year we buy a box at Walmart or Kroger and do our own little fireworks show with the kids.

Some Video
I had some video taken at different times in the month of June that I put together into two movies, one for each kid.  Sammy's movie shows her practicing some of her new gymnastics skills (and some old ones) in her room: