Matthias's Summer Achievement

Now it's officially Fall. Baseball, soccer, dance, boy scouts... have begun, but I'm still updating from summer. I only have two left and then I promise I'll move on to more current happenings. One day, far in the future (Lord willing), I'll actually catch up with life.

One accomplishment Matthias had this summer was learning to ride his bike without training wheels. One day (I wish I remembered the date exactly, but I don't), he kept asking me to take off his training wheels. Well, as many busy moms know, I couldn't do it right when he wanted me too. When I finally ventured outside to fill his request, he was working hard trying to take them off himself. We worked together and succeeded in removing the training wheels.

Then the lesson began. I helped him to balance and get going. He fell down a few times, but then he just took off. In less than a half hours time, he was jumping on his bike and riding like a pro (well a 5 year old pro). I couldn't believe how quick he took to riding a two wheeler.

He's in kindergarten this year, and I hope he learns to read as fast as he learned to ride his bike, but I suppose that's a post for another day.

More Of Our Summer

Soon after our visit to Pa's house, we headed down to visit VoVo and PaPa Jim. Most of the days are spent swimming. The great neighborhood pools at VoVo's is where the children get in most of their summer swim time. Miles worked sooo hard this summer to pass the required swim test so he could go off the diving board and slides in the deep end. Well, we actually headed down to VoVo's twice this summer; and, on our second visit, Miles finally made it all the way across the pool (required for the swim test), he then passed the tread water for 1 minute test (took him two tries)--with 5 minutes to spare before the next required adult swim break, just before we were heading back home to VoVo's house, and the final day of our visit. So with those 5 minutes left, he jumped off the board and slid down the slide two times each. He left happy and ready to conquer the swim test next year.

Mickey, Madeleine, and Max attempted many tricks and games off the diving board/slides. Max in particular tries all kinds of crazy twists and flips (they usually look pretty odd if you were to see him attempt one in person).

Matthias too is improving on his swimming, maybe next year he'll be ready for the deep end of the pool too. As you can see in one of the photos, he insisted on going to bed with his goggles on. Of course, I went in shortly after he fell asleep to remove them, but not without taking a photo first.

A walk on the "green belt" (great walking/biking trails throughout the neighborhood)--I just thought the lighting was cool in this tunnel:

A water lily--taken at Mercer park

Mackenzie "reading the paper":

Playing with PaPa Jim's glasses:

Mackenzie at Mercer. It was so hot! Sweat is dripping down her forehead.

Pool Pics:

This is Miles swimming:

Matthias asleep in his goggles:

Until next time...

Misty

Summer Fun

OK, It's been FOREVER since my last post. Every day I think to myself, "maybe today I can update my blog." But the day goes on, and I do not have the time (or energy) to get it done. I really hope to do better--to keep you (my family and friends) a part of our lives, especially those of you that do not live close to us or we don't see very often. I won't tell you what time it is now. Thanks to my hubby's wonderful surprise of a caramel frappe from McDonalds at 9pm at night, I'm up unable to sleep (the caffeine you know). I knew this would probably happen, but I just couldn't let it go to waste--that's the only coffee drink I like, and I like it a lot (Now don't spoil it by telling me how many calories are in it. I just pretend it's not loaded with extra calories I don't need.)

Now on to what's been up with us... Summer is officially over in the Colvard household, and school has begun (I'll update more on that later). I have approximately 60 pictures to share with you, and that's narrowing it down. I promise not to do it all at once, but hopefully will get through the summer before Thanksgiving, and on to the fall by Christmas. Just Kidding, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, though.

I'll start at the beginning and work our way through to the end--of summer, that is. After I recovered from pneumonia, we headed to Pa's house for a much overdo visit. The weather was GREAT! It was cloudy and rainy, which kept it cool so the children could spend more time running and playing outside. There was lizard catching to be done, playing and running in the rain, ping pong, swimming at Aunt Joel's house, and of course spending time with Pa and Granny Joyce.

We returned home just in time for the July 4th festivities in Duncanville. The older 5 children enjoyed the water slides--these were no baby slides either--the city had set up as part of their celebration. We then returned to Granny's house for food, firecrackers (thanks to Aunt Julie, Jr, Aunt Samantha and C for providing them for the kids) and to watch the annual July 4th fireworks display.

The pictures are backwards--because this uploader adds them to the top instead of the bottom and I forgot about that. In other words, I have to add them backwards to be in the correct order. I could fix it, but it's a pain moving the pictures all around, so I'm leaving it as is. So, start at the bottom if you want to see them in chronological order--either way, this is just the beginning of July. I'll put more on soon. Love you all.

He's so handsome.

Despite the look on his face, he

really loved it.

In case you don't see it, the lizard is on top of her head.