It's almost July and so far summer has been jam packed with excitement and a little bit of sadness.

As most of you know our cute, little dog Biscuit is dead. We had a few sleepless nights around here, but lots of good memories! Biscuit was our first baby and had almost 13yrs. of love and constant attention. I told the kids when our other dog dies we will get another, one dog is enough.

One of Zach's classmates from school died last week. He was in kindergarten and third grade with Zach. We went to his funeral yesterday, it was very sad. Lane had Downs Syndrome and was such a happy kid. He always wanted to play sports with the other boys and was just one of the gang. He got really sick around Christmastime and Zach came home one day and said they had to amputate one of Lane's arms. He had just gotten out of the hospital a couple of weeks ago, but got a kidney infection, his heart stopped. Zach keeps saying " I can't believe Lane's dead.

Vacation in the Ozarks was awesome!!! I miss waking up in the morning and letting all the kids go to the beach! As many kids that we had running around it was so relaxing and easy. Thank You Mom and Dad! It was a memory maker for sure. Steve and Heidi's huge fish, OJ getting into green marker:), Tom dropping the fillet knife into the lake(hopefully no one swims over there), Steve dropping my huge fish into the lake, JR catching a fishing pole, Joe catching fishing line the very next day, all the big one's the got away during our midnight excursions(must be the beer), Quiddler:), Heidi's mountain lion sighting!, the list goes on and on!!!


Baseball and Softball is just about over, we have tournaments starting next week. Zach's team has only won one game and Hayley's team has only lost one game so the tourney's should be interesting!

Emily and kids left with mom on Wednesday:( It was such a blast to have them here. The cousins all get along so well, we will miss you all soooo much! You too Rob!

Fourth of July is almost here. We went to this little farm in Kansas to buy our fireworks. Steve goes there every year because the fireworks are half the price of fireworks around here. The kids lit some stuff off last night with their cousin from Iowa. We are having a little party on the 3rd and some friends of ours have a huge shin-dig on the 4th! They get huge gi-normous ones from Missouri, probably a few thousand dollars worth! Crazy, but the kids love it! I could not justify spending that kind of money on stuff you just blow up!
Zach left for Boy Scout camp the day we got back from the Ozarks! He was gone for a whole week and came home with tons of mosquito and chigger bites. He had a blast. The last night they were there they had a huge storm, so he came home all wet and muddy. All his gear was all wet too! It was such a mess!

Well, gotta go for now, everyone have a safe holiday!