Here's what we've been up to:

We've been swimming!  This is Rachel's latest trick: handstand under water.

Kyle's been trying to stay warm and doing flips off the diving board (I haven't caught a picture of that one yet)

 

Aunt Diane and Kayla took a swimming class together.  Kayla learned all of the different swimming strokes and even did a dive off the high dive.

I have been loving the views around me lately.  The skies are so beautiful in Missouri.  This was a full moon night.

The weather's been cool enough at night to open windows, and since I haven't had to wake up early for Seminary, this is the view I wake up to.  I literally opened my eyes and ran to get the camera for this sunrise pic out our bedroom window.

Jason had an itch for a fire, roasted hot dogs and dutch oven cobbler.  Yum!

Our garden hasn't been super successful this year, but Rachel was excited to show off our first sight of cauliflower.

We had an awesome Father's Day-- missing our Dad's but with me grateful to have this guy as the father of my children.

Jason's been crazy busy this week.  Working on fixing our van and building beds!  Kayla's birthday is next month, and she wanted a new bed as her gift.  Her bed frame is probably 30 years old and falling apart.  We searched and of course everything was way out of our price range.

Jason decided to build it.  This was our practice bed-   a headboard for our guest room.

Then we moved on to Kayla's bed.  She helped.

Kyle and Rachel even helped.  Really, they did.

Jason did the building, and me and the kids did the sanding and staining.  Kayla chose the black walnut stain.

She is very happy with the finished product.

...and she received her birthday gift exactly a month early.

In other news (are you bored yet?), my goal for Rachel has been to get her comfortable on a bike again.  She got too big for her old bike, but the new bigger one was scary for her because it went so much faster.  But I needed her to be able to ride to the swimming pool, of course.  So we gradually worked up to it.  She rode from our driveway to the neighbor's driveway the first day.  Then two doors down, then around the corner.  Within two weeks she was riding to the pool and riding her bike around and around the block many times a day.  This morning message from Rachel was very satisfying to me:

My goal for Kyle this summer has been to get him excited about chapter books.  He has always love to read, and to be read to, but I thought it was time he read chapter books by himself.  The answer came in Goosebumps.  He loves these books and reads at least one per day now.  He told me he couldn't believe how fast time went by when he was reading these. 

Lastly, tonight was our piano recital.  Here are all my students!  They all did so well, and I very thankful for the opportunity to be their teacher.  It was the first recital for Rachel, Jason, and Aunt Diane.