Do you hear the silence?? Well..almost.

This afternoon, we drove Krysta, Natalie and Maggie up to Camp Kern for the Florida College Ohio camp. This is Maggie's first year for camp so all three girls are away at the same time. I suppose in some ways it will be a nice change of pace around here for the week, but let's not forget the 3 year old little bundle of energy that's left behind. When I was growing up, I lived for summer camp, and honestly, I still get excited on that first day when everyone is arriving...and getting to see the excitement through my girls. I hope it's a good week for the three of them...getting to reacquaint themselves with friends they have met in previous years and making new ones as well. Since Natalie has the camera with her, there won't be any pictures to post this week. But, maybe she'll get some good photos to put on her page. Until then...I'm enjoying just hearing Jake running through the house.

Bouncing time at the JumpZone!

Maggie, Summer, Caleb & LucasJake airborn coming down the slide
He did this over & over & over....
All the kids havin' fun!

Only the first week of summer and it's already time to figure out how to fill up the days with the kids. Today, we joined a group of friends from church at the Jumpzone. It's an indoor play area with about 8 huge inflatable slides, climbing walls, mazes and such for kids to run and jump to their hearts content. It really only takes about an hour of them doing this, before they start getting tired. We ended the fun by meeting everyone at McD's for lunch.

The Beginning of Summer Fun!

 

Today, Michelle, Krysta, Natalie, Maggie and the Jakester, headed up north of Cincinnati to Kings Island theme park to kick off their summer break. They met up with Pam, Melissa and Mackenzie Mayo. They also ran into Kim Saylor and her kids with friends also. While Michelle spent the majority of the time with Jake in "kiddie land", the big girls did several roller coasters although not as many as they had hoped. The temperatures were great...only in the upper 70's with a nice breeze but there were off and on rainstormes throughout the afternoon which caused many rides to close down for periods of time. The good thing is, we have season passes, so we will get more chances to do more rides throughout the summer.

Baby Connor's arrival

Michelle's sister-n-law, Kristi, gave birth to Connor James Benson on Monday night, May 28th. Connor was an anxious little guy and gave everyone a surprise making his debut at the beginning of his mommy's 26th week. He weighed 1 lb., 14 ozs. and is 13 1/2 inches long. So far all seems to be going well, but he has a long road ahead of him. Connor's big sister Katie is anxious to meet her little brother and to have her mommy and daddy home.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It's a Pirates Life for Me!!

Natalie, Hope & Tessa & Capt. Jack
The gangs all here!
Will the real Capt. Jack please stand up?
Jack & Ellen...havin' fun!!
We were anxiously awaiting the opening of Pirates 3! And why wait til midnight, when you can see it earlier? So, Michelle took Natalie and her friends Hope and Tessa to meet up with the Steele family, Mayo family and a few other friends for the final (we think) chapter of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It was a long one, and you had to really pay attention, but it was worth every penny and Johnny Depp did not disappoint as Capt. Jack Sparrow. Fun was had by all!!

End of the Year, 2nd Grade Celebration!!

Only 4 days left of school so Maggie's class had a party! There was cornhole, water balloon toss, jump roping, hula hoops, relay races, sno-cones, chips, ice cold water, cookies and popsicles!! What more could a kid want??