A day at the Temple

Now that Emma is 12 she is old enough to go to the temple with us. We had a wonderful day taking Emma to the temple with us

 

Apple Picking

I found a groupon to go apple picking at Great Country Farms. We took our neighbors Landry and Kennedy with us. 

Beach

We had another fun day at the beach. 

It was a little colder than usual. 

We left a little early to eat dinner. On our way we saw this shop called Auntie M's Emporium just like in Percy Jackson. 

Ice Bucket Challenge

Okay. I know that the ALS Ice Bucket challenge took the internet by storym this summer. 

I also know that I was supposed to post these videos to facebook. I did not.

Here is Emma's video:

Her friend Elizabeth was also nominated. Here is her video:

Happy Birthday Melinda

Happy Birthday to Melinda!! I took her out for a pedicure. 

Later we drove into DC to get tickets for the Shakespeare Theatre free for all. Who doesn't like a free show! They were performing The Winter's Tale. This play has one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions: "Exit, pursued by a bear". Makes for a pretty funny scene.

After standing in line for our free tickets we went out for dinner. It was the middle of DC restaurant week. We went to one of my favorite places, Zaytina. They had a special menu with 4 choices for each of 4 courses plus dessert. Since there were 4 of us we ordered one of each!

Rocks for the park

We got this huge delivery of rocks this morning. It's all for the park. 

Right in front of our house.

CAR Workshop #2

The second summer workshop for C.A.R. was in Williamsburg, very close to Great Wolf Lodge. Emma had a great time participating even more in the skits. Rebekah got picked several times to come up and read a line for them. 

 Here's all the state officers and society presidents.

After the workshop we walked around nearby Yorktown. We went walking on a little trail and found the Yorktown Victory Monument.

Great Wolf Lodge

Clay and I participated in a "biggest loser" competition with some of our friends. Clay won 1st place!! I got 2nd place! 

We decided to take our cash winnings and take the girls to Great Wolf Lodge. The girls love the water park and the MagiQuest adventures. We were having such a good time that I didn't take many pictures. Emma asked me to take a video of her being awesome on the surf simulator. You'll see her looking back a few times, that's because the worker was telling her she had been on long enough and it was time to get off. That's how good she got.

New Furniture

I love my husband. Excuse me while I show him just how much. xoxoxoxo

OK, I'm back. Did I mention I love my husband?

After 15 years of marriage (and much patience), he bought me bedroom furniture. Yay! 

We moved up to a king size bed so I would have a little more room to sleep. 

Now I just need to pick a paint color.

This is the dresser I used to use. It was Clay's when he was a baby. Not sure if it was new or used at that point. Two of the handles broke off and I couldn't find replacements so I had a very difficult time getting my clothes out of those drawers.  

Clay had an old night stand he had been using. When we picked it up to move it, it fell apart in several pieces. He also had a small dresser he got from Alta who he rented a room from when we first met. Whenever he pulled open a drawer it would tip down and spill out all the contents. He had to either just open it just a little and reach his hand in or support it with his knee so it wouldn't tip. We did buy a brand new mattress when we first got married but we just put it on the metal frame from the store. We never got a headboard or anything for it. In our townhouse I had painted a headboard on the wall.

Hooray for finally getting grown-up furniture! 

Hershey Park

After we dropped off Clay, the girls and I drove over to Hershey Park. The girls and I had tons of fun.

 

 The next day we went to the Crayola Factory. I know I took some photos, but I can't find a single one. Somehow they must have gotten deleted from my computer. :(

Luckily they still have some of the cool things they brought home. The girls enjoyed making their own crayon figure (a crayola man and a ring). They also got to make their own markers and watch them being made. We also got to watch how crayons are made. It's a very cool process.

Our favorite was naming your own crayon. They have different colors to choose from and then you can personalize them. We made: Frozen Heart, Emma's Viola, Link's Tunic, Heidi's, and Harry's Firebolt. Emma made another one for her friend Olivia. I think she called it Olivia's Sunshine.

All this was done BEFORE we went into the gift shop. The girls found a cute crayola tin that they wanted. The price included filling it up. They had bins for each color of crayon and marker. Some really cool metallic, neon, and skin tone crayons. We figured out a way to but a divider in the tin and let both the girls pick out crayons and markers to fill it with.