To the beach!

 We have had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa here.  We decided to go to the beach. Rhed brought a book to read.  He doesn't like going to the beach.  A foreign concept to me.  How can you not enjoy it?  I think it is heaven on earth.  But at least he is happy if he can bring along a book to read.  Winfield is in the background making a "shelter".

 Dad took the boys out in the canoe.  A river runs into the ocean and this forms a nice bay.  It is good for crabbing and clamming.

 I took Grandma and Grandpa clamming on the sandy area you can see behind the canoe.  We dug up soft shell clams and purple varnish clams.

 The boys continued to work on their shelters.  It was a sunny day and though it was in the low 50's, it felt pretty warm.

 Grandpa lent a hand and gave them some pointers on shelter building.

 Quinn trying out the shelter.

 Winfield in his shelter.

 We roasted hot dogs for dinner as well as marshmallows.  Poor Quinn.  The smoke seemed to follow him and blow in his eyes a lot.

All in all, a fun day.  Any day at the beach is a great day!

January

We had a great time with Ben and Hannah over Christmas.  We celebrated Rhed's birthday.

The boy and his loot.

Quinn helped me put groceries away.  When I came in from the car, he had taken out all the groceries and placed them around the perimeter of the kitchen.  He was so pleased with himself and told he me had helped put the groceries away.

Thanks son!  You are so much "help".

He likes to help put the silverware away once the dishwasher is run.  He first puts everything in groups and then puts them away.

We headed to the beach when we had some pretty nice weather the end of January.

We tried crabbing but only caught little ones.  The boys played with them for awhile and then returned them to the sea.

We roasted hotdogs for dinner over mom's puny but efficient fire.

Then we roasted marshmallows and cooked smoritoes for dessert.

Lots of Snow!

 It has been extremely cold the last few days, cold for us anyway.  Temperatures have been in the teens at night and around freezing during the day.  We have a year membership at the aquatic center and usually go swimming as a family once a week.   My honey and I try to swim laps a few times a week too.  We try to meet up during his lunch hour.  One of us will watch the kids (or kid)  while the other swims.  When it started to snow Wednesday morning, the schools decided to close after lunch.  It snowed a lot overnight and there was no school Friday either.  So we went to the pool Friday so the kids could burn off some energy.  I thought the younger two looked hilarious on/behind this pool island, hence the picture.

Saturday we drove a short distance down the road to some hills so the boys could sled.

 I don't think it snowed much if at all last year.  So it's been awhile since the boys played in snow.

They filled the bins with snow, stomped it down, then inverted and dumped them to make building blocks for their forts.  Yes, I know two of the boys are in shorts.  They actually refuse to wear pants, ever.  They have pants.  But they won't wear them.  And I try not to care.

Both boys trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.

Someone was pretty happy with his large snowball.

Both boys were quite happy with their icicles.

This is a rare sight, icicles on the car.  I think we got around a foot of snow over the last 2 1/2 days.  We had freezing rain over night and church was cancelled today. 

Recent Happenings

 June and July were busy months.  Ryan completed his ordeal for Order of the Arrow.

 Winfield enjoyed his baseball season.

 Quinn loved licking mashed potatoes off the masher but then refused to eat any off his plate.

 Rhed and dad attended scout camp together.  Rhed completed 6 merit badges and had a great time!

 While Dad and Rhed were gone to scout camp for the week, I took the boys on a hike with some friends.  Winfield found a newt.

 After the hike we stopped by scout camp to say hello to the campers.

 Back in March I bought 6 chicks.  I thought they were all hens until, 2 months later, one of them started to crow.  Once he started "bothering" the hens, the ladies moved to the coop and Roosty lived a life of confinement (roosters aren't allowed in our town) in the 4x4 recliner box in the garage.  Ryan wanted nothing to do with bloodshed and asked that the rooster be gone by the time he returned from camp.  With some coaching from Youtube and a blog, I took care of Roosty on the 4th of July.  This is the before picture.

 And this is the "after" picture.  He made a tasty chicken salad.

 Quinn turned 3.

And Rhed's baseball team won the championship.  The last 3 years his team has always made it to the championship but then they have lost that game. So this year was particularly exciting.