Summer Week 8

The kids had a great week at VBS at Faith Arlington this week.  They went every day from 9-12 which gave us time to get some things done.  Kevin was also gone all week to a vo-tech conference in Murfeesboro!

Monday

After we dropped the kids off at VBS, Carol and I headed to Target where we did some back to school shopping.  Then we picked up the kids and went swimming!

Miley heard us playing next door and started going nuts.  She was trying to dig a hole under the fence to get to us so I went and got her so she could hang out at the pool too.  Poor thing got so hot!

Tuesday

Once we picked up the kids from VBS, we headed to Jackson.  This was probably the single most fun day of the entire summer.  We started off with lunch at Casey Jones.  The kids thought the buffet was the greatest thing ever!

Then we drove to Alamo to the Tennessee Safari Park.  We started with the drive-through part of the park.  We bought a bucket of feed for each one of the kids.

We saw hogs:

Emus:

Zebras:

Ava got a little freaked out by the zebras because they were digging into her bucket.  She spent the rest of the safari ride in the very back of the van where no windows could be rolled down.

We also saw deer which Dalton loved!

We also saw the lovely llamas!

After we drove through the safari, we were able to get out and visit the petting zoo part of the park.

Then we got to feed the giraffe!  That was a lot of fun!  You hold the carrot up and the giraffe bends down and wraps his very long tongue around it.  

After a visit to the gift shop, we made our way home.  It was a TON of fun!!

Wednesday

We dropped the kids off at VBS, and we were able to get in our rooms to work and start setting them up.  We only had 3 hours so we will definitely have to go back, but we got a good start.  Once we picked up the kids, we went to our favorite place to eat:  Abbay's!

Then we met Rachel and her kids and Qua and Caleb at the Germantown pool.  I wasn't able to get a picture of all the kids together because they were all scattered and had so much fun!

Of course, we had to stop by Menchie's on our way home from the pool!  It has become tradition!

Thursday

VBS was in the morning.  Then I picked up the kids and we went shoe shopping.  Ava picked out Converse and Elia got Nikes.  We had to buy Elia a size 7 in the ladies!  Sniff, Sniff!  My baby is growing way too fast!  Kevin got home this afternoon, and we were so happy to see him.  We had a nice dinner at his parent's house that night.

Only one more week of summer fun left!  We are going to soak it all in this week!!!!!!

Summer Week 7

Sunday
We went to church.  Ava wore one of her new outfits we bought the night before when we went shopping.  

We came home to find Miley sound asleep in her favorite spot at the bottom of our bed cuddled up around the folded laundry.

Monday-Friday
This was a pretty boring week.  Karen Latimer and I had a 3 day workshop about common core reading to attend.  Carol and her family were at the beach all week.  Carol kept texting us pictures of the beach while we were in this workshop so we sent her a picture of us and all the fun we were having.  HA!

While all the neighbors were out of town and I was at workshops, the girls went to art camp.  The last day of the camp was Friday, and we got to come to an art show to see what the girls did all week.

They painted self portraits.

They took a walk to downtown Arlington and painted a building down there.  Elia painted the old barn.

Ava painted the tree in the middle of the square.

Elia painted the church where the art camp was held.  

They also painted a table of fruit.  Here is Elia's fruit:

And Ava's fruit table:

They also painted a picture of a dog.  Elia's dog:

And Ava's dog:

Their favorite project was the 3-D buildings they colored with chalk and then glued on to the black board with wood glue.  Elia's was very neat and orderly.

And of course, Ava's turned out very abstract:

After the art show on Friday, we went to Michelle's to swim.  The kids had a blast.

They had fun jumping off the side and into the hole of the float.  

That Friday was the day our Arlington Taco Bell opened.  Carol and I picked some up for dinner that night and we had a little Taco Bell picnic in the cove.

Saturday
Carol and I went and got our nails done.  We got this very pretty peach color!  Great summer color!

Sunday
After art camp, Ava had the "art bug" so I went to Michael's and got her some art supplies.  Ava got her ipod and found a YouTube video where a guy shows you step by step how to paint a landscape.

Here is her final product: