Cookies and dress up

Some of the funnest things in life are cookies and dress up! So here is our little girl decorating cookies and playing dress up. I was very impressed with her fireman outfit. The soccer socks look like boots and then finding all red clothes and rolling up the capris so the "boots" would show! There was absolutely no help from me and it is very cute.

Folk and Bluegrass festival

We were excited to once again go to the free Folk and Bluegrass festival this summer! I loved it. Will liked it but wished there was more bluegrass and Elsie was miserable! She was hot and possibly a little sick so it makes seance that she was not happy. But the sickness started there and we did not recognize it very well. Oh well I had fun and it was all free. Elsie has started hiding from the camera like the shot below where she will not open her eyes!

10 years!!!!!

We do not look that old right? But we have been married for 10 years now! We had a great day. Will brought me home these flowers and then we went out to eat and to see Wicked the musical. We had a baby sitter here that was amazing and did so many fun things with Elsie and so she had fun too. It was a great anniversary!!!

A fun summer day

Will and Elsie came up with a fun game to play with the blow up pool in the backyard. Basically it consisted of running up the hill and then back down it and jumping into the pool. Here is a video of it...and then a few photos of Will actually taking the plunge and falling into the pool too. Elsie loved it!

July Fourth

For July fourth we went to a parade! It was so fun and Elsie got a ton of salt water taffy...a lot of which I have just thrown out. I can't remember but I think Will went to play golf with his father and brother while we were at the parade with grandma. Elsie made the hat she is wearing in Spanish preschool, which she was excited to wear, but it soon came off. We saw lots of bands and floats as well as some military veterans. What an amazing thing to live in a country that has so much freedom and has been that way for so long. 

We left a little before the parade ended and headed over to the pool at grandma's condo. Elsie loved swimming and we had a great time. I honestly don't recall what we did for the rest of the day I guess just hung out. This is the problem I run into when trying to blog a month or two later but I have a good excuse this time. The external hard drive that we had out photos on crashed and we did not have all of them backed up so we had to send it away to get it all back! It was sad but they did a great job and to my knowledge they got it all back.

Swimming lessons

Elsie has taken swimming lessons from 3 different teachers this summer. First we had her in a small group lesson and then we arranged with two different teachers inexpecive private lessons. I only have pictures from two of the teachers but I guess that will have to do. She also got to go down the slide at the end of one of her lessons. It was funny because she was actually quite terrified to go off the end but she kept doing it so I guess it was not that bad. Oh and she can swim!!! All those lessons paid off and she can swim now!

Girls Hike

A group of ladies I know got together at the beginning of the summer to go for a hike. It was a fun hike until the end and then it got steep and we had to take a lot of breaks. But I still liked the work out. The waterfalls were so pretty at the top. After we were down we went to get some lunch together too. A great morning activity. 

Summer music camp

At the beginning of the summer Elsie took a music class for 2 weeks. It was a fun little camp and she learned some fun songs and some basic scales and rhymes. She loved it. But sadly she can not do it this fall as the teacher is doing it when she will be in school!

Is that grandma??

Will's mom invited us to her work summer cookout and it was really fun. She was in charge of game and so when they did the pie eating contest she got to participate!! It was so fun to watch and she almost won! She was definitely got the sliver metal.

The friend Birthday Party

Elsie had such a fun friend birthday party! At least we think she did I hope the kids went home happy too! She wanted to do a royalty party. So Kings, Queens, Princesses, and Princes were all at her party. That is to say a bunch of little kids came over and had crowns and robes and lots of fun stuff like that. We had a royal treasure hunt, a castle pinata and cupcakes. And this time I let people bring presents. I figured that she had been to enough parties where kids got presents so I should let her have a turn!