Okay, I'm a procrastinator. Pretty sure my picture would is next to the definition. Here it is almost October and I haven't caught up on blogging from the second half of July on. Bear with me. Here's part 1 of 4:
Since we had big plans for this summer (that trumped our annual month at the beach) we decided to start our summer month together here in SC. To kick it off we had a colorful birthday party. Ruby is in love with peace signs and tie dye, so a rainbow/peace party is how we helped celebrate the lucky 7.
We ate outside at the Ponderosa (Mom's yard) and even roasted marshmallows around the fire pit.
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| Elle & Lucy eating |
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| Nora loves eating out there and we love the clean up! |
We had some fun party activities like:
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| Ruby & I making gumball necklaces |
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| Writing birthday wishes on a wish lantern (and setting it off after dark) |
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| Rainbow nail painting with Emma, Riley, Suzy, Lucy, Lily, & Beau |
The party decorations:
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| The 3 girls (all 7 now) Suzy, Ruby, & Lily |
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| Ruby in front of the candy table. Lots of colors between the rainbow snacks & candies and yummy peace sign cookies! |
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| The front of the house |
Ruby had a great birthday and we're so glad we got to celebrate it with her!
To continue the fun, the next day we spent a day on the lake. Tutu & Rara rented a pontoon boat for the day and everyone enjoyed cruising around Lake Wylie. The kids also enjoyed swimming in the lake (some of them for the first time). Here's the only picture I took. The kids are swimming around an island to burn off a little energy.
The rest of the week was jam packed with fun. We went to Reed Gold Mine one day. They told us 1 in 5 pans finds gold...0 in 8 for us. Oh well, it was fun! Another day we went to a local petting zoo. The kids got to "pet" animals from goats, horses, rabbits, to a dog, cat, and pig. It was definitely exciting for Nora. She LOVED the horses and kept wanting to pet their soft noses and heads. Guess she'll be one of those want-a-pony kids.
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| Grooming the pony |
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| The petting zoo part |
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Riley playing with the rooster, goats, and pigs
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| Nora meeting Patrick the horse with Rara |
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| Suzy petting the pony |
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| Nora touching Patrick's face |
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| Nora starting to crack a smile. She loved him! |
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| Nora being soft (which can be rare lately!) |
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| The group (with Nora climbing on a horse) |
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| Suzy & Beau "suiting up" to ride |
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| Elle being...well, Elle. =) |
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Hannah (Steve's granddaughter) showing us how it's done. (She 's had horses most of her 8 year life.) We loved having her stay for this fun week!
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| Emma riding all prim and proper. |
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| Nora also enjoyed the rabbits |
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| Lily & Lucy in a bunny cage |
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| Ruby with a bunny |
The week ended with 2 cars making the trek to Sarasota, FL for the beach early Friday morning. Thank goodness for lots of kids to entertain Nora in the car because the drive took us at least 11 hours!
