Swimming Lessons and More

Though no one's birthday, we decided to do a combined birthday party for all of the kids last week. This was for a couple of reason. First, since no one but Erin had a party last year, we didn't want them to come back later in life and say all of their problems stemmed from a lack of birthday celebrations. Second, it just sounded fun. So we had alot of kids. I don't really know how many, but I guess around 50 including ours. It was really, really fun! We had two big water slides and rockets and games. The boys (Michael's friends) mostly played video games and basketball, but they did make it onto the slides, too. There were kids from about 3-14 and they all had a great time and they played for hours. Instead of a pinata, we just threw candy all over the front yard and told them when the left, they could pick out 10 pieces. I had 2 teenage girls from church come over the help and they were awesome -- in addition, lots of parents stayed so even though it was still a little chaotic, just due to the numbers, it was pretty easy. The best part is for 3+ hours I didn't hear one complaint! We worked it so that even if multiple kids from one family came, they were only invited for one of our children. That kept the presents down to a minimum (which we wanted) and didn't overtax any families with too many gifts. It was a perfectly hot Tennessee summer day and everyone seemed to have a great time. These pictures show the beginning crowd -- but I kept misplacing my camera so I couldn't keep up well with pictures!

Jonathan and Michael have left for Utah and it is so quiet! Michael talks non-stop so that is different and Jonathan, though he doesn't talk so much, is just kind of loud in general. School starts in 1 1/2 weeks here and everyone feels ready. The summer has gone by so fast!