CPK

We had City Project Kids the third week of July.  That is our church's version of VBS.  We do many of the regular VBS things -- Bible study, singing, snack, recreation -- but we also leave the church and do community service projects.  Ben and Mollie Grace were in the same group.  Annie was in the nursery and I do not have any pictures of her from the week.  I got most of these pictures from Facebook.

Here's a YouTube link to a slideshow that was played at the closing program: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ejk9lH5SH8&feature=youtu.be

 Mollie Grace with church friends Caroline and Hannah.

 Preparing to plant a wildflower garden on the church property.  The wildflowers are to attract bees and increase honey production.

 Making banana bread for families at St. Jude.

 One of their projects was at Olive Branch Elementary School.

 On Monday they made no-sew blankets, which they gave to nursing home residents on Tuesday.

This four sixth graders were my helpers -- Ben, Paxton, Maya, and Mac.  We were working behind the scenes doing all sorts of small projects all week.  Here we are bagging all the banana breads (100) that were made for St. Jude.  The five of us went to the nursing home with each group to help those visits go more smoothly.

 We finished the week off with a closing program at lunch on Friday.

Ben was one of five kids that talked about the week.

The Rest of July

July was a busy month.  Two weeks of swim lessons, followed by City Project Kids, a couple of birthday parties, and a visit to Little Creek.

 We were the first arrivals at Ethan's birthday party so they were the first down the water slide.

 One Friday night Ben was invited to Silas's birthday party.  It was a camping themed party and Mollie Grace and Annie wanted to have a camp out in the backyard.  They are watching Netflix on the laptop.

 We stayed out until dark.

 MawMaw wanted pictures of the grandchildren.

 Zac saddled a horse for the kids to ride.  Mollie Grace thought it was so awesome that Zac handed her the reins and let her ride without someone leading her.

 I do not have a picture of Annie on the horse.  She did not want to be on it by herself and I rode with her.

 Ben wanted to have a last official day of homeschooling so he did a little school work on Thursday, typing, Duolingo (Spanish app), and math.

Swim Lessons

Mollie Grace and Annie began swim lessons July 5 and they lasted eight days.  Today was the final day!  Annie was pretty determined beforehand that she wasn't taking swimming lessons and I was worried they were going to be a disaster.  She ended up loving them.  She never fussed.  Her teacher's names was Mrs. Sue.  Mollie Grace could already swim the length of the pool and had passed the Y swim test.  However, she really needed help learning how to use her arms so she took a strokes class.  Her teacher was Mrs. Sandy and they worked on Freestyle, Butterfly, Backstroke, and diving.

 Blowing bubbles on the first day.

 Annie's class.  She was in the middle age wise.

 You can see how much smaller Mollie Grace is than the rest of her class.

 On Friday after swim lessons we made a quick trip to Nana and Grandaddy's house to see MV and Janey.  Ben and Janey performed a few songs before bed while Mollie Grace did tricks.

 Annie joined them for Jesus Loves Me.

 Annie's class went outside today.  It was a big deal that she jumped off the side by herself without holding Mrs. Sue's hands.

 That little black dot in Mollie Grace's head as she does the backstroke.  They swam and swam and swam in her class.

Ben had to hang out at the pool for two hours every day.  He wasn't allowed (by Y rules) to go to the outside pool by himself so when there was a free lap lane he would jump in and swim a while.

4th of July

Since the 4th of July was on a Tuesday this year, we didn't make big plans.  We had a fun time at home swimming in the backyard pool, eating homemade ice cream, and popping fireworks.  A big storm rolled in right about dark so we didn't think we were going to be able to do our fireworks.  All the big displays in the area were cancelled.  However, we were able to shoot a few in our backyard about 9 p.m.  Ben and Mollie Grace had shot fireworks with Cole on Monday night, so we invited him to our house for fireworks on Tuesday night.

Fireworks selfie.

End of June

Here are a couple of pictures from the last week of June.

 These two watered the garden by themselves.

Annie loves to build forts.

I let her nap in her for one afternoon.  She is sound asleep.

Topsail Day 5

Friday was our last day to go down to the beach.  Although there remained a double red flag, on Friday afternoon the waves were much calmer and we waded in the water a bit.

 After lunch we went to the pool for a little while.

 Mollie Grace jumped late on this shot.

 You can tell she didn't want to be left standing on the side in the next picture!

 Annie really wanted to fly a kite while we were at the beach.  We told her early in the week that we would fly the kite on Friday (once the winds from the storm had hopefully died down) so she kept saying, "Friday is Flyday."

Annie wrote her name in the sand all by herself.

We brought Annie's bike along with us but she rode on my bike down to the beach.  It's 3/4 mile ride.  On Friday after lunch she really wanted to ride her own bike.  We let John, Ben and Mollie Grace go ahead of us and made the slow trek down to the beach.  The shuttle driver passed us on a golf cart and told us he was running the shuttle soon.  If we didn't make it down there, he would stop for us.  We did not have to catch a ride on the shuttle, though.  Annie made it all the way down.  However, she still hasn't mastered braking.  When we arrived at the beach, I had to jump off my bike and throw it on the ground and catch her before she ran off the pavement onto the rocks and wrecked.  This picture is of us headed back to our campsite.  I think pedaling back was probably harder because she was tired from the ride down followed by an afternoon at the beach.

Saturday and Sunday were travel days.  We left Saturday morning and headed back to the hunting camp where we spent the night.  Sunday morning we drove home.