Summer Update

I can't believe how fast the summer is going. This past week has been a relaxing week with the family and some school prep. It won't be long now until we are back at school, so I'd best be prepared. We have two last trips planned before we are calling it quits for the summer- stay tuned in to catch up on the fun:)

The boys are enjoying a night outside in the tent without Mama. I'm thinking I'll be joined at some point by my child that doesn't sleep through the night... So I've got that to look forward to.

Cullen has hives on his face and chest so he is looking really sweet. We are not sure what caused it but have a suspicion (he was in a pool shortly after it was shocked.) We have given him Benadryl, a shower with "gentle soap" as well as a baking soda bath. I'm not sure it helped at all but it doesn't seem to have gotten worse.

I'll try to post some pictures from this past week tomorrow.

A Great Effort

Saturday morning we had to go and pick up our triathlon race packets for Sundays race. I knew there was a kids triathlon but I hadn't really mentioned it to the kids. I put stuff in the car for them with the thought that if they wanted to do it we would be prepared. I was pretty sure Geremu would want to do it since every time we finish a race he usually ends up mad at us because "You no let me do it". I wasn't really sure what to expect from Cullen.

As soon as I mentioned the triathlon to the boys Geremu said he wanted to do it. Cullen on the other hand was a little hesitant. He told us he was afraid of the bike, he doesn't really like biking around other kids. Honestly I don't blame him, every time he gets on his bike his brother tries to play chicken with him. We really didn't want to push it, I was afraid that if I talked him into doing it and he hated it that he would never want to do anything like it again. So Geremu decided to go for it while Cullen decided to cheer his brother on.

Here Geremu is before the race. We spent a bit of time explaining to him what he had to do so he knew what to do.

Here is a shot of Geremu getting pumped up for his race... As you can see he could hardly wait for the show to get started:)

He started with the swim, the water wasn't too deep and he pretty much just followed the lead of the other kids.We were able to stay with Geremu and help him through the transitions. Once Geremu was out of the water we got his shoes, shirt and bike helmet on him and headed out for the bike. Geremu loves to bike so off he went...

He finished up with the run. As he was coming into the finish line the announcer said, "Put your hands in the air for Geremu". Geremu came to a dead stop (before the finish line) and put his hands up in the air- I wish Nick would have gotten a picture of it, it was pretty funny.

Cullen greeted Geremu at the finish and said to him, "You should be so proud of yourself Geremu!" It was so stinkin' cute, Cullen was SO proud of Geremu. I just love the below picture, Geremu totally looks up to Cullen and Cullen couldn't be more proud to have a brother like Geremu.After Cullen saw how spread out the kids were during the bike portion Cullen has decided that he will continue to practice biking and next year he wants to try the race.

We were just headed over to grab our race packets for the following day when we heard Geremu's name being announced. So we headed over to where everyone was gathered...

Only to find out that our little guy had taken 2nd place. He totally did not understand what was going on when they made him come up for his award and get his picture taken. But after we got away from the crowd and Cullen kept on "graduating" Geremu (Cullen thinks congratulations and graduation is the same thing- that's a whole other story) Geremu started to smile about it all. I could not be more proud of my two boys. Seriously, how did we get so lucky to call Cullen and Geremu our own?

Triathlon

Sunday morning we got up early, REALLY early, in the pouring rain, thunder and lightning to complete in a triathlon. It was the same group as last year (Erica, Curt and Patrick), as well as, a newcomer (Callan).

It was done thundering and lighting by the time we arrived to the park. It was still raining and 62 degrees when we were waiting for our waves to take off (I was shivering), but we could see blue sky across the lake. By the time I had gotten out of the water on the swim portion the sky was no longer black and cloudy but had turned blue.

I was able to snap a few pictures of some of our group members finishing up their run.

Here Callan is just a block or two from the finish. Here Erica is finishing-up her run. Patrick look pretty darn good rounding one of the last corners.

Nick and I stuck together for the bike and run portion, we were in different waves so we started the swim 2 minutes apart from each other. We had a lot of fun and continue to enjoying doing this type of thing together.

Erica's mother, Beth, came to our house early in the morning. When the boys woke up she got them ready before coming out to watch us all finish up. The boys were happy to see her again.
After all the mornings fun we came back to our house for lunch and to enjoy some time together.

Amanda's Wedding

We enjoyed a jam packed weekend, one of the highlights of the weekend was Amanda's wedding. Amanda has been babysitting our boys for some time now and the boys LOVE her. The boys got to the wedding and waited to see Amanda. They had a good time pointing out people to us that they knew and we didn't, "See, there is Amanda's Grandma!". When Amanda came into the church Cullen informed me that, "She looks just like a princes, look at all the jewels on her dress!" The wedding was so nice and Amanda did look beautiful.

Amanda's wedding had a photo booth and if Geremu had it his way he would have stayed in there all night:). Below the boys are showing Amanda the pictures of them from the photo booth.

When the dancing started that is pretty much all Geremu did...

The flower girl was Amanda's cousin, Geremu and Cullen know her through Amanda. It was pretty obvious that both of my boys were happy to see her again. Geremu was happy to have another dancing partner besides Cullen.

Cullen preferred to dance with Amanda...

Honestly, Cullen can't get enough of Amanda, he just "wanted to spend some time with her". We had to explain that it was Amanda's special day and that she needed to spend time with everyone at the wedding. Amanda was/is so sweet to the boys, she kept telling me Cullen was fine and not to worry. Even when I would take Cullen away from Amanda, she seemed to be on his radar all night- LOL.

Geremu enjoyed working the dance floor. If he wasn't dancing with the flower girl or Cullen he preferred to dance by himself. I have to say he did pull out some pretty good moves.

We knew it was time to get going when Geremu stopped dancing and sat on the side of the dance floor watching the action, with this look on his face... He was asleep before we even pulled out of the parking lot at the wedding.

It won't be too long until Amanda is back with the boys on weekdays, and they are really looking forward to it. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Cullen requested that Amanda come to our house in "her princess dress".

Missing Up North

Well slept in our beds at home one night and in the morning Cullen told me, "I miss up north". Can't say I blame the kid it was a BLAST! After my family left my Uncle Tom and his kids came up and we hung out. I also got to spend a little time with my Aunt Janet and her family. I'm a little on the tired side today, I'll blog about our weekend tomorrow, it was FUN to say the least. So for tonight I'll leave you with some pictures of our time up north...

Up North with Family

My sister accused me today of being a bad blogger... She is right, and I'm going to try and get caught up. Our first week up north was spent with my parents, my sisters and their families. Here is a picture of the cousins.

Our boys spent ALL day outside.
And they clearly LOVED every minute of it!

Minnow/frog/craw fish/turtle catching.

Basically anything the boys could get in the net.

Baby Charlie enjoyed his first summer in the north woods.

Andy likes to be a part of everything,

tagging along with the older boys whenever possible.

Meredith was charming everyone, awe...
Johnny and Cullen loved spending the afternoon fishing with Nick.
Enjoying cousin time.
Andy figured out how to chubby-wubby and decided to get Geremu back for the past year and a half.

Up North

We've been up north for a while now. My entire family was up here this last week, they left today. I'm sitting outside the library on my computer using the wireless... I'll write more when we are back home. Or if it rains....