Goodbyes, Fun and Family Time!!

 After we dropped Aunt Natalie off to the airport, we decided to break up the long drive by stopping at Science City!!  It was the perfect place to stop.  The kids had a blast and enjoyed being able to stretch their legs a bit.  Here they are playing with magnetic sand!

 They all went into the tornado tunnel!!

 There was lots of science to be explored!!

 The sound section was fun!!  Beckham made the wind blow the chimes in the tree.

 Jane was the only one tall enough to ride the sky bike!! Poor Beckham was definitely disappointed!

 He had fun making electricity on the Hamster wheel though!

 Elsie fell in love with this fluffiest of bunnies:)

 There was even an outdoor section!  Its such a shame we live so far away from this fun stuff!!  The kiddos had a blast exploring every part of Science City!

 Naturally, the water section was a favorite!

 This summer has been a tough one for Beckham.  His besets friend of all time, Sam, moved away at the end of June.  So we spent a lot of time with him and their family.  They have been the greatest neighbors and friends.  When they left poor Beckham cried and cried.  It may take him awhile to get over this- poor kid.  But I know he will be ok :)

 Here are Sam and Beckham at Twister sports together!

 Elsie and Sam's little sister became pretty good pals too:(

 Here we are with all the neighbor kids at kids movie day!  Sam made a scrapbook for Beckham of their time together and Beckham painted a frame with a picture of them in it for Sam.  They will be pen pals forever, I hope.

 Luckily, we have had a lot of chances to spend time with family this summer! It has been a nice distraction for Beckham.  We drove 7 hours to Mississippi to see Christina and her family!!! It was so so fabulous!! One day we went and fed hundreds of ducks!!

 All the kiddos :)

 We had to do some shopping, of course!!  Here we are at Target and we went to Christina's favorite store for Bargains!!

 Some of the fam on the couch together...Awe!!!:)

 While the bigger girls were usually upstairs playing together so nicely!!

 Here are Beckham and grandpa spending some much needed guy time watching Curious George :)

 We went to this darling farm to watch some fireworks another evening!  It was sweltering hot...but still so fun :) Here is Beckham in the Zip Line!

 Harper coming down this awesome slide!

 The kids watching a goofy chicken show

 We got to see and pet lots of neat farm animals!

 And even ride horses!! Elsie was loving every second of this!!

 I laughed at this picture of Ryan and Terry on the hay ride- haha!! They look like they are truly loving this!!

 At least the kids loved it...

 I need one of these in my house for sure!!

 Here is everyone settled in to see the fireworks!!

 The show was actually very awesome!!!

 These cute kiddos had so much fun together!!

We also had a blast one night at the YMCA pool!!!  It was so fun to see all of Christina's stomping ground!

After we met the guys for dinner at CiCi's pizza!! It was so yummy.  Jane loved chunky Hazel so much!!

Saying Goodbye wasn't easy but hopefully we will see them all again soon!! Once again I forgot to get even one picture of Christina and I together :-/ But, I will at least always remember this fun get together!!

We Love Aunt Natalie!!

 The summer is rolling right along much faster than I would like it to.  But it has been such a blast!! In June we had a very special visitor!!  My sweet cousin, Natalie, came to visit us.  My kiddos call her Aunt Natalie:) I felt very bad that my life was so crazy, busy that week and we had to move forward with it.  But we tried to fit it some fun too!

My kiddos had swim lessons again this year.  And Elsie had lessons for the first time! It was so cute to watch her paddle around in the water!!  Poor Nat had to come with us a few times and brave the heat!!

Jane and Beckham have each made made amazing strides with their swimming!  They are both very confident in the water and it puts me at such ease to know that they can stay alive in the water!!  They even mastered jumping off the diving board without help this year!!

 Jane and I had the neat opportunity to sing the National Anthem at the Knob Noster city fair and parade!!  It was so neat to sing with my daughter! She has such talent and I am so proud of her.  Before we sang, we got to ease our nerves by having some fun at the fair!! This was right before Natalie came to visit.  But I wanted to include it :)

 This was back stage before Jane and I went up to sing.  Elsie loved the flowers they gave us!!  There was a little stage that she was enjoying being a performer on!!

 Here we are the darling...yet rather strange...clowns that were there:)

 There was an air show on base right before Natalie came.  I was so bummed that she wasn't here for that.  However, we were able to go on base and let Natalie see the super secretive and super cool B2 Bomber airplane take off!!  It was pretty neat.  I'm glad Natalie got to see it:)

 Elsie started a little dance class!!  I just had to put this picture in.  I think her tights may be a bit too small- haha!

 We were able to take Natalie to the Liberty Jail!!  It is one of my favorite sights in Missouri.

 It is very neat to hear more of what happened in that jail and about Joseph Smith's time there.

 Poor Ryan had just had a small oral surgery... so when we went to dinner after Liberty Jail, poor Ryan was a little out of it- ha!!

 Little Elsie just loved Natalie and gave her very little peace :)  She loved to be around Aunt Natalie!

 For a fun activity, we decided to tie dye some t shirts!  It was pretty fun and the shirts all turned out really well!!

 Here are the end results...minus Natalie's.

 Just a few more pictures of Natalie giving Elsie some special attention since she wanted to be by her side the whole time:)

 Cute, cute, cute!!

 One night we ordered Chinese food for Nat, since its her favorite!!

 On the weekend, we made a special trip to Union Station!!  Back in the day this was a major train station hub.  It was quite beautiful and there was a lot to do there!

 There was a really nice view of Kansas City!!

 And some really neat things throughout...

 The main reason we went there though was to see this mummies exhibit.  It was pretty neat but a little more morbid than I had thought it would be.  My kids and I are learning about ancient Egypt this summer so I though mummies equaled Egyptian sarcophaguses and artifacts and that it would go right along with what we were learning.  Well... this exhibit was actually just well preserved bodies and mummies.  As we were walking through, I thought many times "I can't believe I am here with my little kiddos...and Natalie!"  Oh well, It was a funny memory I guess.  And I think everyone enjoyed themselves a little:)

To end our time with Natalie we had Smores!!

The week went by so so fast and we had so much fin with Natalie!!  We love her and were so glad to be able to spend some extra time with her!!