Flowers, Bounces, and Great Big Grins: I need to do better with more frequent, shorter posts.

These occasional, insanely long posts aren't ideal, are they? *SIGH* Summer is a busy time with canning, park trips, zoo trips, museum trips, out of town guests, and whatnot. So ... you get yet another long catch-up post of pictures from about the last 3-4 weeks. I really will try to do better!! Maybe once we're more rigidly scheduled with school and all that?

Lily and Gregory have SOCCER TEAMS! They had their first pre-season practice/clinic this past weekend, and things went really well. Both kids worked hard and fit in just fine with their age groups.

These two somewhat grubby kids were snuggling together while Lily played Doodle God on mom's iPod. The kids' feet and legs have been grubby like that all summer because of a favorite activity for the three of them to do together: Super-Spins on the old baby swing under the maple trees at the old house!

Our very good friends from Rochester, the Cash family, came to Michigan to drop their older daughter off at Hillsdale College, and they stopped over for a night to see us. We had a wonderful time catching up with them, and our kids are STILL talking about their two nearly grown-up girls. We are so glad we got to see them!

Aaaahhh, our lovely Grand Rapids Public Museum. How we love to spend a morning there! Henry just can't get enough of that little green car. It's just about the first thing you see when you arrive at the museum, and he always gets SO excited! And I always get a kick out of the sign on the time clock in the Furniture City exhibit. No Loafing!

In the Furniture City exhibit at the museum, we saw a man demonstrating the use of a lathe in the little display workshop. The kids watched him make a wooden acorn, and then he came out to show it to them, and once he made certain that they would share it, he let them keep it!! Wasn't that nice? And on the right, you see a Michigan lakeshore sand dune diorama type thingie. It looks exactly like the terrain you walk through on the way out to Rosy Mound!

Big fun with the bin of puppets and the puppet theater at the museum. These puppets are all left over from the various kid-friendly exhibits they've had at the museum over the years... Dinosaurs, Big Bugs, etc.

Helloooooooo from the playhouse at the museum! And, did you know that some dinosaurs can sing their ABCs? This t-rex puppet at the museum sings the ABCs every time he sees Henry.

We always enjoy a carousel ride!

This fountain is at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. It was a 90-degree day, and we decided to take a walk after our museum visit. We got to this fountain and decided to sit near it so that the breeze could blow some of the spray on us and cool us off. While we were sitting there, a security guard for the museum grounds came over and let us know that it was OK for the kids to sit on the wall of the upper pool and dangle their feet in the water. Oooohhhh, did that feel good on our hot, hot day!