July is almost over!

Summer is coming to an end...it feels like it slipped away this year, like water pouring through my hands. Declan's summer day camp, called Fruit Camp ended this week. Fruit Camp in our city is a rite of passage for all residents. There are different fruits for different ages - the four year olds are in Camp Apples. The biggest kids are in Camp Watermelon. It was four weeks of fun, fun, fun and I am sad for Declan that it's over. There's always next summer...Camp Bananas!


Here is Brendan discovering the joy of MUD! It has been a wet, rainy summer so far, and Friday was no different. I took the boys out front to wait for Brian to come home and there was a teeny puddle that Brendan could not resist. Sheer joy for him.

Brendan was very interested in Declan's cape the other night...

Declan was more interested in making up his OWN costume...

Last Wednesday was Declan's very first sleep-over-with-a-kid-at-our-house!!! He has stayed the night at my mom's and at Aunt Kathy's but this was the first time anyone except Grandma has stayed the night at our house and it was ASHLEY! Hooray! They had fun and were surprisingly well-behaved (except for the hungry and tired times...)

This is a pic of Ashley as she is being tested for her Diabetes. She has type 1 Diabetes and was diagnosed three years ago when she was only three. She needs to be tested (poked until she bleeds) and get a shot before every meal and at bedtime. She does not complain or fuss or cry at all. It is really amazing.

Declan in the garden one evening...

Brendan on the same night...

The bees LOVE my liatris...

And this lovely rose as the sun went down was so striking...

White echinacea...

On the eighteenth, at my cousin's house on the lake for the beach party to welcome the Gilpins. We didn't take too many pictures that day, but it was a nice time. My Uncle Joe, Aunt Kathleen and their son Jeff drove in from South Dakota and their other son Joe flew in from Minnesota.

On the seventeenth, we went to my cousin Shari's house for their neighborhood's annual beach party for the kids. They have games, bouncers, a giant chicken and a shaving cream fight. We've been to the party before but this was the first year that Declan felt ready to participate in the shaving cream fight...keep looking at the pictures, they are so funny!