Grandma Franklin's visit

Grandma Franklin got to come for a visit.  She wanted to see Washington D.C., so TJ and the two older kids headed out there.  I stayed home with Bristol because I didn't want to hate her.  No one in their right mind would enjoy a trip to D.C. with this 17-month old - heck no!  The kids didn't want to go at first, but I think they had a good time.  Their first day was spent at Arlington.

Pioneer Day Celebration

The activity day girls put on the Pioneer Day Celebration again this year at the church.  It started at 7, so I stayed home so Bristol could go to bed.  Her bedtime is 7, so keeping her out until 8:30 would be disastrous to say the least!  Instead of making butter like last year, they made ice cream in a bag this year.  Brena said her's was too salty.  It's really sad to think that we won't be here for this next year.

 Brenalee was happy to be in charge of the yarn dolls again this year.

 She loves teaching the little kids!

Geocaching

We have been doing lots of geocaching when we can.  Our goal is to get to 100 finds before we leave Blacksburg next year.  Right now we only have 33!  We have found that it is 9 billion times harder to do this with Bristol!  She is not a very cooperative geocacher!  Somedays are better than others.  There have been a couple caches that have stumped us and it's frustrating!!!  But, then there are the good ones the kids find right away and they want to keep going :)

This one was at a cemetery here in Blacksburg.  Bristol loved this sign and totally thought it was a slide and just kept sliding down it.  She was a little mad to have to stop to take a picture!

4th of July 2014!

After teaching all morning, I came home exhausted!  But, no rest for the weary - it was time to get ready for our BBQ.  We invited a couple of the luteniants over for swimming and dinner.  It was such a gorgeous day, nice and cool!  Everyone had fun in the pool.  Then we had a delicious BBQ.  The Jones' have a smoker and always bring the most delicious smoked meats - I want one really bad!  The Jones' have been here longer than us and are leaving in just a few weeks for Japan.  Jess, another wife and myself always got together Wednesday mornings for tea and talking.  Jess had Alexandria a couple months before I had Bristol, and it was fun to be pregnant together and have our little babies together.  Bristol is having her first little NAVY brat experience of having her first little friend leave - and she doesn't even know it!  We will really miss them.

 Bristol and Alexandria

 Adam, Jess & Alexandria

 The kids and Tj set up the tent and had a sleep out.  I opted to sleep inside in our bed since I was teaching BodyPump in the morning.

 We had a fire and 'smores before it got dark.

 After everyone left - and the kids were running around with friends somewhere else in the neighborhood - it was nice to just hang out with Tj at the fire.

And the sparklers!  Happy 4th of July!!  We had such a great holiday!

LesMills Launch!

Every quarter LesMills comes out with new releases.  We always have a big launch party to debut the new releases.  We decided to do this one on July 4th.  It was awesome!  We had so many people.  What a great way to get the 4th started - getting our sweat on!  BodyCombat 60 was up first!

Then BodyPump 90!

Shooting

Tj had Thursday off, so the lieutenants from the unit planned a shooting event.  The kids wanted to go too, so they headed off to the outdoor shooting range while I went and taught BodyCombat.  The kids have been shooting a few times before, but this time they got to throw some clay pigeons up and they had a blast!
Here is Brena with that big arm of hers (at least there's no windows nearby...)

 Gorgeous day!

Tyler throwing his.