More August Rush cont...

Last weekend, we went our Gibbs Family Reunion in Boise, ID. We had a really great time with Mike's family. Aaron thoroughly enjoyed himself. He loved everything we did and he's been asking to go back to Boise to have some more adventures. Thanks Aunt Sherlyn for the great time!

Here we are out at Cascade lake. We had a little storm break up the fun for a few minutes. We all squeezed under the canopy. It was pretty funny.

Rudy was king of the canoe. He took most of the kids out for a ride and even took Grandma out for a ride.
Aubrey really enjoyed going in the water. She wasn't afraid to make a splash!
Here she is playing in the sand with her cousins, Eliza and Lauren.
We went to the little town rodeo in Cascade. It was our first time ever at the rodeo. It was pretty fun and the kids enjoyed themselves. Aaron loved watching all the riders. And Connor made friends with some of the local kids. :)

Here's the Gibbs family. Wow, we sure have grown! Below are the new additions from last year. Tristan, and Jake were adopted by Ding and Christy and then we had five girls all born within nine months of each other. Autumn, Eliza, Olivia, Aubrey, and Lauren. (Left to right: Jake, Aubrey, Autumn, Lauren, Olivia, Eliza, and Tristan)

August Rush continued...

Mike has been teaching Connor to ride his bike. He's done a really great job and we're almost there! Connor had a really good run a few weeks ago but has been a little nervous about getting back on the bike. He's just a hesitant kid. I'm hoping that he will be ready to get back on when we get back in town. Connor was hilarious when riding the bike. He stopped to do warmups at the end of the street before hopping back on his bike. His lunges were totally cracking me up.

August Rush...

Aaron finished up the extended school year and really had a great time in school. He did great and seemed to really enjoy his additional school time this summer. I think riding the bus helped a lot! Mike and I have been trying to tackle the landscaping in our spare time this month. Mike's been working on taking out some stumps in the back yard and I've been working on making the front yard look somewhat presentable. We're getting there but it takes time. The boys had fun setting little "traps" for the squirrels around one of the stumps. We have the most amazing birds that come around our neighborhood. So I was thinking it would be really neat to fill up the bird feeders out back to attrack some of the birds. The bird feeders hang on these hanging plant rods and I didn't think the squirrels would be able to get to the feeders. I saw a few squirrels attemping to get the seeds but they just slid down the rod. It was pretty funny. But then they figured they could jump over to the feeder before they slid off. So sure enough, they got to the seeds and before we knew it, we had a backyard full of the neighborhood squirrels. So the boys wanted to set up some traps to get catch a squirrel. Poor Hemmie!

Calling all secret agents...

Aaron wanted to have a secret agent party this year. I really enjoyed going with this theme although I wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull it off. We sort of put the theme around the new Lego Agents sets. While shopping at Target last week, I scored some spy gear on clearance so I was thinking that we could somehow use the stuff for some fun games. We made the black t-shirts for all the kids and ironed on Lego Agents Image with Agents In Training on them. Mike and I were the Agents Trainers. So we told the kids that they had to become secret agents so that they could help protect Aaron's birthday presents from the evil and envious Dr. Inferno. For one of the games, we made the kids shoot at targets on the window and then sneak down into the family room to secure the birthday present without getting hit by the darts set off by the alarms. The kids really got a kick out of sneaking down there and setting off the motion detectors. Aaron had a great time and on his turn, he got hit by one the darts as he was exiting and he thought it was hilarious. It was so fun. Then we went outside for the water balloon launch. We had the kids pair up and we practiced launching the water balloons with beach towels over our badmitton net. Because Mike and I were in on all the action, I don't have any pictures of the party. Bummer... Meanwhile, Mike and I had our walkie talkies and when we were temporarily separated, Mike would give me reports of Dr. Inferno sightings and all the kids would get all quite. Mike would tell us to be on the lookout. The kids really got into it. After training the kids on hitting targets and balloon launching, they were prepared to take on Dr. Inferno. Thus, Mike in the red wig. So, Mike snuck inside while I briefed the kids. We took our position near the bucket of water balloons. Sure enough, Dr. Inferno crashed the party and we were ready for him. Only problem we had was the balloons would not pop when we would hit Dr. Inferno. So just picture Mike getting smacked all over by all these water balloons but they weren't popping. It was hysterical. We ended up targeting the ground near his feet. The kids had a blast. Then we ate lunch. We tried to stay outside for a few minutes but it was way too hot. I felt bad about the black t-shirts. So we all went inside and sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes. At the end of the party, we awarded each kid with a certificate of achievement stating that they were now qualified secret agents and ready for secret missions. A few of the kids asked where the goodie bags were. I just said, hey, what could be better than an official certificate saying that you're a secret agent! Can you tell, I'm an anti-goodie bag giver?

Date night...

Mike and I went to see John Mayer last week. He is an amazing performer live. Go see him. It's worth it! Mike thought the highlight of his performance was when he took off his shirt and sang Van Halen's Panama as an encore song. Ha!

Finally, a cool kid bike...

Well, Aaron's birthday is on Wednesday and Mike and I knew that we wanted to get him a new bike this year. So we bought him last Friday night and hid it in the garage. He has long overgrown his other bike. He's been riding Connor's bike which is a tad shorter than his bike but the handlebars are further away so I guess it's been more comfortable for him. On both bikes, it looks like his knees hit the handlebars. So, yes, you could say it's about time for this new bike. On Saturday, we decided to go for a bike ride but I didn't have the heart to make him ride his old bike knowing that his brand new bike was hiding in the garage. So I asked Mike if we could surprise him a little early. It was really fun to watch him enjoy his new bike. He was a little nervous at first but got over his nerves real quick. Now if we could only get Connor riding!