Happy 4th of July Week

This has been another busy week for us. Ellie went over to Sybil's house to feed her kitties, which she's been wanting to do for quite some time. Ellie loves those animals. Then Monday night we went and saw a Civil War Era band play on the ISU quad. The girls really enjoyed that. They like to march and since that's what the band played, they had fun marching around in the grass. And then they found a big rock to play on which kept them amused for quite some time.
Tuesday there was a welcome home party for a friend in the ward. He's stationed at Fort Drum, NY but he was here visiting his mom. His name is Matt Mapes and he just got back from his 15-month tour to Afghanistan about a month ago. He has a daughter that is a little older than Ellie and the two of them really clicked. They had a wonderful time playing together. It was very cute. Katie showed off her climbing skills by attempting (and succeeding- at risk of a heart attack from me) to climb up the rung ladders. She's going to be the child that will keep the ER busy, I know it. It's all Steve's fault- he was the same way when he was little! A bagpipe group showed up during the party and put on a neat performance. We all enjoyed that. It was just fun to talk to another military wife that understands how it is to be away from her husband.

On the 4th we took some really fun pictures. The girls haven't felt like "performing" for the camera lately, and Sarah was the only one that smiled the whole time. Either way we thought it was hilarious and we got a couple good ones out of the bunch. For fireworks we just walked down the road where we could see the show across the corn fields. Ellie thought they were great. To make it even better, there were tons of fireflies lighting up the sky and Mother Nature decided to put on a show as well. We had lots of lightning illuminating the sky behind and around the fireworks display. At times the lightning show was more impressive than the fireworks. It was a perfect night.

Today we decided to take the girls out to the corn to check it out. Again, no one really wanted to smile, but we did our best. We figured that the saying goes... "knee high by the 4th of July" and wanted to show just how wrong they are!The website is still giving me issues. I might have to download the pictures from a different computer. Again, I'll post when they site is back up. So far it's been a busy, but fun week. Lots of late nights and the girls were ready to get to bed on time tonight. Me too!