We Need a Boat!

Soon we will need a boat just to get into town! I am amazed at the amount of rain we have had in the past few weeks. It has rained at least every other day, and not just a little! This is what our backyard (which sits on a hill) has looked like during most of these torrential storms.

The water hasn't caused too much trouble yet, but how much more water can we get? Last Wednesday I went to dinner with some ladies from the ward and one of their husband's showed up after driving through the neighborhood and announced "You (pointing at me) cannot get home. Your street is completely flooded. Don't even try to get to your street, that street is flooded as well. You might as well come with us and walk/swim home." Luckily by the time we were ready to go, the drains took care of the flooding and I was able to get into my own driveway.

These aren't just rain showers! These are thunderstorms where the thunder is on top of your house and the power flickers, and the windows rattle. And, if it's not crashing all at once then there's just a constant rumble in between flashes of lightning. Here is a video that Steve just took today of our most recent storm. You get a good shot of our street too!

Chuck E. Cheeses

Last week Steve went out of town for a couple of days and I called up a friend of mine, whose husband was also out of town. We decided to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheeses for dinner. I have never taken the boys there, but they had seen the commercial and were excited. Knowing that they were going with Ethan, their BFF, made it even better! I adore this family and Ethan is 5, going into kindergarten like Ben, they also have a little boy barely 1, so about Brooke's age (it kills me to say that she's almost 1!). We played for 3 hours! We all had pizza and the 5 kids who could play the games had 100 tokens to share. It was the best night of their little lives!
Even Brooke got her picture taken with Chuck E.

Here's a shot of the boys with Ethan.

Ryan couldn't be happier than when he saw all of his tokens, just for him!

Ben is all about the video games this year.

Ryan even spent a token giving Brooke a ride with him in the Kiddie Zone, what a sweet brother!

Brooke wanted in on the action too!

So we all had a great time and the kids played hard. I got them home, threw them in the shower and hustled them off to bed an hour after their bedtime. I am grateful for the amazing friends that I have here in wonderful, wet Wisconsin!

Wisconsin Summers

I love summer in Wisconsin. A couple times a week it seems, we have a big thunder shower in the evening, following a beautiful warm, sunny day. No one has sprinklers because you don't need them. No one has fences, because your neighbors are your friends (we have a fence, but we're not the ones who put it up ;)). We have a nice large porch that we can sit on while we watch the boys play in the rain. I have really fallen in love with Appleton, WI this season in our new house. Now, ask me in February and I my have to reconsider.
The past couple of weeks have been really fun for us now that we are settled after our move and our trip. Ben has been learning so many new things that I am amazed at how quickly he picks things up now that he is 5. He has finally learned how to swing on his own, now that we have our own swing set. (We let the boys play in the rain in their underwear in the backyard)

The same week he has learned how to ride a 2 wheeled bike all by himself! He loves biking around our court and in the process we have met all of out new neighbors.



Ryan is frustrated that he can't quite pick it up as fast as Ben and so doesn't like to try that much any more. But he seems just fine riding his tricycle along the same path as Ben and his Bike.

We have also worked on reading this summer and I am constantly amazed at their capacity to learn. Ben is already 5 pages from finishing his Kindergarten reading work book, and he doesn't start Kindergarten for 7 more weeks! Ryan is picking it up just as fast and isn't far behind, yet he'll still be in Preschool. Every morning they wake up before 7AM and they can come out of their room as long as they sit at the table and write their letters A-Z (Ben uppercase and lowercase, and Ryan just uppercase), and they write their numbers (Ryan 1-10, Ben 1-20). They also have a love of MarioKart on the Game Cube, so everyday before they can play we have our reading lessons. I love hearing them beg me to read with them!
I am so grateful for the blessing of my children and husband, and that we can spend as much time together as we have been able to this year. It's such a sweet feeling knowing that we are where we need to be, and our children are able to be in such a great place.