Our Summer in a Very Large, Loooong Nutshell!

 We ended the school year by raising two caterpillars named Buffalo and Wild Wings,

 until they emerged from their chrysalis as butterflies.

 Ironically, Wild Wings was born with a broken wing, but the still managed to fly away.

 And we bought 750 pet lady bugs off of the internet because the one Noelle found, fed, "potty-trained" and lovingly named Polka-dot died at the pool in a tragic swimming accident, so it seemed very necessary to buy 750 more. She tried naming them all, but gave up after about 45.

 Then we entered our school's end of the year walk-a-thon cake decorating contest. We were pretty sure we were going to "stomp all over the competition," but our french bread shoe cake with licorice laces lost big time. We had fun a lot of fun making it together though!

 Then we said our good byes to our favorite teachers in the whole world!

 They made this year so special for my kids, and I'm so thankful for both of them, so thankful that I cried at different times throughout the year while volunteering in their classrooms and watching how wonderful they were with my children.
And with our good-byes to Kindergarten and 1st Grade, summer began...

 Let the partying commence...

 We went camping a couple of times.

 I got stung by two wasps in both knees at the same time. Then I kept Robert up all night worrying that the bee venom was going to my heart, or that our baby would be born like Spiderman, only bee-ish. He's probably not going to take me camping again.

 We went to a WWII Museum in Idaho.

 Grandpa Curry came for a visit, and we spent the day swimming at Triple Play

 And the weekend  partying at parks.

 Robert and I even shared a romantic dance in a random ballroom.

 And speaking of dance, Noelle had her first dance recital, a jazz routine to "Under the Sea."

 And then she bit her toast into the shape of a hippo and ballroom danced all around the house with it. Stanton and Winston bit their toast into flying squirrels and flew them up and down the stairs.

 We took a tour of a dairy farm and LOVED it!

 Stanton made friends with the calf. It needed a friend cause it's calf brother had pneumonia.

 Then we tasted their milk, which comes out of them very warm. Lucky for us, we got a pre-refrigerated drink and not straight from the utters.Then I told them how when I was their age my Dad told me that strawberry milk was made by milking the cows so much that their utters bleed. I believed him.

 Then we played around in a wheat field we found.

 And by then it was time to celebrate Daddy's 33rd birthday! Happy bday handsome!

To celebrate we went to a Nerf gun battle field and very intensely wasted the competition, who happened to be a bunch of kids and teenagers. We were the only adults playing, and I was the only pregnant person playing, but also the toughest. My foam dart assassin skills greatly impressed Robert, mission accomplished!

We had a day of play at the gymnastics place. Winnie is becoming a master on the pummel horse.

 We had a few theme days...Watermelon Day with boat races, watermelon clay and painting and of course,

 Watermelon cupcakes and smoothies!

 We also had volcano day, which was a big hit!

 We recreated Pompeii on our floor.

 And then we had money day with our friends. We cleaned pennies, made money with our faces on them, learned about savings and took a bank tour (on the same day I just happened to have overdrafted my checking account.)

While our friends were still in town visiting us from Arizona, we went to a bounce house,

and a strange concert where I got to lead a dance next to a folksy lady in a hat who sang songs about how her mom made her eat worms.

We also picked strawberries a couple times, our favorite!

And things got "berry" romantic out in those strawberry fields!

We had a rocking Fourth of July where we made a flag cake, took a carriage ride, made homemade face paint and watched the most excellent firework show of our lives!

 We also went on many walks through the Arboretum, one of the most beautiful, peaceful places in the world...when we're not there making noise, making leaf boats, climbing trees and having crab apple wars.

We invited all of our friends over for a water party, and I got a little competitive on the slip and slide. I didn't do so bad for a middle aged pregnant lady.

My pinaqua was the highlight. It's a water pinata, which is a fancy way of saying a grocery bag full of water that kids can hit with a bat.

We spent almost every Saturday at the lake. It's our happy place!

 We've turned into country kids, catching critters. The turtle scratched Noelle, but it didn't even phase her.

 We scoured the lily pads for the legendary head-butting monster fish, but all we found was a good time.

But Stanton found a bunch of frogs!

 Noelle's art really blossomed over the summer! She was constantly creating. One of her masterpieces was a drawing of a fly trap with glue dumped all over it. It actually caught two flies. Stanton was impressed!

She made a lot of nature art too.

But painting is her favorite. She tried to recreate Picasso's "Le Fleur de Mains." She drew it first and then painted over it and signed it By: Noelle Curry and Picasso.

She did the same thing with Van Gogh's "Starry Night." I love her versions even better than the originals, but then again I'm partial to her art.

Then we went to a recycled art exhibit in Couer d'Alene and snuck IN one of her masterpieces and left it there as part of the exhibit since she's always  wanted to have her own art displayed in a museum. She was pretty thrilled about it because recycled art is her favorite!

She also put on a magic show for us because she told us she wanted to make sure we knew there was more to her than just an artist.

This summer we also got to go on a family trip to California and Arizona and had the time of our lives!

We could not even get enough of the ocean!

Stanton was a magnet to his boogie board.

The big boys caught some waves too!

We dug up sand crabs and buried Noelle!

And we went to DISNEYLAND!!!!!

Winnie met Winnie, and it may have been the highlight of his life!

We made it on every single ride!

And when the clock struck midnight 16 hours later, we were still at Disneyland, and I found a real princess!

We spent a lot of time hitting up some of our favorite spots on Balboa Island!

And our Balboa hippo cookie tradition lives on!

We had a non-stop blast with Robert's siblings and their families in California! They are the best people around! Man, I love them all!

Back in Arizona, I  wish I would've taken a hundred more pictures of our visit cause there is nothing like being reunited with all of your best friends that you've known since you were born!

It doesn't matter if you're washing cars for a good cause in 117 degree weather or playing at a pool party. Fun with friends will always be had! I love all of these kids together!

When we got back home to Spokane, Noelle dug through the trash and invented a fortune telling robot named Ba-da-beep-bop that sprays silly string at you as he spits out papers with your future written  on them like, "You will meet a handsome stranger" or "You will have oranges for dinner." He's been a nice addition to our family!

We made our way back to the farm.

We spent a couple hours out there picking.

Our last stop on the farm was the famous pea pit, so Winston could make "pea angels."

And Noelle could get buried for the second time this summer. She had so many peas in her ears when we were done.

 We had a Primary activity where all of the kids got called on missions, and after getting trained at the MTC, they learned about their different countries from people who served there, and then visited a gentleman from our church who we haven't seen in a while.

 Howard, a WWII Veteran, happily let them in and after they sang for him and brought him treats, he told them about the planes he flew and showed them his wood carvings. It was an incredible experience!
By the kids were hugging him and inviting him to church. He was happy, and of course, I was crying!

 A couple weeks later our children's service club, Big Hearts, Little Hands put together care kits for foster children.

Everyone had so much fun picking out special things to go in each different kit for different aged girls and boys!

My baby Winnie turned 4 and had a pirate birthday! We went on a pirate cruise around Couer d'Alene lake where real pirates played games with us and sword fought. They even let birthday boy Winston be their first mate.

Then we had his pirate party with his scallywag buddies.

 We had a pirate treasure hunt for buried booty!

 And played "pin the mustache on the Winston" and cracked open the pirate ship pinata.

And our birthday boy's dream came true! He got his very own "pea pit!" (It's actually a bean pool. Dried peas are hard to come by.)

Robert and I wore horse masks one day. That was fun and it inspired me to refer to Robert as my stallion for the rest of the day.

For my birthday we went on a tour of a bison ranch. The bison wrapped their giant tongues around our wrists like bracelets. It was so cool in a gross way.

And since it was my birthday I got to make everyone pull over on the side of the rode and take pictures whenever I felt like it.

We also took a summer day trip to Grand Coulee Dam. I've always wanted to go on a dam tour and have a reason to make dam jokes non-stop!

It was pretty amazing!

We all were very into the experience!

 We had the greatest time getting to know these wonderful Myanmar refugee women, and helping to teach  them English. One of the most memorable parts for me was after I did the around town lesson about food, giving them their first cheeseburger. They loved it, and Stanton, Noelle and Winston got their kids hooked on McDonalds!

 We had some end of the summer fun with our amigos feeding the Recycle Goat our trash, seeing an IMAX and playing on the big, red wagon.

And of course getting in one last round of goofy golf.

And on the last day of summer we partied hard by stuffing bowling balls down our shirts to look like pregnant Mommy.

And laying on the dirty bowing alley floor, watching the balls crawl down he lane at a snails pace.

Winston celebrated the most over his strike and two spares, which led to his big win!

And with that, our summer fun came to a close and school began again, along with hundreds of my Mommy tears cried at the thought of my kids growing up. We're moving on to fall fun now and hoping for some snow days during the winter.