Oakes Museum @ Messiah College

Today I had the opportunity to be a chaperone for the girls' field trip to Oakes Musuem with some of their friends from the ECC.  Here they are in their classrooms, getting ready to load up for the short journey from the preschool over to Messiah College, where Oakes Museum is located.

Alexia, Layla and Hope

Ashley, Megan and Tarrin

The girls have had such amazing experiences at the ECC and have made such good friends along the way!  They have had wonderful teachers, too!  It is hard to believe that Alexia only has a few short weeks left at the ECC and that chapter of her life will come to a close...she is sure going to miss everyone there!  This week, she is preparing to say good-bye to one of her favorite teachers, Mrs. Frank, who just informed the class that she and her family are moving to North Carolina, due to her husband's job.
Here they are posing for a quick snapshot together :)

After a few clasroom pics, it was time to load up and head out...Here is what we got to see as we entered the museum...

The tour was very interesting and the kids did great overall...

Alexia took over the picture taking during most of the field trip...here is a sampling of some of her pics...I think I might have a future photographer on my hands...



Swimming Lessons

So, I mentioned in my last post about how Megan had mustered up enough courage to stand on her own in the shallow end of our friend's pool...well, that began a series of huge "next steps" for her on the swimming front!!

This week, she agreed to allow me to put swimmies on her and learned to swim around without me having to hold onto her!  Woo-Hoo!!  She was so excited and I was finally freed from the neck hold she usually puts me in when I make her come into the pool with me :)

Such a proud moment!!

And, of course, Alexia has been learning all kinds of new tricks in the pool with Daddy, too!

A new level of bonding has certainly developed between these two...they have so much fun together in the pool :)

And, of course, they had to let me know how they felt about all of the pics I was taking...

Yep!!  They are two peas in a pod, for sure :)

Then today, to encourage the girls' in their swimming adventures, a friend of mine who teaches swimming lessons came over to give the girls a private lesson and they did great!!

Thanks so much, Kimberlee...the girls were "practicing" all afternoon :)  They are looking forward to another lesson next week!

Our "Stay-cation"

This week, the girls and I were scheduled to spend the week in North East...however plans changed due to some periodontal surgery I had...so, we postoned our trip and decided to try and do some extra special things here to make it a fun "stay-cation.

The week started off last weekend, with the girls having a special sleepover with their cousin, Autumn.  They had a great time!  They went swimming, rode bikes, had a fire pit, roasted marshmallows, caught fire flies and played a game of hide-n-seek in the dark, while wearing glow bracelets!  It was a perfect night.  As they settled downstairs to get ready for bed...Autumn showed Alexia a new journal that she had just started and Alexia wanted to write a journal as well...
Here was Alexia's journal entry...
"Saturday, July 16, 2011 ~ I was playing with my cuz Autumn and we had fun swimming.  Tomorrow we're going swimming again.  SOOO Fun!  We also roasted smores outside, well actually in the microwave, then we played in the dark and hid with our glow sticks.  It was Awesome.  I love playing with Autumn and Megan."

The girls all slept downstairs together and I slept in the guest bedroom...just in case I was needed.  Once they all fell asleep, I didn't hear from them again until around 9:30 am...it was beautiful.

Then on Sunday, we had all the aunts, uncles and cousins over for a swimming party!  It was another great day...I don't think our pool has ever seen that much action :)

Here are some of the best pics from the fun in the pool!



The 3 "Stars" of the Show, for sure :)



Megan agreed to go in the pool, as long as Autumn held onto her!

Joshy...just chill'in :)

The girls must have jumped into the pool at least 100 times each...

Megan...finally enjoying the pool!

These girls were ruthless with the spray guns...

Poor Matt was almost always their target!!  He was a great sport about it all!!



A special moment among cousins...

Aunt Tracy, giving Joshy some "lovin"

Aunt Steph...joining in the fun!



Autumn was showing the girls all kinds of new tricks...



Of course, one of Megan's silly faces has to be a part of EVERY picture-taking event!

Daddy, making a splash!!!





And finally...the crew who watched the madness from a distance! 

After all of fun in the sun, the girls took a little rest and then headed to her first night of Vacation Bible School....you'll hear more about that a little bit later.

This was a crazy hot week...temps in the High 90's/100's all week...so we spent a lot of time in the pool...Alexia and Daddy even did some nighttime swimming.

One of our most fun times of swimming was when we were able to go to a spontaneous swimming party at Alayna & Grady's house.  Alexia learned how to jump off of a diving board and Megan got up the courage to stand in the shallow end on her own (this really was  big deal...)





What a great group of friends...adults and kids alike :)

On Thursday evening, the kids had their last night of VBS, so I was able to go to Scott's Softball game and actually WATCH the game.  So, I took advantage of being able to take a few pics...Here's my man in action!  They won both games...not too bad, considering they were playing in 100+ degree temps.

So, after Scott's softball game, I headed over to VBS to watch the closing program...the older kids had a competition all week where they could be entered into a drawing to win a $50 gift card to Toys R Us.  In order to have their name entered, they had to come every night to VBS, bring at least 2 friends with them, memorize all 5 Bible Verses for the week and complete all of their projects during the week...Alexia worked hard at this all week long and she was one of seven kids who were entered into the Grand Prize Drawing.  Earlier on Thursday, Alexia was talking about how she probably wouldn't win...I tried to encourage her that she "might" win, but not get her hopes up too high.

Well, it came to that point in the night...and the winner is...

ALEXIA KAPLIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ya think she's a little happy???

Celebrating with two of her best friends!

I was really proud of Alexia and Megan for their excitement about all that they learned about Jesus at VBS...they are already talking about going next year, so I'm thankful they didn't miss it.

Megan had a great time at VBS as well, but did not want any pictures taken...so, you'll just have to trust me on this one!