Take me to the river....

So we made it out to the river today on my cousin Mikenna's mommy's boat. They have a huge pontoon boat which was great for all of us and we had a fantastic time with everyone (such a fantastic time that I threw one of the world's greatest tantrums when it was time to pull the boat back out of the water because I WASN'T DONE RIDING YET!!!!!). We pulled over to shore at one point and played with rocks -- Harrison managed to try to take a header into the water but luckily those life jackets come with handles on the back so Mommy caught him before any serious injuries occurred. Abbey must think she's a fish because she loved the water and probably would have just kept walking into it if her mommy hadn't stopped her. It was a great afternoon on the water and we had a really fun time with all the cousins. Mommy & Amy are looking forward to taking a day off tomorrow and not doing anything and actually having 'nap time' for the little ones. We're headed over to Mikenna's house tomorrow night for dinner and fireworks (I think Harrison and Abbey are staying home with a sitter)! I just love having Abbey here!

Fireworks and Following the Yellow Brick Road

It may be a tad early for 4th of July fireworks, but a lot of people in town were setting them off in honor of the quasquicentennial, so Daddy got a few for us to enjoy too (Mommy & Amy were a bit nervous because they've never lived somewhere where you're still allowed to even have fireworks....so they stayed up on the deck while Daddy lit them). Mommy should have taken a picture of Harrison's face with this one. If you want to make a little boy upset, take a firecracker that looks like a truck and blow it up! They thought I'd like this one, but I was just really mad that the truck had been set on fire!

As exhausted as we were after all the town's festivities yesterday, we decided to head up to Aberdeen to visit a park called Storybook Land. It's a huge park where there are lifesize reproductions of all the kids stories like The Wizard of Oz, Captain Hook, the Old Lady who lived in a shoe, etc. We followed the yellow brick road through the park and saw a lot of fun neat stories, slides, animals, swings, a carousel, and this balloon ride that takes you up in the air in a spinning tea cup type basket -- Mom, Dad & Amy weren't exactly thrilled with that ride, but us kids thought it was pretty fun!

This was me afraid to drink out of the lion water fountain!

Daddy and me inside Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater (who had a wife and couldn't keep her)'s pumpkin...

Daddy and me sliding down the hickory dickory dock clock...

Abbey sliding down the slide on Captain Hook's ship. She went down the slide by herself for the first time (Mommy was at the bottom to catch her). Corey tried to catch her once but Abbey got scared of him and managed to stop herself mid-slide and try to climb back up to her mom! It was pretty funny!

Abbey loves to swing and was so excited when she saw these. Harrison was not impressed with the oversized gorilla that was holding up the swings so he didn't last long in there!

The Yellow Brick Road...

We had a really fun day and even got to end it with a trip to Target and dinner at McDonalds before heading home. Today Mommy and Aunt Amy are planning on taking us out to the river to go out on my cousin Mikenna's boat!

Abbey is Here!

I'm so excited to have my cousin Abbey here! She and Amy got in really late Wednesday and I knew they were coming while I was asleep, so I was so happy to wake up Thursday morning and find her playing downstairs! Luckily, she seems to like me and Harrison is being nice to her too, so everything is going well so far.

They may have thought they were coming to small town rural America and not much would happen, but boy were they wrong! Thursday night after getting us to bed and sitting down to watch a movie, the tornado sirens started to sound and a big storm started rolling in. They were pretty close to coming to get us up and then the storm started heading to the south of us. Us kids missed the whole spectacle. Once they knew the severe stuff was not on our path, they stood outside and enjoyed an amazing lightning show. They tried to get a few pictures of it all...in the last picture, it looks like it's daylight but that was just the bright flash of lightning! -- you can see it in the reflection of the windshield...

This weekend is the 125th celebration of Gettysburg, so the adults headed out last night for the all-school reunion while Jenna came over to babysit us. Today was the parade and this time, we all got to ride along! Abbey, Harrison, me, Mommy & Aunt Amy rode along and helped pass the frisbees to Daddy and Justin (he's running for one of the House seats) -- they walked alongside the float and handed the frisbees out. It was a fun day to be out but it was really windy. This is us getting the float ready before the parade began...

Once again, we were in the front part of the parade, so after we finished, we hopped off and sat with Grandma & Grandpa to watch the rest of it and get yet another bucketful of candy!

This is the float for Brown's Commodities -- Grandpa's office sells insurance and commodities. There's a funny guy in the office who runs the commodities who put together the float for the office -- he had a guy dressed up as a bear and one as a bull (I must not understand the markets very well because when Grandpa put the bull hat on the other day, I thought he was a goat!)

Tonight the grown ups are going out again for a big street dance (live music, drinks, etc, all down on main street). Daddy thinks this works out perfectly as a way to celebrate Mommy & Daddy's anniversary (it's today! Happy Anniversary Mommy & Daddy!). Mommy says he still has to take her out to dinner :).

So it's been an exciting start to baby Abbey's visit and we love having her here. Harrison even enjoys having her around (as long as he doesn't try to play with his trucks...then he just puts his hand out to her and says "no, no, baby...no, no, baby"). They're here for another 2 weeks and we're all looking forward to things quieting back down again after this weekend. We'll check in again soon!

I almost forgot the really BIG news!

Mommy is hesitant to share for fear of anything going wrong in the next few weeks, but we're hoping that crossed fingers and lots of prayers will only help: We finally have a contract on our house in Oklahoma!!!! The offer came in last week and the couple accepted our counteroffer, so if all goes well, in a few weeks, we'll have a nice SOLD sign to celebrate!!!

Another Busy Week

This first picture pretty much describes our week -- we were exhausted! Our church had Vacation Bible School this week and Mom was there to help out since it will fall under her job duties in future years. They had a daycare room there for us younger kids and luckily this room was staffed by a few junior high kids, including two of my favorite cousins - Jenna & Luke!

Harrison gave up his nap everyday this week since VBS was in the afternoons, but he managed pretty well and even managed to catch a quick snooze on the floor or in the stroller each day. A lot of days we would both fall asleep on the walk home in the stroller, as is evidenced by the picture. The week itself was fun, but it was a bit of a change from our normal routine so we were pretty tired by the end of it all. No rest for the weary (or the campaigning!), though... Friday brought a dinner for Mommy & Daddy and Saturday brought yet another parade (I won't keep repeating myself every week -- they threw candy, we loved it, Harrison loved the trucks, etc.) Daddy of course was a hit because this time he was passing out frisbees with his logo on them! Luckily, Daddy manages to end up in the front of these parades, so when he gets through he finds us and watches the rest of it with us...

We came home and played with our pool on the deck (I say played "with" instead of played in, because Harrison and I both spent most of the time playing with the water from outside the pool). Mommy & Daddy got back to work on remodeling the office and managed to get some sheetrock up on the ceiling (thanks to the added help of Aunt Chelle and Uncle Rick -- THANK YOU!).

One of Daddy's cousins came to town this weekend with his 1 year old daughter and I had so much fun visiting with her -- although she did make a lot of funny faces at me when I'd get too close!

We had a nice picnic lunch today with Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa today after church and then Harrison & I both fell asleep at Grandma and Grandpa's house....so Mom & Dad left us there and headed home to work on the house while we napped. It was a great afternoon.

And now the exciting countdown begins because my cousin Abigail is coming on Wednesday night!!! I'm so excited that I literally gasp and jump up and down everytime Mommy talks to me about it. We can't wait and we hope they have a very safe, sane and easy trip out to us!!! Good luck Aunt Amy!

Can you say Quasquicentennial?

This is an exciting year to have moved up to Gettysburg. Our town and a lot of the surrounding towns are all celebrating their 125th Anniversaries. And just about every town's celebration includes a parade -- this is convenient for someone who may be running for office because they can get lots of publicity in each town by going through the parade as a floating advertisement :). So we headed to a town north of here for our first of MANY parades this summer. Luckily, we are at the perfect age for this. You see, all the people on the floats and in the cars or on the tractors throw CANDY! Harrison and I just squealed everytime they threw candy and ran around collecting it. We cheered for Daddy when he went by and then got to go play on the moonbounce, pony rides and everything else. Harrison was not at all interested in riding the real ponies, so he just climbed the fence and watched me and then headed to the safety of the miniature carousel. He did however love the moonbounce and all the food vendors! I had my first snow cone and Harrison kept himself entertained with a bag o' donuts... It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun. Good thing we have another one to go to next weekend!

When we got back home we took advantage of the great weather and broke out our new sprinkler. Turns out, Harrison doesn't like that very much either! He was interested in watching the water spray and would bravely reach out and touch a stream of water if Mom or Dad was close by for support, but really really disliked it if he got caught in the water!

We had a really fun day yesterday celebrating Father's Day. We let daddy sleep in and then made him a nice breakfast. Grandma & Grandpa kept us while Mom & Dad went to church which made for a relaxing morning for him...then Grandma cooked us all a yummy lunch. Mom put Dad to work for a little bit in the afternoon painting the office, but Daddy does enjoy such projects so it's not that mean of her. Then they had a steak dinner and watched a movie. No pictures, but it was a great day and we tried really hard to make sure Daddy knows just how much we love having him for a daddy! Happy Father's Day Daddy (and Grandpa & Pops!) You guys are the best ever! We love you!