What we have been up to

I realized yesterday that it has been over a month since I last posted anything about anyone.
So, I guess we'll go in chronological order.
1. We celebrated Drue's 32nd birthday by going out for sushi and a little bit of shopping without children. It was amazing to not have to be constantly looking out of the back of your head for any escaping kiddos. I remembered that shopping can be a relaxing experience.
And I made Minion Cupcakes.

Minions are from the movie Despicable Me. We think they are pretty hilarious. And they make delicious cupcakes. The end.
2. James got his tonsils out, poor boy. But the good news is that he's doing SO MUCH BETTER without them! He did so well with recovering from his tonsils that D made him a spiderman shirt. And boy does he love it!

 I'm not really sure what he was doing in this photo. But the next one is pretty self-explanitory.

"kszchhhhhhhhh!!!!" is the sound of Spiderman's webs shooting at the photographer.

3. Bill and Kathy, AND JESSE!!! We love having visitors. Especially Grammy and Papa visitors! We loved spending time with them so much that I just didn't take pictures at all. I guess I should work on that. But we did quite a few things with them- The Museum of Natural History and Planetarium, the movies, the Dairy Store, and some great card games, just to name a few. And boy to we miss them already!

4. Ashley went to Girls Camp as a level 2 leader. It was fantastic. And again, no pictures.

5. We took the boys to "the beach". Because we live in Nebraska, believe it or not, we don't have a local ocean to worship during the summer months. The smarty-pants people here realized this, and so every lake/recreation area has a few swimming beaches. I actually really like it. It's the closest thing to Scott's Flat Lake we can get here in the heartland- minus the three hour drive (15 minutes!!!). It is also minus the mountains but let's not dwell on that, shall we?

 James at the swimming beach before we started building sand castles. He LOVED it!!!

Oliver on the grass. He liked the shade and staying on the blanket.

6. A big congratulations to my middle-big-little-brother, Joseph. Or Joe. "Just call me Joe" He graduated from High School in Ft.MacMurray, Alberta, Canada and will be attending BYU-I for his first year of college. That's exciting!!!!

7. My youngest-big-little-brother, Sam, turned 16 and acquired his driver's license. No one is safe.
Just kidding. He's a very responsible dude. He'll be great at driving. note to self: do not drive with him, ever.
Just kidding. Maybe.

8. My eldest- big-little-brother, Jacob, decided to get married! He'll be adding to the family by a factor of one a young lady named Brittany. We are excited to meet her and welcome her into the fam-damily. This happens in August.

9. I ran a 10K just to have something to do and I didn't totally suck. Which is progress!

10. My girlfriend took these photos of Oliver just because she's awesome!

And that's about it.
I hope to blog about July too. Eventually.