Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Riley Giggles

Here is the video that wouldn't upload for my last post. This one is for you Granny - Riley is a large part of the family:)

Summer Fun!

So far this summer has been pretty fun for us (ok me and the girls - poor Jon is working and getting little sleep). We have had family and friends who are basically family stay with us and played our new KINECT. That is right we traded in our Wii for a X-box 360 with kinect and are loving it. I have indoor skydiver, we have had bar-b-ques and played games. It is looking like a good start for us this summer and we have done Jon's favorite PLAYED IN THE POOL!! I don't know what it is about him but the pool is just not as exciting to him as it is to others in the family but he endures for us!
We also started McPherson Ministry Monday nights where we write notes to missionaries, do prayer walks or whatever else the Lord inspires us to do. We set aside the time and do some worship songs, pray and go out as a family and so far it really has been a great way to start a week off.

Me at Paraclete - INDOOR SKYDIVING!!
Tina skydiving.
So Thursday my Groupon for the area was 1/2 at Paraclete so I bought 2 hoping we could talk at least one Lewis family member into going with us and TINA was willing. It was so fun we each had 2, 1 minute sessions in the air tunnel - on our second turn the instructor took us to the top and would fly us to the bottom - it was awesome and a tad nerve racking!!
Before - so ready to go!!
Me thinking I hope this is as cool as it looked and Tina doesn't kill me! We had a kid who was no more than 5 in our group so when I came out I let Jon know Molly will be doing this before we leave - it is going to take a little more convincing I think:)

Playing Quelf - Tina was stuck under the table for one who round
Who doesn't love a game? All 7 kids are right there playing or supervising.
Molly, Riley, Spencer, Mason, Will, Wyatt and Olivia. The big kids beat Jon's new game Portal 2 in both single and double player mode - some even bigger kids (Jon and Brad) stayed up playing it until 1am once the kids were put to bed - Tina and I cheered them on or sat on the couch talking and wondering what was going on with that crazy game!
Pool time - the little kids only like to play/watch video games so long but the pool they could play in for hours until a mortal injury with a rock and the slide.
While the guys talked and kids played during the bar-b-que the ladies snuck out for a few hours and got some pedicures coming home just in time for food, fireworks and some laughs!
Another round of Quelf - don't ask?
Thomas and Kaitlin driving with the Kinect - one last great hurrah before they leave to go overseas for a few years.
Jon trying to beat Thomas - it might have happened??

VBS - I was with the yellow team and I loved my kids and co-leader it was a great week. 17 kids made decisions to follow Jesus! The story time was by far my favorite, the story lady was amazing!! We got in the belly of a whale (sardines, tents, wet towels on the ground and see weed - let your imagination finish the rest) and it made me see the story in a whole new like - I bet Jonah got to do a lot of thinking in that dark stinky place b/c 30 minutes was long enough for me!!
Before all our guest I guess Jon was missing our camping across America so we pulled out the tent and set up camp in the living room for a Friday night movie marathon.
Molly was such a good helper!
South of the Border to stock up on fireworks!! Jon thought it was going to be an awesome place and I didn't want to tell him what to expect - needless to say he was a little let down after all the hype!
Family photo on the hot dog at South of the Border - I got my picture taken here for beach week my senior year with Shannon and Courtney!.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Mr Holder Retired

My high school years were highly impacted by Mr. Holder - the greatest band teacher that ever was. I made some great friends and had some amazing times in those 4 years. We traveled all over for marching band and concert band and were pushed to do our best. This week he conducted his last concert at Lake Braddock and a lot of my friends got to go and be apart of it. In honor of those times here are so pictures that no one said I could share - enjoy!
Every Friday my mom let me have friends over for pizza for the 1 -2 hour break we had between school letting out and us having to get back for marching band on football game nights. But you never knew what was going to happen on trips like the time in Chicago when Courtney let us die her hair from blonde to red!!
Good times! Concerts - graduating - ready to conquer the world!
Our graduation party - we finally didn't have to play p&c for an hour!!
Marching Band - the trombone girls:)
High class ladies!!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Mission Trip??

We had another Strong Bonds trip this weekend but this time for the married soldiers in Jon's unit. We got to go to a hotel that had a water park on site, 3 pools and the ocean!! Jon has taught from many different books like His Needs Her Needs, 7 habits of Highly effective Families and this time 5 Love Languages. Since I try to blend in until people know who I am I get to hear some fun things the first night of teaching - mainly how excited the wives are to hear about this book and the husbands well they get there:) Throughout the weekend I did get some fun questions like - does the chaplain ever get mad? is he like this at home? This time Jon had me teach on quality time since it is my love language and I must say it is much easier to have an opinion on how things are going when sitting in the back of the room rather than up front talking to 60 people! We had couples that had been married 6 months and others celebrating their 13th anniversary and Jon did an awesome job teaching them all. We offered a sand castle building contest but everyone backed out when they realized one family brought a garden shovel - they are serious beach people! The nice thing about married retreats is childcare (for me) and a date night for everyone! We got to go see the Cir De Sole show and Jon even got called up on stage to dance - which he did and went all out. I had good conversations with some wives and we got to see the soldiers and their families outside of the military were everything is at a crazy pace. It seems like every 3-5 weeks we have gone on a trip and it looks like it will stay that way for awhile. If we just keep looking at it as a mission trip maybe it won't seem like Jon never gets a weekend with just us as a family right?
Our little mermaid. Every time we walked out the door Molly said pool. It didn't help our balcony overlooked the ocean and our front door over looked the pool. I think by the end of the weekend we at least got her to understand the ocean is not a pool - only time will tell though.
Molly giving Jon a pep talk Friday night!
Playing at the ocean
Riley loved it!
The best way to start a retreat off - minute to win it games!! Couples were laughing and having a good time. This is the oreo game were you put it on your head and have to get it in your mouth without using your hands. Some people were very serious.
But never fear a girl won this game!

Junk in your trunk - lots of laughing during this one. You have to bounce ping pong balls out of a tissue box.

The games were how Jon started each session - to break the ice and wake people up and then he dove right into the serious stuff.