Beachin'

2 day car ride to Alabama, a shirt day at Uncle Rob and Aunt Christy's, another 4 hours on day 3 and we finally made it to Panama City Beach!

My entire family is together in a condo right on the beach and it has been amazing!

We spent one afternoon at Shell Island snorkeling and enjoying more sun, sand and water.

And the next day a group did banana boating and in the afternoon the three of us above all went parasailing!! That was definitely on my bucket list.

We've all made some great memories here together.

We are enjoying our last day on the beach before we all go our seperately ways tomorrow.

And I am trying to imprint the beach into my memory for the long car ride back to Kansas.

Last Week with the Alabama Ammeter's

Tuesday will be the last day in Kansas for the Alabama Ammeter kiddos and we have had such a great time with them during this visit!

Wednesday we took out for Salina, KS where we met Uncle Steve, Aunt Melody, Avery and Elyse at the Rolling Hills Animal Refuge.

The weather was perfect and we had a great time visiting the animals and spending the day with our aunt, uncle and cousins from Ellsworth!

Thanks to the polar vortex, I also doubled my running mileage for the week!  And while it was too cool for any adventures at the pool, all three of the us above had some sunburns that were thankful to heal in the cooler temperatures during the week.  One of the highlights of the week for Aunt Angela was treating the girls to pedicures. After a summer of being barefoot, hours at the pool and running....my feet needed it!  We all agreed that it was nice for a girl to be pampered every so often! :)

This weekend was an all boy adventures with the girls gone to a trip with my folks for a wedding in Chicago.  There were several trips to the pool involved for the boys as well as a movie on Friday. And of course, what's a movie without movie treats?!

Our time with the Alabama Ammeter's in Kansas is almost over, but more fun and adventures are still in store with our upcoming mega road trip to Alabama and Panama City, FL!!

Pontoon

We are still having a great time making memories with the Alabama Ammeter kiddos!

Sunday my parents were gracious enough to rent a pontoon for the afternoon on Tuttle Creek Lake and we had an awesome time on the water!!!

I'm pretty sure I was singing "Pontoon" by Little Big Town in my head most of the day.....

The definite highlight for all the kids was tubing which we spent the majority of the day enjoying.

And I even took a turn with Collin.....this is about the time I probably should I have thought about putting on more sunscreen.  But who has time for sunscreen when you are teaching your son the joy and fun of  bailing off the back of the tube while it's still in motion???

Even with the sunburn and half a bottle of aloe vera that both Samantha and I have used since Sunday....it was such a great day!

What Summer Should Be

We have been enjoying our summer a great deal!  And it is even sweeter knowing that last year instead of doing many of these things, we spent two weeks in the hospital with Chad and Collin....so going on adventures, spending time with cousins and just going to the pool has been that much sweeter!

Collin finished up T-ball this week and was excited to have his cousins there to watch his last two games.  We are still working on focus....standing in the outfield and not playing in the dirt was a task we didn't quite overcome this season, but he did enjoy batting and running the bases. :)

And after the game Monday night, I brought Samantha and Alison home with me for a girls night!  We had some movie snacks and watched Catching Fire.  The girls LOVED it!

The movie was so good, the girls and I didn't notice the huge storm that was going on while we took in the on-going struggles of teenagers in the Hunger Games.  But the next morning we had quite a mess of downed tree branches to tackle at both our house any my parents.  The extra man power of the Alabama Cousins sure came in handy. ;)

We've also found a few ways to beat the heat this week during the afternoons at the Discovery Center and going to yet another pool to check out the awesome water slides at Northview.

And yesterday we journeyed to Lincoln, NE with the whole clan.  My dad had a appointment with a cardiologist so we made a short day trip with them.  First we introduced the all the kids to the wonders of Valentino's Pizza.

Then I took the kids to Morrill Hall!  I haven't been there since 3rd grade and I knew with all the fossils/dinosaur this would be a huge hit with Collin and fun for all of us.

 I love that this summer I am able to post lots of pictures of summer fun, antics and family time together instead of pictures from a hospital room like the summer of 2013.  While we were immensely blessed/grateful for the outcomes for both Chad and Collin last year, it was also hard for me not to keep thinking about what the summer should have been.  We are certainly not taking this summer vacation and it's fun/normal routine for granted!!!

We are really enjoying this time with Samantha, Alison and Jacob and I am so glad to have them hear during a time where we can spend some quality time making memories together.

Family on the 4th

For the first time in almost a year and a half, my siblings and I were all together with my parents over this past 4th of July!

We enjoyed our family time together a great deal and it's an added bonus that Great Grandma Craney now lives in town so she could enjoy all the time as well without the long drive back to Peabody.

And now we get to have two weeks with our nieces and nephew from Alabama....girl time for Aunt Angela!! :)

We are loving our summer time fun together!!!

They Can't All Be Great

In an effort to keep things real, I'm going to admit that every day of summer break can't be magical...or even great for that matter.

  Like running. Running has been less than magical for me, basically all summer. But I sucked it up and ran double the miles in June than I ran the previous month. No magic in these humid miles...

And boy was today one of those days of summer where our little man above chose to do most things the hard way. His strong spirit and will can be such a huge attribute and sometimes his biggest hurdle to overcome.

But with some deep breaths, we made it through our day. And thank goodness for the fun and fellowship at VBS! Even with how the day had gone, I tempted fate at bedtime and started reading a new chapter book tonight (with much protest). Collin just new he wouldn't like it because there were no "great pictures like in his dinosaur books." 

But after the first chapter he was hooked and begging to hear more.  A small but still sweet moment to end a not-so-great day of summer.