We celebrated with a few of our friends for the 4th of July. We had a low key BBQ at our house and visited through out the afternoon. Later that night we drove to watch some fireworks that were close by our house. We all sat on the car to watched them. Of course my kids were mesmerized by all the bright colors and the loud noises. They love fireworks!
Pretty much all of my free time from about February- July was spent preparing for girls camp. I did the crafts for our stake camp in Wisconsin again this year. We had a great turn out and the girls all seem to love the crafts. We had an amazing opportunity for our girls this year. Each ward was assigned a country and we filmed our girls for the other country to see and they filmed their girls for us. We asked the girls to answer a few questions and to bare their testimonies. It truly was amazing to hear all the responses from around the world. It was a great thing for all the girls to see that they truly are the same. Even though they don't live the same way, the youth are all experiencing similar trials in their life. Each night we would gather on a big grassy area and watch the movies under the stars. It was an awesome experience! Our ward had Zimbabwe and a woman there beaded our entire stake these cute braceltes. Such a fun memory for these girls to have. Our camp was being filmed the entire time by the church so that added a little stress for us. I was trying to stay out of the cameras way because I did not want to be filmed! They are using the footage for training purposes for future girls camp. The youth videos just released for the new curriculum for 2013 has some of our camp footage on it.
In August my sister Andrea and her husband JC came to visit us. We had a fun weekend with them! We spent two days in Chicago shopping, eating delicious food, sitting in terrible traffic, and checking out the aquarium. This was JC's first time coming so we had a lot to show him. On that Saturday we went to the Arlington racetrack. It was a very big race, the Arlington Million. My kids love to be there and of course it's one of Christian's favorite things to do! We went out that night just the four of us to a restaurant in downtown Naperville. It was fun to walk the river walk with them and stop off at the end to get some treats at Napersweets. Probably my most favorite store here in Naperville!
My kids wait all summer for The Last Fling. We have gone very year since we have moved here and it has become a tradition. Benson was big enough to ride the rides this year so it made it extra fun.
The dragon coaster of course is still their favorite ride! Nothing makes me happier than seeing these two laughing and having fun together. We got a delicious funnel cake and snow cone to share. It was extremely hot but my kids didn't mind at all!
We went out on the paddle boats for the first time this year. It was really fun! I was very nervous at first not being able to strap my wild boy down. Benson did great and only climbed around a bit. Addy helped her dad paddle and steer for almost 30 min of our boat ride. It was very relaxing and fun and something I hope we will do again next year.
Addy started her second year of pre-school the beginning of September. Her teacher this year is Mrs. Buscher and she has 3 other kids from our ward in her class. Addy loves school and wishes she went every day like all of her older friends do. We are excited for this school year and look forward to all the learning and things she is accomplishing! She is a very smart girl and she loves to learn new things. She is very interested in learning how to read. I am not sure how to teach her, but I am trying!
