this is what it looks like when you don’t duck while closing the trunk door on your minivan. ouch.

iphone pic:

gosh, this feels like the week that would never end.  we were just racing from one thing to the next.  this week should be a little calmer, but not much.  i need a vacation from summer vacation!  not much time for chatting today, but i thought i’d share some pics.

soccer camp….

sweet moments.

getting their swim on.

getting packages.

watching the sun set.

having fun getting clean.

a little too much fun, maybe. 

learning to crawl (look at that chub!!)

desigining a board book.

making pre-deployment to-do lists (yep, he’s leaving again!  for a year this time.).

eating yummy food.

whew, i’m tired just looking at it all.   the kids have been having a lot of fun, and john and i are trying to get the kids ready for his first deployment in over two years.  it has been so nice having him home, we are going to really miss him.  he’ll be leaving in august, and gone for a little over a year.  hopefully it will be shorter since they’re closing bases left & right in iraq (yep – our first deployment out of water!), but we’re preparing for the “worst.”  they have daddy dolls, and i’m making them all books about “daddy and me.”  charlotte is getting a board book (link above), and the three big kids will be getting some neat spiral bound books.  that’s about it for now.  happy father’s day!

fancy title up there, eh?    this is like 1/10 of the pics – it was really hard to narrow it down!!  the first day we were there it was chilly and overcast.  it really perked up after that, though.

it was pretty quiet & peaceful at night.  this is the view from our balcony.  dh & the big 3 making s’mores.

my poor johnny.  his birthday is smack between ethan & kayleigh’s, so i always go easy on his cake. 

okay, so no one probably even knew we were gone, lol!  but we’re back.   we rented a cottage up at farish recreation area for a few days.  it was really nice.  there is only one cottage, so it was pretty isolated.  we felt like we had all 655 acres to ourselves!  on the way home we stopped at the cheyenne mountain zoo.  i’ve wanted to go since we got here, and knew we would have a great chance this week since we were already out that way.  i will add the farish pics later, but for now – here are some zoo pics.  i swear ethan was there, but it was hot & he thought he was being tortured most of the time we were there, lol.  it’s rough being five, i tell ya!

i rented a fisheye (nikkor 10.5mm) with some surprise money we got in the mail (thank you staples paper rebate!).  it is super fun!  i haven’t taken it off my camera since it came at 7:30 yesterday morning!  i think i am going to do A Day In the Life tomorrow with the fisheye (one picture an hour all day).  it looks like a super fun project – and even cooler with a nice wide perspective.   i’d love to say it’s something i will do every month, but no promises here, folks!    but if i were making promises, i’d do it sometime the first week of every month, for the last half of the year, at least. 

poor charlotte in the background, still isn’t 100% steady sitting up!

poor kayleigh had an allergic reaction to some play make-up & ended scratching big gouges under eyes.  it looked pretty bad yesterday … so i’m b&w’ing her!

popping in to add one more silly shot i missed – norah, the make-up artist.