Minnesota Vacation: part 2

Thursday, after lunch, we hit the road and drove to Christmas Mountain Village for some Flaming family time. Remember when we all met there back in 2015? The kids have grown and we have added two more to our forever family.

Here is a THEN & NOW photo

We enjoyed lots of eating, swimming, playing games and overall family time. We were there by dinner Thursday evening and checkout was 10am Saturday morning.

cousins

The Flaming crew

Siblings

The cousins filled up the hot tub.

Another shot of all 21 of us

Some mustache fun!

Anna saw some similarities.....

Minnesota Vacation: part 1

On Tuesday, June 26, we all flew Spirit Air from Myrtle Beach to Minneapolis. SIX people. SIX tickets. ONE flight.  It was awesome! One car ride to MB airport. One flight. We were there!!

Wednesday morning we met the Otto's at the park.  NC friends met VA friends in MN.  Go figure!

There was lots and lots of reading.  Lily & Ella read to Grandma and Grandma read to them.

We also had lots of "tractor" (ie. lawn mower) rides from Grandpa.

Thursday morning Grandpa took us to Valley Pastries for donuts.  The kids even went in their jammies. Go nuts for donuts!

Miss Jenny

We had to say "goodbye" to our sweet friend and AMAZING babysitter, Miss Jenny.  Miss Jenny is answering God's calling in her life to initially move to NYC, do a missions training program, and then she is planning to head overseas after she completes her year long training.

We love Miss Jenny! We are so excited for her and we will be praying for her regularly as a family.

Father's Day 2018

Happy Father's Day to one of the best! You love, lead and serve us so well. We are so thankful for you!!!

We enjoyed our family breakfast followed by LOTS of cards and art done by the kids.  This year, we gave Jake a new travel bag filled with all the extra things he needs to take with him to Haiti.  Jake is doing a project based missions trip to Haiti in July.

Cinnamon rolls for breakfast - yum!

After church, we headed downtown.  We even took a carriage ride.  We've always wanted to do that and we finally did.  We also enjoyed lunch at Dixie Grill, a local favorite.

Lily - 8th Birthday Party

Saturday morning, Lily invited 4 school friends to come over to celebrate her 8th birthday, only 2 were able to come. It was so fun getting to know her friends better and it was really just a simple play date, which is what Lily asked for - yay!

Jake & I decided that our kids can have "friend parties" when they turn 8 & 16.  Hopefully we planned this out well that we won't have 2 parties in the same year.  This year was special circumstances since Ella WON her party, but man, it about did me in having Ella's birthday, Ella's party, friends here visiting, Ella's graduation, Lily's birthday, Lily's party and then Father's Day. Yowza! I was partied out and planned out and gift idea-ed out.

So back to the party. 

We had tote bags (ie. summer library bags) and fabric markers to decorate them.

We played at our park behind our house, per Lily's request.  She loved showing her friends where to find rolly-pollies and all our frogs.  A few weeks ago we went back there and found 100's of tadpoles. Now they are itty bitty frogs. It's been really fun!

We came home and cooled off with snacks (popcorn, chex mix, watermelon) and decorated our bags.

 It was such a fun morning and I loved the simplicity of it!

CPA field day

Yesterday was a fun day!

We celebrated Lily turning 8, and we also had field day at school. They had all kinds of fun games set up as stations: tug of war, parachute, hula hoops, water balloon toss, sponge relay, volleyball, bowling, just to name a few.

Electrolyte snow cones

Lily is EIGHT

Our Lily is EIGHT today!

We started of our morning with a birthday breakfast of waffles (Lily's pick!). We had lots of toppings too: butter, syrup, peanut butter, whipped cream, chocolate chips, pecans, sprinkles.

  

Lily then headed off to school for FIELD DAY. After school we stopped at the library to grab some books for the first few weeks of summer.  Right now Lily loves The Magic Tree House. Lily requested meatball subs for dinner followed by presents and ice cream sandwiches, from Aldi, for her birthday dessert.  Man, I sure lucked out with an easy day of cooking!

Happy 8th Birthday, Lily! We love you.

Ella - Kindergarten graduate!

This morning Ella graduated from Kindergarten. 

This school year has gone by so quickly! Ella has learned so much, including how to read & write.  She loves school & loves learning. Her teacher, Miss Sansing, was absolutely wonderful!

And just in case you wanted to remember when Lily graduated from K5.

PA visits NC

We just enjoyed a fun weekend catching up with the Hrovath crew. Remember the last time they stopped by to visit? Or when Jocelyn and I got to sneak away for a girls weekend?

Jocelyn and I met when she was in 6th grade and I was in 5th.  We have lived in separate states since I started 10th grade, but we have still managed to stay connected.  She is a treasured friend! We are currently in the same life stage, so we don't have lots of time to chat on the phone. The BEST thing about our friendship is that when we do connect, we can pick up right where we left off.  We have also realized how similar our lives are.

Our weekend was full of catching up every spare minute.  Or every moment we weren't tending to our kids.  We also enjoyed the uninterrupted conversations once the kids were all in bed. What a blessing it was to talk about how the Lord is working in our hearts, our kids hearts, and directing our families.

.

The kids enjoyed getting reacquainted as well.  I think we even have some pen pals!

 

 Until next time, Hrovath family. Hoping it's sooner that 4 years...

Birthday Party at CMOW

A little background....

Last fall, Lily & Ella entered a coloring contest at The Children's Museum of Wilmington. Life lessons were also learned while entering this contest like: (1) it's okay that your younger sister copied your idea of what to draw (2) do not get frustrated when your picture isn't perfect and do not scribble all over the top of it in your frustration (3) Mom is still going to make you enter the picture even though you scribbled on top of it (4) good thing Mom MADE YOU enter your scribbled on drawing since you WON a birthday party for 20 friends!! (5) it's difficult to be happy for your sibling when they WIN, and you did not, especially when they copied your idea

ALL that to say, Ella WON a birthday party, for 20 friends, at The Children's Museum of Wilmington. All we had to do was bring the food & drinks. We had the party on Saturday morning. Ella picked a unicorn theme and the activity of painting a canvas.

Canvas painting was first, followed by cake & snacks, then lots of time to play!

 Costco cake. Watermelon. Popcorn. Pretzels. Water & Juice.
 Lots of time to play at CMOW!