What a beautiful morning!  I'm sitting here squinting in the sun as I type.  A pair of something I haven't put on our backyard list yet just flew in and perched in our bush.  I can't wait to look through our guide and figure out what they were.  And, last night something loud and creepy sounding flew through our backyard!  Scared us to death!  It brought Matt out of bed, looking wildly around.  (we finally had a hot enough night to leave windows open)  I at first thought "bat" as it was kind of squeaky, but I think it sounded too big.  Owl?  I'm thinking probably some kind of night hawk who found something yummy in our yard.  I'm going to listen to some hawks in our bird song book and see if anything sounds remotely similar to what we heard last night.

Fishing!  The kids are infatuated with fishing this summer.  Every day.  Every evening.  It's "Mom, can we go fishing?"  There's a little dock across the street where they can cast to their hearts content.  And occasionally they even catch something nice!  Anna's gotten a perch and a bass...both good size!  The boys have only gotten bullheads there.  The other night, I documented Anna's very first fish ever with the camera.  We have the cutest little boy that lives down the street, who is an "expert" fisherman.  (as much as you can be at age 5)  He comes down almost every night with his box full of "muskie baits" and wants Anna to fish with him.  It's the cutest thing ever!  Here are some pictures.

That evening, Dre (pronounced 'dray') came down with his "fishing hat" on.  So Anna had to go find something she felt was comparable.    It was a beautiful evening to sit by the lake, and since I was right across the street, I let the neighbor girl come in and water paint with Leah while I watched the kids fish.  2 yr olds and fishing docks (not to mention hooks, lines and 5 yr olds) don't mix so well!

In other excitement, the other day I was on the phone with a friend and Leah came down crying with a bleeding foot.  She'd stepped on a broken plastic storage container in the attic and sliced her little foot.  SO after giving comfort and first aid, I thought it safe to call my friend back.  Wrong.  Not 5 minutes into the conversation, I see David running across the lawn with a neighbor man running not too far behind.  David's face was a mass of blood.  Apparently he'd crashed on his bike on the other side of the block.  The neighbor feared his tooth had gone all the way through the lip.  Not to worry, once we got it all cleaned up....it was just a nasty scrape.  And so he was left with a fat lip and a hitler-esque mustache of a scab.  I documented the occasion.

Oh, and why did he crash?  I'll tell you in his words. 

D:  "I was imagining things, and suddenly I swerved" 

Me:  "You were imagining things?  What did you 'see'"

D: "I swerved so I wouldn't hit the imaginary boulders" 

Another funny camp story.  David participated in choir for the week.  At the end, John Windle asked them all to write down exactly how they wanted their names to appear on their certificates.  He was thinking like if their name was Christopher on the registration list, but they go by Chris....they could write that.  So after they collected the papers and looked through them, they saw David's.  It said, "David Hoffland the Great"  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  That made for some good chuckling around the staff lunch table.