Visitors!

Josh's Uncle John and his wife and 3 kids decided to spend the last couple days of there vacation at our house. We were really happy to hear that they were coming not only for the visit, but the for the fact that they have never been to our house in Cherryvale. The children and adults had a great time.

Of coarse the kids had to do some swimming.

Jack liked to go down the slide backwards on his belly.

Molly Kate was a good little swimmer. She would jump right off the edge then swim to the ladder and do it all over again.

Molly Kate just hanging out looking cute.

It's not a party without a campfire!

A little bit of bike riding on the side street.

Wylie and Joey having fun.

Uncle John and Molly having a beverage.

Josh took everyone on a tour of the fire barn so the kids could see the ambulance and fire trucks.

Gunnar helped demonstrate.

Lost Pictures

Well, I still haven't fixed the camera...we have tried many things and it just won't download. So the very cute picture of Gunnar holding up his 4 ribbons (3 third place and 1 second) right after receiving them from his swim coach will not get published. Nor will the motorcycle stuntmen or the aquarium pictures that I took, although I did manage to save a few of my friends pictures from the aquarium that they posted online. Which, I have to give credit to Jayme and JoAnne for taking these pictures.

We all met at the fire station and followed each other to Tulsa. Every man that you see is on the fire department, either full-time or volunteer. After the aquarium we went to Incredible Pizza to celebrate Katie's 16th birthday, which we were glad to share that time with her since she has been one of our main babysitters for a couple of years now. From left to right...
(Back Row): Aaron, Danny, Chad, JoAnne, Josh, Me (Second Row Women only): Hilary, Jayme, and Katie (Front Row Children Only) Kenzie, Halle, Wylie, and Gunnar (he just loves his picture taken!!!!!)

Wylie was really excited when told her that her best friend's parent would be coming along. By the way, I had a great picture of Gunnar sitting on this alligator.

Wylie, Halle, and Kenzie in front of the shark tank. It was really neat...you walked through a tunnel where the sharks would swim all around you.


After the aquarium I had mentioned before we that we then went to Incredible Pizza, which I didn't know it even existed. They have tons of games kind of like Chuckie Cheese's, but they also have go carts, bumper cars, miniature golf, and bowling inside the building. Gunnar is now like forget Chuckie's I want to go Incredible Pizza for my birthday! Who could blame him?

A Hopefully Short Delay

Well, I have tons on things that I could post, but I cannot get my camera to download pictures onto my computer, which makes me spitting angry! My other Canon camera was very user friendly. I am really not sure what is going on with this one. We bought the service plan, so I am hoping to get it fixed soon. If my camera was working I would post that Gunnar won three 3rd place ribbons in the Free, Breast, and Butterfly, and also a 2nd place ribbon in the Free-style relay at his swim meet in Erie two weeks ago. I also might post pictures from when we walked to the motorcycle festival they were having in downtown Joplin, where we saw two men doing stunts right in front of us on the street. Furthermore, I would post pictures from the awesome time we had at the aquarium in Oklahoma yesterday.
Yeah, thinking about it...I would post all of this IF MY CAMERA WOULD DOWNLOAD!!!!!!!!!! I just got done hooking my camera up like 6 times to my computer hoping that it will work, but no such luck, so that is why I am posting this. I am needing to vent.

Miscellaneous Post

There have been a few different things and pictures that I have been wanting to post, so I will do it all at one time. The first will be of Gunnar at his last swim meet, which was held at Coffeyville. He seems to be enjoying it pretty well. He didn't have his best swims yesterday, but I think he still had a good time.

Here he is waiting on the block. Only the swimmers and coaches were aloud to go inside the fence by the pool, therefore I did not get a good picture of him swimming.

I got a good picture of him after a swim talking with his friends.

I have been experimenting with the shooting modes on my new camera. I always enjoy taking pictures of the kids while they swim, hence the pictures below.



Gunnar boy and his goggles.

Miss Wylie.

Wylie is getting much better at swimming. She recently swam clear across the pool (24 feet) to her dad.

Gunnar still enjoys the slide, while Wylie still refuses to go down it.

We sort of have a new pet in the DeWeese household. Wylie named him Toadie, which I am pretty sure this is a frog, but Wylie still thinks she'll keep the name. He hangs out on the side of our fish pond or on a lily pad and then jumps in the water every time we open the back door to go outside. Although, he is letting us get closer and closer to him everyday.

A front view of Toadie on a lily pad.

A side view of Toadie.

So when we tore down the house next door we knew we would find "treasures" that would come up from the ground and they will probably keep coming up for the next 20 years. Josh found this piece of glass on the lot. And yes, the color is actually that pretty and it is also a hefty chunk of glass. I would guess it weighs around 4 pounds. Gunnar liked it a lot. He said he though maybe Superman might be real, because it looks like kryptonite. Gunnar also informed me that if it were a diamond we would get to meet the President of the United States.

The New Lots!

A BEFORE picture of the front of the house. And the AFTER picture. The BEFORE picture of the lot next to the old house.

And the AFTER picture.

The BEFORE view of the house from the front of our fence.

And the AFTER picture.

We obviously have more work to do on the lot...the next step is to bring in some fill dirt, which we can then plant grass and gravel a new driveway so we can park under the carport easier.

Happy Father's Day!

We decided on Saturday morning to head towards Wichita, so that we could do a little camper shopping, go out for a nice dinner (we had all you can eat King Crab Legs...Yum!), stay in a hotel, and then Sunday morning go over to the zoo. Josh was nice enough to let me get a camera Saturday after our dinner. It is the Canon XS10 IS that I have been wanting since I saw it in the Consumer Reports magazine. It's a lot like my other Canon, which I liked a lot, but this new one has twice the mega pixels and more than twice the zoom. The zoom will come in handy for Gunnar's swim meets I think. A pretty good picture of the three of them.

Wylie got a great look at the tiger. The sheets of glass that her and I were looking through were perpendicular to each other.
The tiger exhibit is new to the Wichita Zoo. Much better that before! In the picture I was testing out my 20x zoom. This was a different tiger than the one Wylie was looking at in the picture above.The kids loved looking at the map of the zoo.
Who doesn't like the gorillas?

Gunnar and Wylie looking at the bear.

Josh and Wylie in the jungle, which is my one of my favorite parts of the zoo.

An excellent picture of the kids...this is my new background on my computer.

Wylie with her Daddy.

Wylie and the Komodo Dragon.

The kids had a take a couple of swims in the pool. These were taken right after I got my camera.

Gunnar and Wylie really had a good time playing together in the pool. Overall, I thought it was a good Father's Day weekend.

Busy Summer!

I finally got the KC pictures posted from the weekend before last and have more to post from last weekend where we had Jillian's (Josh's cousin Randi's daughter) 8th birthday party at our house. We had a great time! It was a lot of fun to get the backyard ready. Also, last Thursday the guys (people who we hired) started tearing down the house and taking out the trees on the lot that we bought next door, which made things a little bit hectic, but it only took them two days and it was gone. I will post pictures soon!

Fortunately Saturday night was a beautiful day to hang out in the backyard and swim. Unfortunately it rained Saturday night and I left my camera sitting in a lawn chair. That morning Aunt Angie found it laying in a puddle of water, which of coarse ruined it.

The good news is I should be getting a new one soon! I have already been checking the Consumer Report Recommended. Anyway, here at some of the picture from Jillian's birthday party. Side Note: I started this post 4 days ago...sigh...and now I have a new camera, which was really nice of Josh to let me get since it was the day before fathers day (pictures with new camera from our fathers day trip will hopefully be posted soon).

Quite a bit of swimming took place. You can see Grandma January (Nanny) checking it out. Wylie liked spraying Nanny with the water guns she brought for them.

This is where most of the conversations took place. And yes, that is a fire going in the pit even though it is warm out. I though Wylie looked cute wearing Dustin's hat, while he gave her a ride around the pool.
Again, everyone hanging out enjoying each other company. From left to right: Aunt Angie, Uncle James (Face is covered has the green shirt on) Joe, Christina, and Grandma J.

The birthday girl (Jillian) with Randi and Dustin.

The kids warming up by the fire after a swim. It kind of looks like Randi is about to get burned by the tiki torch, although no one was burned at this party...only Jillian got a chunk of toe taken out by the sidewalk. She was still a trooper though!


Jeff is giving Gunnar a Wylie a ride around the pool. I am pretty sure anyone who got in the pool with the kids had to give a ride.

Gunnar a Jillian just hanging out.

Dustin and Jeff in the pool doing what they would say "just living the dream!"

This weekend was the start of Dustin's vacation.