Heat Wave and a Birthday

What's a kid to do when it gets hot outside? Play in the water, of course! Cade would spend all day, every day outside if we'd let him (unfortunate that the kid that likes outdoors the most is the whitest and most prone to sunburns of the three) but the heat just gives him another excuse to go outside - to play in the water!

Cade and Cameron like to fill this bucket with water and stick their heads in it. Can't say I ever thought of doing that as a kid but it must be fun.

Cameron's unavailability (or refusal to go outside) doesn't stop Cade. He calls this his shower.

No idea what he's doing here but he looks cute and he has his swimsuit on so it fits the theme.

It's hard to believe but Kevin recently turned 12! This is the same little guy that only wanted to turn 4 so he could ride a dirt bike and then he only wanted to turn 5 so he could go to school. Despite our best efforts and bribes, he just keeps getting older.

We celebrated his birthday this year by taking a couple of his friends to the local water park and having them stay the night. We spent over 6 hours at the park so we all got a little too much sun even though we kept reapplying sunscreen every couple of hours.

Here's the birthday boy with his brothers and best friends Hunter, on the left, and Nic on the right. 12! Geez.

A couple of weekends ago, while Dana was sleeping during the day (she worked the night before), I took the boys to a roller derby. I had no idea what to expect but I sure didn't expect women with mullets and gnarly tattoos on their biceps. It was sort of fun to watch but we really didn't have any idea what was going on. We all rooted for one girl in particular because her appearance was so striking. Her picture is below. It's one of those things where I'm glad I went but don't think I'll go back.

I told you the women were gnarly!

We're down to less than 2 weeks until school starts and the boys are not exactly thrilled about it. It's hard to believe the summer is almost over already. I have a lot of things to I wanted to do with the boys this year that I'll have to cram into the next 2 weeks.

Summer's Cross Flags

I don't know about other forms of racing but in motocross the cross flags signal the midpoint of the race. Such as it is with the boys' summer vacation. They're just a shade past halfway through their carefree summer days and staying-up-late-at-night-to-play-video-games nights. It's a cruel reality that time flies when you're having fun but drags when you're not. Should the kids intentionally stay bored and do as little as possible to drag out their summer vacation or should they go full throttle and cram as much as they can into their 9 or so weeks of freedom to make good memories?

I prefer memories.

We had a pretty good scare with my job situation a couple of weeks ago when several hundred of my coworkers were laid off thanks to the White House's misguided and poorly planned space policy (but that's for another blog). Technically, I did lose my job but my bosses (bless them!) got me transferred to another department. So I'm doing the same type of job I was doing before but instead of working on the Ares rocket I'm now working on a lunar lander. Still pretty cool!

Right before all the lay-offs, MSFC had a family day. Car show, bingo (with REALLY nice prizes - flat screen TVs, blueray DVD players, bicycles, etc.), inflatables, games, etc. We spent a few hours there, almost exclusively watching the boys on the inflatables, and had a great time.



Cameron about to rocket down the big slide.


Kevin just couldn't slide straight like a normal person.



They even had joust!


Cade was sporting this NASA tattoo all day.


The following weekend, our Sunday School class got together at someone's lake house to play in the sun and water all day.



Cade loved the slide!



The little stinker also liked doing the dead man's float. Every time I turned around he looked like this and every time I had a little heart attack.

Kevin and Cameron both took their first rides on a tube behind the boat and spent most of the day swimming and jumping in the water.



By the end of the day, the boys were tuckered out. I think Cade fell asleep before the Expedition's starter quit turning. Kevin is actually faking it in this picture but Cade isn't.


And then it was 4th of July weekend and my mom and dad came to visit for a few days! We ran them ragged by taking them to all our favorite spots.

De Soto State Park is always a nice place to go. Unfortunately, there wasn't much water this year.

At the water falls.

Madison (city) had a nice 4th of July celebration so we took the boys there for a couple of hours.

As usual, the boys had a blast on the inflatables.

Cade found an obstacle course he really liked. He would enter one end, climb through to the other side and literally run back to the start and do it again. I don't know how many consecutive times he did this but it was enough for me to notice and get a few pictures as he ran by.

Gotta get a patriotic picture of the boys on the 4th of July!

Cade was on the run as usual. If his mouth isn't running, his body is.



I like this picture of Cameron playing with the flag.

Playing with sparklers as it gets dark.

Now that Dana is working weekend nights, the boys and I have to stay deathly quiet during the day (which is basically impossible with these 3) so I just try to get out of the house so she can sleep.

Yesterday, I took them to a car show in Decatur. Lots of really nice cars but I especially liked this Corvette ZR1. The sticker price on this beauty was just under $122k!

And finally, a couple of bonus pictures of Cade:

This picture reminds me of one I took a few years ago when he was tippy toeing to look in the middle drawer. He's a little taller now.

Cade LOVES his tiger. He sleeps with it and carries it around all the time. But it isn't all that white anymore. Here he and the tiger are playing a video game.