this and that

The boys have become good pickle pickers....

Last week Aunt Lauren was in town visiting, so we went out to see her....

Here's Lauren explaining Algebra to the boys.....

or not!

Our friends Doug and Christina were also in town visiting (from California).... this is their youngest, Sam, and I had to take a picture of this sock monkey outfit he had!

AH-HA!!!!

Today we figured out what's been eating our tomatoes...Chevy found it on our deck.... a racoon!

Can you see it hiding under the grill?

Nobody would come get it (unless we paid), but the MDC girl told me to make lots of noise, so we beat pots and pans, screamed and threw some rocks...the nieghbors probably think we're nuts...
Randy finally got him off the porch with a broom (after the stupid thing tried climbing up our house...)
I wish I'd gotten a picture of that....

the view from my phone

So my sisters always have pictures they took with their phone, or while driving, so I thought I'd clean my phone off and put some up here, too...

this is on the bridge over the Missouri River in Washington....they're doing work on it, so you have to stop in the middle and wait 10 minutes for the other side to go through....just don't stare too long at the rusty beams....

the view was pretty....

this was our view going down I-70, it was freaky because the tractor was moving across and all you could see was a profile of it from a distance...

This was cool, as we came through Jeff City the other weekend, the rain was ending and there was a beautiful full rainbow over the capital building...

A

A pretty sunset hitting the clouds as I left work on break last night...

Lauren and Matt help the boys pot plants, and a baby turtle Austin found on a walk....

Playing dress up at our neighbor's house....

these are from the springfield zoo... Andrew and Austin feeding the giraffes and this one is Austin dancing after touching the peacock....

Chickens and Fish

When we were in Halfway last weekend, the boys got to go up to a neighbors to see some new baby chicks...they even got to hold them!

This little girl in the picture is Carly, and she's the same age as Drew...she asked the boys if they wanted to pet a chicken and then caught one for them (which is not an easy thing if you've never done it!)

We also got to go up to one of Mark's pond and fish....

I lost track of how many they caught...

Happy 4th of July!

the Pinnacles

One of my friends here in Columbia told us about this place called the Pinnacles, and the weather was so gorgeous today that the boys and I decided to check it out. It was just a pretty trail through the woods that led to this cool rock cut cave like part... it was really pretty...and the boys loved the hike...

tball...and coach pitch

Andrew and Austin both had their last official games (there might be rain out make ups). Randy coached both of their teams, so you may spot him in some of the pics...

Austin was so excited to get his medal... he was excited to get his own, since Drew had gotten one last year, but Randy thought he was one medal short, so we told Austin he would get his at home... so he was so excited when Randy put one around his neck!

Austin is second from left in the front row.

Andrew playing catcher...

Randy says he looks like Joe Mauer....

Andrew batting...Randy is pitching

Andrew is the first on left in the second row...