The Boone Family

It was time of a garage sale at our house because we needed to purge...live simpler!  As we gathered up toys that weren't played with anymore the boys begged to have a lemonade stand to earn money.  I thought about it but in reality this was a chance to do something bigger than that.  Our friends, The Lokers, had a lemonade stand at their place in Michigan and accepted donations in money and food to donate to their local food bank.  I have been looking for a way to do this around here and now was our chance.  The boys were totally on board and even made a sign for everyone to see. I was a little worried about how it would go but with a little pep talk the boys did a great job of informing customers about where their donation would go.  In two days we raised $50. While the boys were selling, the local newspaper came out to take a picture and talk with the boys about what they were doing.  The picture was featured the next day on the front page...it...

We jetted up to Michigan for the weekend and spent the night at Aunt Katie and Jeremy's place.  In the morning, Jeremy took each one of the boys out on his boat to fish.  They thought that this was just the coolest thing to be out on the boat with just Jeremy. Each one of the boys caught a fish while they were out.   The boys enjoyed watching Jeremy clean the fish! Next stop, meeting up with Lokers at Silver Lake.  It was a beautiful day and we were there for quite a while.  The kids swam, built sand castles, and ate snacks! After the beach we headed to their house for dinner.  In the backyard, the kids caught frogs and snakes.   Abby was super brave and held the snake that she caught.  Jackson tried to hold the snake and it bit him. We have such a great time when we are all together.

One thing on our Summer bucket list was to pick blueberries.  We ventured out to the Baumhart Berry Farm.  When we arrived a worker asked, "Would you like to see a swarm of bees?" "Of course, " I said!  There was a huge swarm of bees on one of the branches of the blueberry bushes.  The bee-man arrived in his get up with a small amazon cardboard box.  He said "Watch as I shake this branch and the queen bee will fall in the box and the other bees will follow." It was the craziest thing I have ever watched before, within 5 minutes all the bees were in the box and he was heading out. Just me and my boys!   The bushes were loaded with berries.  Needless to say we ate more than we picked.  They were delicious!  Summer, summer, summertime!

It has come time for our annual summer trip down to visit my Aunt Sharon, Uncle Larry, and our cousins.  The kids and I look forward to this get way to visit and catch up with everyone. Here are the boys with my cousin Amy's kids Samantha and Gavin...they spent almost all the time with us! Amy's oldest son Dylan who will be a senior in high school this year...really loved on Nolan.   Sharon introduced the boys to "walking tacos."  Landon's idea of tacos is warm tortillas, crushed up Doritos, and shredded cheese.  Their tacos were all a little different but they got a kick out of making their own and being able to carry around their food.  Sharon said, "These are "walking tacos" so you must walk and not run."  Oh how the kids couldn't help themselves from running with their walking tacos.  It was quite funny! Sharon set up a carnival in the garage with games for the kids to play and earn points.  There was pin the nose on th...

I love to jam pack our summer full of events so that there is no down time because when school starts we have to get back to reality.  We have been trying to find a weekend to go camping but it has yet to work out until...a weekend that we had baseball tournaments ended quicker then we hoped (lost first game) gave us the opportunity to plan a last minute camping trip.  Bob grabbed us a site at River Run Family Campground in Mohican.  We threw the camper on the back of the van, clothes, bedding, and crossed our fingers we had everything we needed.  We had a lot of space at our site that the boys could run and play. Fishing...that's what they wanted to do most!  Bob is getting the Barbie fishing rod ready for Nolan who gladly fished with it. Carter and Landon played washers in the yard.  Moments after I took this picture, Landon stepped on a bumblebee that stung him on the bottom of the foot.  Poor guy! Boys love the outdoors and finding bug...

Baseball season this summer was amazing.  We had both Carter and Landon on the same team and Bob was one of the coaches.  We were lucky because there were quite a few familiar faces from soccer and previous baseball teams.  The team was a young group of boys who were more than eager to learn the game of baseball.  We didn't always win but it was a lot of fun to watch them play. They all had a great time together...both kids and coaches! Landon really excelled this year.  He is really hitting the ball well and his defense is amazing.  He asks to play wiffleball in the backyard every day.  He could hit from sun up until sun down.  If he isn't hitting he has his glove on catching the ball being hit.  He loves to play baseball.  Carter was on the All-Star team this year.  He and two other boys from the team got to play under the lights with the other All-Star players.   All-Star Team Carter getting his medal f...

Snagging a visit with Amy and the kids can be hard because we are all so very busy so any chance our schedules align we make it happen.  This visit was a quick one night visit due to having to be back for baseball games. I came across a link on Facebook about the Dum Dum Sucker Factory being in Bryan Ohio which is pretty close to Amy's house.  I mentioned it to her and she was up for the journey so we threw the kids in the car to check it out.  We arrived at this cute little store and museum.  A guided trolly tour started every 15 minutes so we were sure it would be quick...we arrived at 1:06pm we couldn't get on the tour until 1:45pm.  Yep, try and keep 7 children busy in a small store/museum for that many minutes...pretty tough.  Our attempt to buy us some time was to take pictures in the parking lot next to the sign of your favorite flavor of Dum Dum sucker. Nolan's favorite...don't worry I tried to get him to open his eyes but it was a lost cause. ...