12th Anniversary

Our anniversary (June 16th)  fell on Father's Day this year, so we decided to focus on celebrating Dad on the 16th, and picked a different day the following week to go out on a date.  We had a great evening going out to eat, walking around Minnehaha Falls, and getting ice cream!  I am so grateful for 12 years together with him, for the ways we have grown closer to each other, the many prayers we have shared together, how we work as a team, and that we are continuing to grow to love each other more.  Thank you, Lord, for working in and blessing our marriage!  Praise the Lord, it is strong because of Christ!

VBS

We had a great VBS week, in the WILD!  I love our church so, SO much, and the focus out outreach that our VBS program has!  One of my favorite parts about VBS is seeing the whole church come together to volunteer as each is able.  I am so proud of our youth group!  We don't have a large church but we had 45 middle and high school students come together with the many adults to love on the 250 kids from both church and community that walked in the doors each day this week.  This year, I got to help out with preschool, and I loved not only getting to spend time with Larkyn and the kids her age, but I also loved that so many of my youth group small group girls were also volunteering in the preschool age group, so I got to hang out with all of them too!  It was very busy and didn't take many pictures, but I'll include a few just to remember!

Community Ed Classes

We let each kid pick one class/camp out of the Community Education brochure for this summer, and then I scheduled them all for the same week.   Colton chose to do a lego/engineering camp and both the girls wanted to do theater.  I'll write more about each camp below.

Larkyn

Larkyn's camp, STEAM Dreams, was from 10:30-noon.  STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics and they learned about jobs like engineers, architects, and scientists throughout the week, while collaborating ideas from their own imaginations to create art and a theatrical production surrounding these topics.  They learned that there are three things actors must use: their VOICE, their BODY, and their IMAGINATION and they practiced each in fun ways.  Their teacher, Ms. Meredith, was from STAGES theater and did a fantastic job facilitating and teaching the preschoolers SO much in their time together, as well as helping them create a really fantastic show to put on for parents on the last day.

  Here are two videos from their show.  The first is a song the kids sang and the second is their theatrical show about a problem (the class decided on a giant robot), a solution (the class's collaborative idea), and the importance of working together.

Larkyn Song:



Larkyn Show:


Larkyn was SOO excited that Grandma T was able to come to her performance!

Larkyn's teacher, Ms. Meredith

Me with my two budding actresses :)

Colton

Colton was not pictured in the above pictures because he had his class at the same time as Larkyn had hers.  Colton's class was called Varsity Builders and met from 9am-12 each day this past week.  The kids built five different lego projects: a pendulum clock, a walker, a dogbot, a bat, and a gear racer car.  They each had a guide that taught about mechanical things like a pawl and ratchet, how a pendulum height affects speed of the clock, first/second/third class levers, pullies, cams, and gears.  They got to use motors.  They learned how things things worked, built them, and made predictions about what would happen if they changed certain things in their LEGO creation and then tested their hypotheses.  It was a really cool class!  I asked Colton to bring his camera to class so I could see what he built as they had to disassemble their LEGOS each day to be ready for the following class. I included a few pictures from his camera below, but I had to take a picture of his screen as we don't currently have a cord that will transfer his pictures to my computer :).   On the last day they got to race their gear racer cars down the hallway and Colton said his came in second :).

Summer

Summer chose a Prairie Fire Children's Theater camp.  According to their program, "Prairie Fire was founded in 1987 and tours year round to over 200 communities providing a week-long professional theatrical experience" for kids ages 7-18.  It was really a cool experience.  The two leaders of the camp, Darius and Madison, were full of energy and fun (think camp counselor style mixed with dramatic flair) and were so organized!  For two hours on Monday afternoon, the almost 80 kids learned about the week and and tried out for parts.  On Tuesday afternoon, they spent 2 hours learning their parts.  On Wednesday afternoon they went through the full show once.  On Thursday afternoon they went through the full show twice.  On Friday afternoon they got their costumes, had their dress rehearsal, did makeup, and had their first performance at 6:30pm.  They had their second performance on Saturday morning at 10am.  Within one week, they learned parts, dances, songs, choreography and more and put on a fantastic 80 minute show at the Rosemount High School theater!  It was impressive!  And it gave the kids the feel of being in an actual theatrical production from start to finish, yet all in one week.  This week's show was a rendition of Snow White.  Summer was one of the Forest Creatures, the "Goldfinch", and enjoyed having lots of time with Snow White (who was so sweet and great role model).  This camp was a fantastic experience for my junior thespian!  I didn't video the whole 80 minutes, but here are a few videos and pictures. 

They asked for parent volunteers to help with makeup before the show, so I got to paint noses and whiskers on the forest creatures and Grandma T was in charge of powder :)

Summer was so excited that Grandma T and Grandma and Grandpa K could come watch her show!

With the directors, Darius and Madison.  They were so fun!

 

Here are two videos of our little Gold Finch in action!  

Fun Week!

It was a really fun week and the kids really enjoyed their camps as they grew in the unique interests and talents God has given them!  It is so fun for me as a mom to learn what my kids love and then watch them enjoy doing it!  

Father's Day

Because Father's Day was the Sunday after we got home from our trip, Paul voted for a low-key catch-up on projects type of weekend.  He is such a hard-working and unselfish Daddy!  We did want him to feel special, though!

On Saturday we grilled out!

And had a campfire with S'mores at Daddy's request :)

We had breakfast at our church's Father's Day pancake breakfast

Lunch at Famous Dave's

Yep, Daddy polished off that full rack of ribs!

Larkyn gave daddy several papers in an envelope

Best Dad Award

And rootbeer :)

Colton made Daddy a pop-up card and $ for coffee :)

Summer gave Daddy lots of homemade things as well as beef jerkey!

She put her gift in an amazon box and secretly set it outside the door for Daddy to go get ;)

One of her many homemade items included a booklet of things she loves about Daddy as well as coupons for things like back rub etc.  I'll included some of the things she wrote below :)

  Summer also made Daddy a multi-media presentation (all by herself!) with pictures and captions about Daddy :).

She even coordinated a card from the three kiddos to celebrate our anniversary (12 years!) which fell on fathers day this year.  (We will go out next weekend!).

We encouraged Daddy to take a nap, because he works so hard for us and is the first one up for the day and the last one to bed!

We then headed to the park and dinner to celebrate my dad!  We forgot to take a picture :(

On the following Tuesday, Daddy got to go to the USA soccer game with his dad and brothers!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!  We love and appreciate you soooo much!