The Lazy Days of Summer

We have been enjoying each and every day of summer break around the Bumgardner house the past few weeks. Most of our days have been filled with me getting up around 6:00 to go with my neighbor Mary on our 4 mile walk. Grant has been sleeping in until around 9:30-10:00 EVERY day and then we usually hit one of the neighborhood pools for a few hours every afternoon. Most evenings we are at the ballpark or practice. I've even read a few great books too!!!

Last week I hosted our neighborhood Bunco group on Thursday night at my house so I spent quite a bit of time cleaning and getting everything prepared. I've been wanting to paint the laundry room so this seemed like the perfect time to do it. I didn't really have a specific idea in mind when I went to look at paint but this color caught my eye and I kept going back to it. I kind of panicked when I put the first coat on because the paint looked more "candy apple" green than "olive" green like I was going for. It actually dried really nicely and I'm happy with the way it turned out. It's amazing how much a $20 can of paint can spiff up a room.

In other exciting news . . . I got a new iPhone on Friday and boy do I love it!!! By new iPhone I actually mean a hand-me-down from Jeff because he of course got the new improved model that just came out and I got his old one. Somehow that's how things always work out around the Bumgardner house.

I did however pick out this spiffy new pink protective case for it. I also had to change my cell # because my contract with Sprint finally ended and I switched over to AT&T so Jeff and I can finally have the same carrier. You wouldn't think changing your number would be such a big deal but it's been a pain trying to update my contacts and notify everyone of my new #. To top it off we cancelled our home phone and we are going to try to just use our cell's. It probably isn't going to be too big of deal because most people call me on my cell anyway but it is definetely going to take some getting used to.

This morning I harvested the tomatoes from the plants we have in large pots on our back porch. Hopefully by the end of the summer we'll have enough for a salad :)

















Tonight we are headed back to the ballpark to finish up the games in the Father's Day tournament that got rained out. Grant has been struggling with his batting recently so I made him a deal this afternoon. We hit the fireworks stands earlier and he is dying to do a few. So, I told him for every hit he gets tonight we will do one firework. Hopefully we'll have a mini 4th of July celebration tonight.

Father's Day

This morning we were up bright and early to celebrate Father's Day . . .

and then we were off to the ballpark by 7:45 for our first game in the Kansas Open baseball tournament at Westurban. We were supposed to play two games yesterday, but due to the off and on showers throughout the day all games were postponed until today.

Grant got a little bit of advise from Coach Dreifort before batting.

Tonight we relaxed by the pool at grandpa's house and tried out the new basketball goal and raft that we got daddy for Father's Day.

Slow Ride

Last night after mowing the yard Jeff let Grant try to drive the lawnmower for the first time. I of course was a nervous wreck, but as you can see from the pictures he had it all under control. He took it for a spin around the block. Jeff was close behind on his motorcycle.

I can't believe how grown up he looks. I'm sure he'll be asking to take it for a spin everytime we mow now.

My boys

The Big Sale

I was up at 6:00 this morning ready for business. Our neighborhood is sponsoring a garage sale Thursday-Saturday so it seemed like the perfect time to clean out every cabinet and closet and get rid of the things we don't use anymore. There was a big rush between 7:30 - 9:00 this morning but now things have really quieted down. I'm thinking around lunch time I may throw in the towel for the day and then try again tomorrow morning for a few hours. The good news is Goodwill is scheduled to come through the neighborhood on Monday morning to pick up everything that didn't sell.

I'm not a big garage saler so it's totally cracking me up when items are priced 25 cents and people are trying to offer me 10 cents. They seem to think they are getting a really good deal but what they don't know is I was probably just going to donate the item to good will anyways so at least now I have 10 cents. The hot garage sale items seems to be kids clothing which I priced at $1.00 per item (I was too lazy to price each one) and the odds and ends house decor. I put out several wrought iron baskets and wall hangings that were scooped up first thing this morning along with a big remote control Hummer that an old man tried to convince me was for his grandson, although he seemed awfully excited about it himself.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow my garage will be completely empty. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!

Tournament in Tulsa

* Before I begin this post I need to thank the Becker family for sharing so many pictures with me. It wasn't until we were already an hour from home that I realized the low battery light was flashing on my camera and the charger was laying on the kitchen table.

On Saturday morning we packed up the car and headed to Tulsa with Grant's baseball team to play in our first out of state tournament. Several of the families caravaned together. Our first pit stop was in Blackwell, OK at McDonald's. Jeff became an instant hit with the boys. He came out with 20 double cheeseburgers as "snacks" for everyone.

Here are a few of us mom's showing off our fun baseball tee's that we made.

We made it to Tulsa around 1:30 and had just enough time to check into our room and get the boys changed into their uniforms before heading to the ballpark. I don't think any of us were prepared for how hot it was going to be. The temperature was near 100 degrees and there wasn't a breeze or shade tree anywhere. Thanks to Trenton's mom we had these great baseballs to shade ourselves with and show our boys supoort.

I couldn't resist posting this picture. Check out the sign!!!

The first team the boys played was a regional traveling team from Arkansas and Oklahoma. This team has already played over 120 games this season and every player was at least the size of Grant. Needless to say, we didn't win. I think the final score was 21-5. I feel like I have to blame this loss a little on the heat as well. Our boys had already been out practicing in full uniform for almost 2 hours before the game started and they haven't had to play in temperatures like this yet this season.

Our next game which immediately followed wasn't very exciting either. We lost 4-2 to a team that we should have easily beat. Our boys came alive during the last inning but there wasn't enough time to catch up at that point.

After a long day at the ballpark (nearly 7 hours) we went out for a yummy Mexican dinner and then back to the hotel to swim for a little while. The hotel pool was supposed to close at 10:00 but they left it open until 11:00 so our boys could get in a little swimming time. The boys started having a cannon ball contest and really got most of us mom's soaked. They managed to get us cornered and continued to splash us until we were much wetter than we would have liked. So, we got the big idea to just show them and jump in the pool fully clothed. Sorry there's no picture to go along with this part of the post, but all of us mom's lined up at the end of the pool and jumped in. The boys were shocked and actually still talking about yesterday on the ride home.

We woke up Sunday morning to rain so we let the kids have a little more time at the pool. A few dad's even joined them. Check out Jeff at the end of the pool jumping in with them.

They also enjoyed some time in the sauna.

By noon they cancelled our play the remaineder of the tournament so we packed up the car and headed home. To make the trip back to Wichita a little more fun we detoured through Stillwater and stopped for a late lunch at Eskimo Joe's.

Pictures on the Farm

While we were in KC over the weekend I thought it would be the perfect chance to get some pictures of the boys on my Nana's farm. She lives on the same land she grew up on. A few years before I was born she and my papa moved from the city and built a house there. It's for sale now and I'm not sure how many more times we will get to go stay there so I wanted to make sure I got some photos of the kids in the fields and around the old barns and sheds.

We also ventured out down the gravel road she lives on to the small town of Mayview, MO where she went to school as a child. These pictures were actually taken on the steps to the old high school.














































I also found this old rundown building that had a white brick side and a red brick side. I loved the vines growing all over it. It seemed like a great place to take pictures until I realized someone was living inside so we snapped a few quick ones and headed out.


































My favorite stop of the day may have been at the railroad tracks.

90th Birthday Celebration

On Friday morning we packed up the car and headed to KC for my nana's 90th birthday. On Saturday evening all of our family got together to celebrate at her house. We had a yummy BBQ dinner and birthday cake and we all had a chance to just be together and catch up. It's the first time we have done this since my grandpa passed away back in October.

Here's the birthday girl doing what she does best, cleaning the scraps off everyone's plates to give to the cats in the barn.

Isn't her birthday cake beautiful!!! It was all edible. Amazing huh?????

After dinner we all went outside and had a little photo shoot. My step-aunt, who is a professional photographer, took oodles of pictures. I of course tried to snap a few shots of everyone once we were in position.

The girls - Karen, nana, mom and me

I had alot of trouble deciding what to get nana for her birthday. I guess I should have started thinking about this alot sooner. She absolutely loves to go through her old pictures and tell us stories so I am going to help her make a photo album of her life. I gave her the task of picking out about 100 photos and then I am going to scan them all and have a hardback book printed. She's coming out to visit in a few weeks for my sisters birthday so we will probably get started then.

While we were at the farm I took alot of pictures of the boys. Hopefully I will have a chance to go through them today and post a few of my favorites tomorrow.

Lemonade Stand

This morning Grant and his friend Hayden decided they wanted to have a lemonade stand. We happen to live on the golf course and the golf cart path goes right beside our house so it's the perfect place to set up shop. We made a quick run to the store for supplies (lemonade, cups & ice) and then they hauled the card table and chairs out to the backyard.

You can tell by the pictures that this was kind of thrown together. In past years I've helped Grant make posters and we've covered the table with a tablecloth. But this year he did it all by himself. I don't think boys care about all those little details.

Today was actually a great day for their lemonade stand because there is some kind of high school tounament going on. The golf course was busy with golfers and spectators. In about an hour they made $18.50 (which they split). They even had a few landscapers that were working in the area stop by as well as some of the neighbor kids.