4th of July

This 4th of July we traveled up to Rockford to visit our Grandma and Grandpa, just like always. The Browns were there too, and we had lots of fun playing with Cassidy and cuddling with Gavin.

We drove up on Friday, and spent all day Saturday there too. We had our regular cook-out with hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats.

This 4th was pretty un-eventful (no broken toes, tornados, power outages, or lawn fires), but we had lots of fun watching the Cubbies and setting off fireworks.

This was the first time Cassidy knew what fireworks were, and we were anxious to see what she thought of them. She loved the parachute one, so we were sure she would like the regular, bright, louder ones that the boys of the family put on a show with. But when we lit the first one off, it made a loud BANG! and scared her half to death. The girls stayed inside with her the rest of the night and listened to her go on about how "the boys were too loud." Aunt Erin told us she still frequently reminds her about how the boys were just so loud.

The next day, as a Mother's Day gift for my mom, we drove up to Chicago and Wrigley Field to see the Cubs game!!

I (Ethan) have two friends, Nolan and Nate, who told me about the skate park in Lafayette. This summer, I decided to go to Skate Camp there. It's a really cool skate park that has lots of ramps. I like to skate on the roller -- that's in the picture on the left -- the curvy ramp where the two kids are skating. It's cool because it has a double ramp.

At skate camp, I heard about a cool skateboard shop at the mall called Zumies. I had been saving some money and decided to spend some on a new skateboard. At Zumies, there's a design-your-own skateboard deal -- which I did. I picked out a deck (the purple board that says "Baker"), trucks (the red things that hold the wheels to the deck), wheels (colorful ones) and other stuff like hardware and bearings. Zumies put the board together for me, but I also got a skateboard tool, so now I can make my own new boards, change out parts, or fix anything that breaks.

I have gone to the skate park lots this summer with my friends. When I go to the skate park, I also bring my bike and my scooter. It's fun to ride those down all the ramps too. On the skateboard, I'm working on doing a kick flip. A kick flip is when you spin the board under your feet and land it back up again. Other cool tricks I've seen people do are rock to fakey, a shove it, and a heel flip. Sometimes it's just fun to watch other people at the skate park and think about doing new tricks.

Kelsey's Spring Soccer Team

This past spring my (Kelsey) soccer team was called Gettings Reed. We had most of the regular people, with a few exceptions for some who played for Isbell instead. Both teams often had lots of people gone or missing, so we barely had enough people to play. So sometimes Gettings Reed players would help out Isbell and play during their game as well as the Gettings Reed game, and vice versa. It was also very rainy, so we didn't play quite as many games as usual because of all the rainouts. We were one of the youngest teams, too, and had all seventh-graders and eigth-graders. So we weren't number one or anything, but we did pretty well for being an underdog team!