Beginning of July

After looking and looking and debating, we finally bought a trampoline! There are no stores locally that sell them, so while we were in Orlando visiting the science center we stopped at a sporting goods store that had them in stock. I had to use the bathroom while they were ringing it up and when I got in the car, Anthony handed me the receipt and it was $50 more than what was listed on the shelf! I marched right back in there and had customer service check the tags and they gave me a refund (I guess it was on sale earlier and they hadn't taken the tags down yet). When I got back in the car, James asked, "Did your argue go well?" lol!

It is so hot out there during the day, so we rigged up a sprinkler and hose to spray water while the boys jump. It works great except Baymax chewed a hole in the hose after 1 day! Puppies are so destructive!!

Playing with my camera and taking pictures of our animals:

Anthony's friend we bought the bees from came over to go through the hives with Anthony. They were out there for hours, checking through everything and he was telling Anthony all these tricks and tips that he uses for taking care of them. He told Anthony that there is much more money in raising and selling bee colonies (that's what he does) than there is in raising bees for honey so it was interesting to hear how you do things differently if harvesting honey is your goal.

Close up of one of the frames, you can see some eggs in the cells towards the left and larvae in the cells towards the right.

Lily and Luna were out munching on tree branches:

Rett came inside the house sobbing and so upset and when we asked him what happened he said, "James said that I love him!!" We all started laughing because we totally didn't expect him to say that. He kept crying and then Anthony tried to tickle him and play with him to snap him out of it.

We volunteered to help some friends of ours take their family to the local fireworks on the 4th. They are a family of 8 that only has a 5 seater car, so they end of taking multiple trips whenever they go somewhere. Since they were right on our way, we picked up the older three kids and the boys loved it! On the way home they asked if the girls were going to spend the night at our house and they offered to share their beds with them if they wanted to. So sweet!

We tried heavy duty noise cancelling headphones for Rett this year, but he still hated it. I think it was mostly the vibrations that bothered him. Everyone else loved it!

We decided to check out the Police Hall of Fame in Titusville. I realized that we had explored a lot of places north of us, but hadn't really looked at what was south. This was an instant hit with the boys. The entire place is full of police vehicles, guns, and interesting exhibits.

They even have real pieces of rubble from the twin towers:

There was a drunk driver display and they had drunk goggles you could try on and try to walk a straight line.

Checking out the CSI exhibit:

They had a computer monitor where you could try to make your own composite sketch. We tried to do one of Rett, we looked at each facial feature and tried to pick the one that matched him the best. I think we did pretty good considering they didn't have child-like features!

Rett next to his sketch:

There was a children's dress up section where they could try on different uniforms and look at themselves in the mirror. Rett uses his entire hand when he does finger guns.

They had an example of a jail cell that you could go inside so see just how small and sparse it is. I had the boys pretend to be locked up:

James found a toy sewing machine at a thrift store on sale for $4, so I let him get it. He has been begging for a toy sewing machine for a few years now, but they are so expensive! We had fun figuring out how this one worked and testing it out on some scrap fabric. He decided that my real sewing machine is "way better" than his.

The closest trampoline park, Hangar 15, had a groupon for half off tickets, so I took the boys one morning. They loved every minute of it.

On the way home from Hangar 15, we passed by a Christmas in July event downtown. Every year they have bed races where teams get together to race beds on wheels down the street. I've always wanted to go, but never had the opportunity so we decided to check it out.

Playing a few games, waiting for the races to start:

We found a shady spot to watch, so I took a picture of the boys.

I asked Rett to make a more normal face and this is what I got. That is soooo Rett!

A lot of the spectators came prepared with water balloons to throw at the racers. Some of them didn't pop, so James ran out and grabbed them so he and Rett could throw them.

The water balloons were so tiny!