This weekend we took a day trip to Blanchard Springs, AR and Mountain View, AR. We invinted the Traughber family to go with us to Blanchard and then some other couples from our small group bible study met us in Mt. View for supper and Bluegrass music that night. Blanchard Springs is home to the Blanchard Springs Caverns and Sylamore Creek. We took the tour of the caverns and then had a picnic lunch before taking a swim in the creek. The kids had so much fun.

After swimming we cleaned up and went into Mt. View and sat around the court square and listened to sevearl different groups play Bluegrass music. It's really pretty funny. These small groups just form, there could be 10 different groups playing at the same time just around the town square, and people bring their lawn chairs and sit around and listen until late into the night. We listened to 3-4 different groups, had ice cream and then came home. Anna Kate was very curious about man playing the banjo under the tree. Of course, never meeting a stranger, she just went up to him and began asking questions. He let her pick a little and she loved it. She says she's ready to go back and sing herself. Claire enjoyed roaming around picking flowers and Blake, well if he wasn't playing with his friends he was bored. But oh well, he needs a little culture.

Mother /Daughter P.J. Party

At church we had a mother/daughter pajama party. No we didn't spend the night it was just a come in your p.j's, eat pizza and have a makeover. It was very cute. The children's ministry intern talked to the girls about being beautiful on the inside and then we went to stations for our external beauty treatments. At each station the girls received a "beauty secret" attatched to a beauty item. Ex: manicure station: the girls painted their nails and received a nail file with the verse "whatever you hands find to do do with all your might" tied to the file. We had a pedicure stations, manicure station, hair station, and a facial station. Then they decorated a box to keep all their beauty secret verses in. Very cute idea. I didn't take Anna Kate just Claire. She was needing some one on one time.

Sorry, I need to catch up on the last few weeks. I'll probably do it with 3 new entries to get all the pictures in. Please bear with me, with these entries I'm going to experiment with picture placement and captioning. I can't quite figure it out. So if the don't look right or are spaced funky I'm learning. First we finished swim lessons a few weeks ago and all three kids made so much progress. It was amazing. They took at Harding's indoor pool where Mark's cousin J.D. Yingling is the swimming instructor. He was Anna Kate's teacher while Blake and Claire had college students as their teachers. They all three can swim pretty well and all went off the diving board several times. It's amazing how quickly they made progress. On the first day Claire didn't want to put her head all the way under after just a couple of days she was bobbing up and down and now is swimming great. Here are the pics: All smiles!! Claire swimming with the kick board at the beginning of class and this was Anna Kate's reaction on the last day when she FINALLY went off the diving board. We had tried for two weeks to get her to jump, everyday she would get on the board, walk to the end and back out. The very last day she jumped 3 times and loved it. Afterwards she said " Mom I'm really sad I didn't jump before."

Blake was a fish from day one. As long as he had his goggles he was off. By the last day he could swim the length of the pool. Amazing!!

FOREVER FRIENDS!!!!

Giggles and tears... oh how the female emotions begin so early. One of Anna Kate's best friends, Katie Castleman, came for a visit this week-end and they had so much fun. Katie and Anna Kate have been great friends since they were two (they are about to turn FIVE, oh my!!) Teresa, Katie's mom, became one of my great friends 3 years ago and one of my daily phone calls. We had playdates and swapped some babysitting until they moved to South Carolina 2 years ago. Thanks to Cingular mobile to mobile and AT&T unlimited long distance the daily phone calls still occur and we've tried to keep the girls in touch. We survived hurricane IVAN 2 years ago trying to make it to Katie's 3rd birthday and last summer they flew to Wichita with Teresa being 6 months pregnant. What great friends!!! Well, this week-end they picked up right where they left off. Dress up, singing, dancing, lots of hugs and tons of giggles. The Castleman family stayed with another family but the girls wanted to be together so Katie spent Friday night with us. Their first big girl sleep over. They were so funny to listen to. Not once did they fuss or argue. They finally went to sleep around 10:30pm and awoke promptly at 8am with more giggles, hugs and of course dress up clothes. They were both sad when Katie had to leave but reunited at a birthday party and at church. But then came the tears. Anna Kate fell completley apart when they had to leave after church. We all tried to comfort and console, the moms fighting back tears too, but she couldn't be comforted. About half way through lunch she finally sniffed and slowed down the tears when her daddy promised her a South Carolina trip this fall. From now till then I'll have to answer the question every five minutes "how much longer till we go to South Carolina?" I pray they can keep their special friendship through the years and across the miles. We miss you Katie!!! Thanks for such a special weekend.

The 4th of July. I thought I'd add pictures from the 4th. We went to Mark's parents for lunch and then our Sunday night, not so small, small group met at the Traughbers for supper and then headed to Harding for firworks. The kids had a great time. The little boy in the chair with Anna Kate is her boyfriend Connor McGaha. They are so cute and funny. They talk like grown ups and pair up every Sunday night at small group and at church. They did inform us they are not getting married because they don't want to kiss. YEAH!!!! They're just going to be best friends. That's good enough for both sets of parents.

Welcome to my blog. I've been inspired by a few friends to start a blog to keep friends and family updated with pictures and the details of our crazy lives. To catch everyone up, we moved back to Searcy in December after a very interesting experience in Kansas. Blake and Claire finished kindergarden at Sidney Deener and loved every minute of it. It is so fun to watch them and their personalities come out in their activities and interests. Blake likes to read, loves legos and Star Wars, wants to know how everything works and never forgets a thing. He's a little engineer. Claire is pretty quiet. She likes to read, loves math, art and is very athletic. During a recent trip to my grandmother's house she taught herself to play Mary Had a Little Lamb by ear on the piano. So now we are checking into lessons. Anna Kate never stops talking. NEVER!!! She loves playing with baby dolls, playing dress up and performing whether it be ballet or singing. She is very dramatic...a true red head.

We are enjoying our summer by visiting grandparents and taking swimming lessons. They have two more weeks of swim lessons and then we'll be done. All three of them are looking forward to school starting. Anna Kate will be going to preschool five days a week this year at Curtis Kindergarten. She and I are so excited. She was so bored last year being at home. I think it will be good for her.

For now we're just enjoying the long summer days and loving being back in the south...back home hopefully for good.

Cristy