June's Gone?

I can hardly believe that we are a few days from the end of June. It has been a really busy month here, so I've decided to consolidate the months happenings into one post. It might be a little long, so please bear with me. I might even post it and then come back and add some more so don't be surprised if you see "to be continued" at the bottom of this entry.

Of course there's Elizabeth 5th birthday. Her birthday party was on Saturday, June 6th. She had invited her classmates from school and a few of her neighborhood friends. It was Art Space Studio and the kids had a blast. Each kid got paint the letter of their first name. It was fun to watch them be creative. Even Katherine and one of Elizabeth's friend's little sister (Katherine's age) painted letters. Each child wrote their name on a birthday plate for Elizabeth. Then we had chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a. That was followed by singing happy birthday and cupcakes from a Hello Kitty pull apart cupcake cake. There was even enough time to open gifts. Elizabeth has thoroughly enjoyed every gift she has received.

The following day, Sunday, June 7th, was Dennis' birthday. He chose to have left over Hello Kitty cupcakes for his cake. He got dinner of his choice that evening. His gift arrived the following week. He bought a new fancy digital camera. I'm hoping eventually the novelty will wear off and I'll get the chance to take some fun pictures of the girls during our daily adventures, but for now it goes almost everywhere with him. He has really enjoyed taking pictures with it and has gotten some really great shots. I'm looking forward to sharing some of them with everyone.


If you don't know already, Elizabeth LOVES race cars (I am too, so her love of them shouldn't be too surprising). Lowes Motor Speedway is here in the Charlotte area and they offer tours of the track. We met up with a few of our friends for a tour. I think that Elizabeth was disappointed that her M&M #18 car was not there for her to see. She kept asking where the race cars were at. We were the last tour that day because there were a few races going on (Legends series and one other), so instead of just getting to do one lap around the track the tour van did two laps.

As many of you know, I've taken up running. We recently changed our gym membership and I signed up for some personal training sessions. The best part about the new gym is that Elizabeth gets to go to the kid zone area where they have two inflatable bounce houses. She loves to go there. I get my workout and so does she. Katherine always has fun at child watch and has made several new friends. I started going there 3-4 days a week in June and now Dennis goes a couple times in the evenings after work (sometimes the whole family goes together) and we all go together on Saturday mornings. It's been a lot of fun. I've even inspired Dennis to run a little. We've been really enjoying working out together. Elizabeth will be the first to tell you she gets a great workout bouncing in the bounce house.

My birthday was next in the cue. It was the following week, on Wednesday, June 17th. We went out to eat at Salsaritas and then I had Tiramisu for my birthday cake. The girls split a cupcake and Dennis passed on both. I was fine with that because that meant more Tiramisu for me. Dennis surprised me with a NASCAR Ride-Along gift certificate. I'm very excited about it. I guess he saw how excited I was to go on the tour at Lowes Motor Speedway. I'm looking forward to that adventure, but it looks like it won't happen until fall sometime.

Also, during that week Elizabeth attended a 3 day afternoon camp at Art Spaces Studio. She made a glass mosaic ladybug (which I'll have to take a picture of), painted a small flower pot (seen to the left with tomatoes and banana pepper from our garden), and a garden stake. The last day the kids got to plant a seeds in their flower pot and we've been watching it grow in our kitchen window. The 2nd afternoon, we skipped Katherine's nap and Katherine and I hung out and painted our own projects while Elizabeth was in camp. Katherine painted a fish (again stay tuned for a picture) and I made a small plate with the letter K for Katherine.

We've had a lot of fun birthday parties to attend and Elizabeth had speech twice a week. It almost seemed as though we had more running around to do over this month than we normally do during the school year. We also had a air conditioner scare.....on a 90 degree day. It turned out to hopefully be just some fluke thermostat issue. In the evenings before dinner we like to hit the pool. Katherine is very fearless and eager to keep up with the big kids. I imagine that both girls will be swimming like fish by the end of the season.

I think that's it for the month of June.....it's only taken my until half way through July to get this posted.