Visit with the Parkers

The Parker's have been our best friends since we moved to Wake Forest for seminary 7 years ago.  However, a few years back the Lord called them to Waco, TX to do PhD work and we have missed them DEARLY.

Because of their daughter, Leah's, heart condition they have been unable to travel and we haven't had the funds to travel out to Texas so we haven't seen each other in person in about 2 1/2 years! It had been way tooooooo long, but neither us nor our kids missed a beat hanging out together. We relaxed, we played, we ate, we relaxed, and we ate, and we relaxed and we ate some more, and so on and so on.....We had such a WONDERFUL time together!

Check out our tech savy kids!

Did I mention that we ate?!?! We ate REALLY good.

Right: Leah & Emma Claire

Left: Camp & Jacob; Right Ross & Katie

These kids had a blast!!!

And so did these! They are such big kids!

We will miss them so much until we are able to see them again, but I'm so thankful for their friendship and how they love us for just being us!

Daddy Daughter Date

These dates are the highlight of her day, week, and even year! They were just going to a mom and pop restaurant for breakfast and then to McDonald's for a meeting. Don't you love the way she decks herself out?! She even applied her own make-up.

*When Benjamin was getting ready in the bathroom she said, "I'm sure he must be in there putting on his tie!' : )

Going to Work

Camp said he was going to work. Notice he grabbed a book. I guess he's been watching Daddy as he heads out the door! : )

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Happy 4th of July!

Emma Claire & Ballet

Mommy finally did it! RaRa and PePaw had given Emma Claire money for her birthday, in February, to take ballet lessons and I just now got around to enrolling her in a class. It's better late than never right?!?

She was thrilled about finally getting to go! We pulled out some of her ballet dress up clothes and slippers and all that was left to do was the bun. I have never had to do a real bun but after a few You Tube videos we had it down pat! : )

Before we left she quickly demonstrated some of her ballet poses for me...

I think that's a pretty good first bun!

Several of the ballet places were not having summer sessions, but we found that Dance Destiny at the Factory was having a summer session just for the month of July. It was a perfect 4 week session for her to decide if ballet was going to be her thing or not.

Her teacher, Mrs. Sarah, was great from the beginning. She welcomed them at the door teaching them how to correctly walk in ballet class and kept their attention the ENTIRE time.

We ended up very lucky to only have 3 little girls in her class. They get LOTS of one-on-one time!

I need to go ahead and say that I was quite surprised with Emma Claire. I honestly didn't think that ballet would be her thing and that it wouldn't come naturally to her. Boy was I wrong. She really was a natural and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.

Click Here to watch her in action.

Little brother LOVED watching her through the window!

At the end of class Mrs. Sarah pulled out these little fluffy skirts for them to wear and dance around in. They really felt like princesses. She gave each of them a turn to do their favorite dance and the rest of the girls would be their audience.

 Click Here to watch Emma Claire's dance. (You can't hear the music because we were outside the room looking through the window, but it was the music from her movie 12 Dancing Princesses.)

Click Here to watch the group dance together.

Emma Claire had a great first ballet class. She can.not.wait. until next week! Thank you Destiny Dance and Mrs. Sarah!

Camp's First Movie

We had a blast at the movies watching Madagascar 3 while we waited on Daddy's plane to arrive!!