Swimming lessons

Claire & Alex started swimming lessons this week. They are warming up to the idea of following directions and they LOVE the frog slide!

A family reunion

Last weekend was the bi-annual Monroe-Read Family reunion. We head to Milwaukee Friday afternoon and had a nice time hanging out with my mom's extended family. We had dinner at Carrabas and stopped at a fun little market called Brennan's where we picked up some local wines and beers.

Saturday morning we met the Waterworth family at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Everyone had a good time and it was nice to catch up with Dani, Chris & Abby.

They had lots of animals....including 2 elephants.

Peacocks that wandered around free.

And monkeys.....I mean Abby & Claire in front of the camels.

Then we went back to the hotel for naps and a little pinata action. To celebrate Lucille's 80th birthday, her niece made her a pinata that looked strikingly like her!

We had dinner as a family and then headed back to the hotel where a wild game of picture telephone took place in the hotel lobby.

Memphis

So, not only will blogger not let me publish my post. It also won't let me rearrange my pictures. So, these are in a crazy order.

The first weekend of July, Trever and I headed south for the summer meeting of Family Heritage. We left Friday after work and spent the night in Marion, IL. Then we got up and headed the rest of the way to Memphis Saturday morning.

The last night we were there we visited Graceland. Here I am with a picture of "The King" listening to my audio tour of his home.

And playing a little guitar

On the 4th of July we headed to Canale Farms which is a horse farm that specializes in company picnics. Trever thought he'd show the girls who kept falling off the ladder that it wasn't as hard as it looked....but it was.

Sunday night we went to a Memphis Redbirds game. The are a AAA team for the cardinals. While we were there, there was a shooting at the hotel across the street. CSI even showed up!

Saturday night we had some AMAZING ribs at Blues City Cafe. We also tried some shrimp and catfish.

This is Trever and his friend Katie having breakfast at Cockadoos. Trever had a BBQ omlet.

And a picture of the two of us. Even though I am a little blurry!

At Canale Farms they had a tether ball set up. I totally kicked Trever's butt at it! I had LOTS of training on the blacktop at Bellflower Elementary.

A Mickey Party!

I have lots of pictures to post! I'm going to start with Claire's birthday party!

We planned Claire's party for the weekend after her birthday. We decided months ago that we would have a Mickey party since Claire is a HUGE fan of Mickey Mouse Club House. Daddy also had big plans for the cake and, as you can see below, he out did himself!

But as much as we had planned and wanted everything perfect for Claire's big party, we could stop Claire from feeling yucky. She ran a pretty good fever most of the day and spent a good portion of the day in bed or clingy to mommy.

She got lots of really great presents. Including a tricycle with all of the bells and whistles. We let her "unwrap" that and her sandbox early with the hopes it would cheer her up.

Then we had pizza! Pizza with black olives is typically Claire's favorite food, so that's what we served at her party! We kept with the Mickey Mouse theme on the pizza too.

Claire got a new show shirt from Aunt Kyla, Uncle Ron, Caisey, Maddi & Kempton.

And a little magnadoodle from Grandma & Grandpa.

We woke her up to blow out her candles. As you can see she wasn't too in to it.

But the good news is, the day after her birthday it was like she was seeing her presents for the first time! She was soo excited and felt sooo much better! We're still not sure what the deal was, but luckily it was short lived! Here is Claire with all of her loot!