We've been playing in the SUN!!!

We have been REALLY enjoying the weather lately!! I put up three baby pools in the back yard, filling them with cool -- NOT cold -- water from the kitchen faucet (that little faucet-to-hose adapter thingy is the BEST $5 I've ever spent, I think). I also put a sprinkler in the front yard and another one in the back yard. Since water conservation isn't something I know too much about, we play in the water for hours every day. It's actually hot in the sun, and we're all toasting to a nice golden brown.

The sprinklers are running with completely cold water -- BRRRRR! It would have to be hotter than it'll ever get here for me to enjoy that, but the kids love it. I recently found out that if you click on each picture on here, they blow up to fill the entire screen. Sprinkler-running kids have GREAT facial expressions!!




Seth LOVES to run around free in the back yard. He has taught himself to climb the ladders on the swingset, and he doesn't even get stuck because he taught himself to only go up as many rungs as he can also climb back down. Smart little guy!


Joel is one of Seth's favorites during pool time! This is their jumping in with a splash game, "1 - 2 - 3 - COWABUNGA!" Pretty funny to watch :-)



Seth hates the sprinkler. It's just too cold for him.



And here's an example of my professional photography skills -- I caught a mid-air shot:



Since it's been so warm and we don't have air conditioning, I've been cooking on the grill mostly. I think maybe it's time to clean the thing, though. Tonight, I put burgers on the grill and went back in the house to do something. When I went back out to check on the burgers, I could see a LOT of flames through the side of the grill. I don't think I've ever mentioned on here before my intense fear of fire. I LOVE fire, but I'm deathly afraid of it (surely a lot of people feel the same, right?). Despite my fear, I stayed calm, opened the grill cover carefully, turned off all four burners, shut off the propane, and waited for the flames to die down a little before I flipped the burgers. More grease falling on the flames created bigger flames, of course, but I figured the fire was contained in the grill and decided to use the flames to finish cooking the meat. I guess I should've been cleaning the grease-catching pans a little more often (or at least once), huh?

This next picture has nothing to do with what I've been writing about, but Luke is just so stinking cute that I had to share it :-)