Kids Day

As a kid I can remember asking my parents "If there is a Fathers and a Mothers day, when is kids day?" My parents gave the same response that I'm sure ever parent has given and that was, "Everyday is Kids Day" to which I would give a sigh and wonder why they would always say that. As a parent I now understand it but, the past week we really did do a kids day with Parkie, Abby and their cousins. We started out by going to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch and headed over to the Albanese Candy Factory for Dessert :) I let Parkie and Abby pick out one treat each and I may have picked out a treat for myself :)I couldn't help but think of the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (one of my all time fav's btw) when I walked in and saw the chocolate stream of goodness flowing down from the ceiling. They do allow you to watch candy being made through windows ,but they don't allow pic's .........bummer :( So anyway, this was our second adventure on our kid's day celebration...

I must note that Parkie had a terrible accident the day before on his bike which resulted in an ER visit.......poor Parkie :( His face looks a little rough in these pic's.

A dream come true for Parkie

Parkie has always been a huge fan of tractors, dump trucks, bulldozer's, etc. He has always been mesmerized by them and often gets excited when he sees one on our street or at a building site. He he's often asked me to pull over so he can watch them. While in Canada he had the opportunity to actually ride in one of these machines. Brad's family owns a gravel pit in which they use many machines. His Uncle Russ took him and his cousin Chase on a few of them. Parkie loved hanging out with his Uncle Russ and still talks about how much fun he had. We are thankful to Uncle Russ for taking the time to make a little boy's dream come true..:)

Parkie and Uncle Russ

The Gravel Pit

Mcneal Family Reunion

It has been the busiest Summer Ever!! In July we had 3 family reunions and neither of which was near us so it was a lot of traveling. Don't get me wrong I love to travel but, I even think this month did me in. Our first family reunion was the Mcneal family. We had a good turnout and had some great food and fun together. As we arrived we took pictures of families and then took a full family picture. It was definitely larger than the last family picture taken about 7yrs or so ago. We then all sat down and had lunch which consisted of dishes we all brought to share. I brought crafts for the kids to work on. I always enjoy watching what the kids come up with. Colleen brought minute to win it games to play. My mom is famous for her Bingo games so she was in charge of that. My Grandma shared an interesting story she found through doing her genealogy and made us all binders that had information about our ancestors. I really appreciated her doing that I could tell she put a lot of work into it.....Thanks Grandma :) We had horseshoe set up for the men...... I don't know that brad realized how much he loved it until that day. To cool down we had water balloon toss which was a hit with the kids. It was a hot day but, we really enjoyed spending time together.

Grandma and Grandpa Mcneal









The Oldest and Youngest

Four Generations





July Birthdays...

Grandma sharing her geneology story..