4th of July

The girls maded it home on Friday afternoon from Bible Memory Camp.

Kaelyn Klopfenstein, Megan Graber, Sydney Brenneman, Katelyn Swartzentruber, Natalie Graber.

I brought the same group of girls home from camp and took little Miss KK along with me to pick up the girls so she could check out the camp. Megan gave her the grand tour...I think she thinks it looks like it is going to be fun for her next year. The girls had a blast and were completly WIPED out...so wiped out that we didn't even go to watch the Boggs fireworks...we all just went to bed. Very exciting I know!

Saturday a.m. we woke up and went over to the Catfish Festival in Shoals so the girls could run in the 5K.

Megan ~ 2nd place girl 14 and under age group,

Natalie ~1st place girl 14 and under age group.

Katelyn Sandy, KC Heller,

Courtney Heller ~1st place ages 21-29 group,

Chloe Heller ~1st place overall girl winner,

Kevin Heller ~1st place in his age group...not sure what age group that is it's the above 40 one hee hee.

Of course all the runners from the family were running in the 5K too and even Mr. Connor ran his 1st 5K and he did AWESOME!! Courtney's friend, Katelyn, also came home with Courtney for the weekend so she ended up running with Connor who begged her to stay with him! It was so sweet! Aunt Lisa did a swell job of conquering those hills of Martin County too. Along with Courtney & Chloe who ran most of the race together until then end when Miss Chloe's long legs kicked into high gear and won her 1st place woman overal winner! Courtney won 1st place in her age division. My brother a.k.a. Uncle Kevin also ran and captured 1st place in his age division as well. My Nephew KC...well he is just looking amazing running this year...He came in 10th place overall but there is alot of stiff competition in his age group 14 and under and they only gave awards to the top two places in each age division but he did a really great job! Megan & Natalie both ran the 5K pacing theirselves without the help of any "experienced runners".

Natalie running her own pace by herself!

Their finishes landed them 1st and 2nd place awards in the 14 and under age group! Courtney did come back and ran with Megan to the finish after she had already finished her own race so that was nice for Megan.

Megan's got her ponytail goin on with her stride!

Megan was so tired from camp and really was dragging her feet about running the 5k on Saturday but she toughened up and ran a really good race so I was proud of her for that!

After the race we ate breakfast at a local resturant in Shoals and when we were finishing the parade was starting so we stayed and watched the parade in the sprinkling rain. Lots of the people in the parade were handing out popsicles and bottled water on top of all the candy...so we came home with about 30 popsicles because it really was not hot enough to be in the mood for popsicles. Then walking back to our van we stopped to see the catfish some of the people had caught. Let me tell you these were HONKIN BIG Catfish...the biggest I've every seen...I'm sure they were about the size of Natalie probably weighed more than her! We also seen people fishing off the highway bridge...I can't imagine pulling that size of catfish up from the river all the way to the top of the bridge...that'd have to be some heafty fishing line!!

Then we came home and the girls & Griffin took a nap and I unpacked suitcases and did laundry from the girls camp clothes. That evening Les, I, and the kids all went to the movies to see Ice Age 3, and it was pretty good...I love to listen to my children laugh during the movies and this movie had some parts that really gave you a good belly laugh. After the movies Les suggested SCOOPS! So we made a quick stop and got there just in time because they locked the doors behind us! YAY for us! They had my favorite BLACK RAZ ice cream & Griffin & Megan's favorite BLUE MOON made that night it was so Yummy. Natalie & Les stick to the same...Natalie-Vanilla and Les-Butter Pecan. Then we watched fireworks from the van on the way home...lots of people tend to set off "big" fireworks so we watched them all the way home...easy way no fighting any crowds!

We also sold our old van this week and now we are driving around in this Blue one. They pretty much are the same van except this blue one is a 2001 and only had approximately 35,000 miles on it!! That's what our 1999 van had on it when we bought it in 2002 and the odometer had 146,000 on it when we sold it. Les' Uncle Marlin spied this blue van for us...blue isn't really my favorite color but to have the low miles I don't really care what color it is...I'm sure I can put over 100,000 miles on this baby too...and as much as I run my children around it probably won't take long! hee hee...so if you see a blue van and wonder who's honking at you it's probably me!!