Summer News

 Once upon a time, a boy met a girl. They tried to stop, but things got out of control. Everyone left with broken pieces, and it wasn't a happily-ever-after ending.  They met for the first time right in front of our house, and their story resulted in a tragic fatality.

*Warning: What you are about to see contains graphic images.*

Goodbye, dear mailbox. You served us faithfully. 

But you were leaning a little bit, and your door didn't stay shut when it was windy outside, so we weren't completely sad that two teenagers did all the demo work to tear you down and allowed us to charge their insurance company for a brand-new mailbox.

Dan did really good work purchasing, painting, and setting up our new mailbox.

Triple-checking to make sure the post is straight.

And voilà! We now have a new mailbox that looks exactly like our old mailbox! 

In happier news, we welcomed Dan's sister, Robin, her husband, Rob, and their daughters, Naomi and Miriam, back to Virginia!  They moved from Salt Lake City to Williamsburg this summer, and we're so excited to have them near us again!

We spend a lot of time with all of Emma and Hallie's cousins, but got a little extra time with Naomi and Miriam, having sleepovers and play dates.

The girls at Busch Gardens, ready to ride rollercoasters!

Jumping and climbing at a trampoline park

Miriam and Naomi even visited our girls at school one day.

And almost all the Jesters attended Miriam's summer camp "Cinderella" performance. She was the cutest mouse in the play!

 In other events, we celebrated my mom's June birthday at Texas Roadhouse.

We invited Emma's friend, Diana, to our house for a play date.  

The girls were wanting to make a treat, so I taught them to make Grandma Jesters' biscuits. 

Their biscuits were way more interesting-looking than the normal round ones we make!

Hallie attended her friend, Cassie's, birthday party at a gymnastics studio.

Hallie and I also partied with the StoneBridge School upcoming 2nd graders, and she loved seeing most of her classmates.

Our family bought season passes to Ocean Breeze, a waterpark in Virginia Beach, and enjoyed the slides, rides, and wave pool. 

We were invited to a Vacation Bible School festival by Dan's brother, Tim, and his family. 

There were a ton of simple games with candy and small toys for prizes. Hallie spend her entire evening playing the games over and over, until she had stuffed her bag with prizes! It looked like she had gone trick or treating!

Emma and the other kids moved on to some of the inflatable activities, though. It was hosted by Tim and Dawn's church and completely run by volunteers. They sold hamburgers and hot dogs and gave away free popcorn and snow cones. It was a great event!

For Independence Day, we had planned to spend at least an hour at one of our local parks that has live music and a big fireworks show every year. But it rained all day, and we weren't sure that there'd be fireworks. We decided to drive to a nearby parking lot so we could watch from the car. 

The rain cleared up 15 minutes before the fireworks were scheduled, and we had a great view of them!

Happy 4th of July!!

My company rented a luxury suite at the Norfolk Tides baseball stadium one evening, and Dan and I went to the game.  Some of my coworkers and I posed with the team's seahorse mascot, Triton.

Our oldest nephew, Benjamin, recently began playing soccer for his community college, and we cheered him on at his first game.

Benjamin is wearing black and running in this photo.

We had a belated birthday celebration for our nephews, Benjamin and Nathan.

Needless to say, we drive to Williamsburg a LOT each month to visit the Jester family. We decided to take an alternate route to Williamsburg with a ferry ride one afternoon. We packed bread to feed the seagulls and pigeons that chase the ferry, and we tried to throw breadcrumbs in the air for them to catch while they flew.

The girls thoroughly enjoyed traveling by boat with the wind in their hair.

It's been a great local, family-centered summer so far!