Our first week of summer was great! Monday a friend invited us to go blackberry picking at Ham's Orchards in Terrell and it as a fun adventure. It took about an hour to get there and after picking our berries we cooled off inside with some of their delicious peach and strawberry ice cream. It was worth the trip just for that, yum! I made an awesome blackberry cobbler with our hand picked fruit. If you like cobbler check out the Pioneer Woman's blackberry cobbler recipe, sooooo good!
Monday evening we had a little excitement resulting in the fire department paying us a visit at 2 AM. Around 11:30 PM our fire alarm started going off, giving us quite a fright. We searched the house with no sign of smoke or fire. They finally went off so Chase ran to the store to buy batteries and replaced them all. The beeping stopped and seemed to solve the problem until about 2 AM when they all went off again. This time I called the non emergency line and they sent a firetruck with 3 fireman who walked around the house and determined our boxes were faulty and we needed to replace them all. The girls were in heaven and loved that we had fireman in house. I would have taken a picture but I was a bit frazzled since it was so early! Madison actually recognized one of them and said he was at her school the other day when they had a small kitchen fire, lol.
Apparently smoke detectors are only good for 7-8 years and ours were the originals from when the house was built 15 years ago. So check your boxes, if they are old replace them so you don't have a false alarm! They took down 3 of them but an hour later the rest went off for a third time so Chase ran around with a ladder and took the remaining detectors down.
After the excitement from the first alarm the girls decided they needed to have a slumber party and camped out in Emma's bed. Secretly I was glad to have them both downstairs and close by. After the fireman came from the second alarm it took them a little while to go back to sleep. They never moved after the third alarm and had no idea Chase was in there with a ladder taking down the smoke detector at 3 AM. We were all tired the next day!
Tuesday we spent in our neighborhood pool with Mimi and then we went on a mini shopping spree at 5 Below. They had lots of fun stuff for the beach next month.
Wednesday was pretty low key. We went to visit poor Cole who broke his leg on the very first day of summer! I thought this kid was invincible but I guess a full leg cast proves otherwise. =)
Thursday we went to an end of year swim party by our sweet friend, Shelby.
Emma had the best time jumping off the board and then after jump 739....
...she slipped and one leg went in before she was ready and the other scraped the side of the board on the way down. A little blood and lots of tears later and she was ready to jump again.
Friday was the summer reading kick off at the library complete with bounce houses, ice pops, live music, and of course...books! We left with an arm load. Checking out books is so much fun.
Saturday was softball, swimming at Gram and Grandads, and then dinner with Michelle and Jessie. This cute girl sold over 600 boxes of Girl Scout cookies so she got free tickets to Hawaiian Falls!
When we got home, because we haven't had enough rain, there was a torrential downpour and the girls put on their rain boots and coats and had the best time playing in the rain. I got some cute pictures so more to come on that...
Sunday we went and picked up our t-shirts for VBS next week and then had softball.
It's hard to tell but Madison is totally smiling while up at bat. She loves this sport!
A little dress up action
Sunday night around 8 pm Madison said her eye itched and when we looked at it, it was almost swollen shut! We have no idea where that came from and finally guessed that maybe she had an allergic reaction to the Banana Boat sunscreen stick from earlier in the day. We called Pediatric After Hours but they were about to close, of course, and couldn't give any medical advice over the phone. So I texted my nurse practitioner friend, Trish, and after a little Q&A she didn't think it was anything serious so we gave her some benedryl and sent her to bed.
Poor girl looks like she was on the losing end of a boxing match!
I sent this pic to my pediatrician first thing Monday morning, in the parking lot of VBS, and they too confirmed it was probably just a random allergic reaction and to go ahead and send her in.
