Veterans Memorial Park

 When we moved to Moore almost exactly 8 years ago, this was the view over our back fence.  It was overgrown and weedy and if your ball went over, it wasn't coming back.

 By the next summer, though, they had started clearing things out.  We were a little nervous because we were losing a lot of shade and we weren't sure what the plans were.

 It turned out to be fabulous!  This is Jack (in the orange shirt) the very first time we went to the park in June 2006.

 He had his third birthday there.

 And as you can see, we never bought a swingset because it's kind of pointless when you have a whole park just behind your fence.

 It was a great place to walk--

 Even if you were just learning!

 And if you had to take a bathroom break?  Your own clean potties were just over the creek.

 We had egg hunts there.

 Jack found the Elders there, too.  (If you've ever watched Lord of the Beans this might make sense to you.)

 Of course there was fun play equipment, too.

 And if you got bored with that, you could always head to the creek.

As you can see, this park has been a special place for us, even after we moved.  The park and our old neighborhood (and our house) were hit hard in the May 20 tornado.  If you click here you can see the damage in photos taken on May 21.  The third picture would have been taken from somewhere close to our back yard.  Please vote here to help Veterans Memorial Park win $100,000 toward the cost of reconstruction!

Thursday

 Today we spent about four hours at the pool--long enough for the kids to make cameo appearances on the news.  (If that link doesn't take you to it directly, it is the one called "Kids Explain Beating the Heat"--Alice runs by about 10 seconds in and Jack is standing around a while longer.)  It was the hottest day of the year so far and by the time we left it looked like the opening pool scene from Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.

 This evening Alice had a gymnastics class.  She has been so excited about this.

 She picked out this $2 leotard at a consignment sale a while back and as soon as I told her about the class she started talking about how she would get to wear her leotard somewhere!

 While she was jumping and climbing, I was catching up on some blog posts.  (I wrote about that here.)

Our last stop of the night was the airport to pick up Jay, who has been in Georgia since Sunday--which is why I've been doing daily posts.  Clearly my kids aren't travelers because they were so excited about the huge revolving door and the baggage carousel was amazing to them.  I am happy for things to get back to normal around here!

Wednesday (A Little Late)

 Wednesday's pictures are a little late because the neighbors' dogs were making weird noises that creeped me out so I went to bed.

We stopped by a new store in town that sells antiques and Alice decided she wanted this cinderblock for her room.

 We had lunch at Chili's.

Harry Potter circa 2001 arrived and all minifigures have been sorted into their appropriate houses.

Today is pool day!

Tuesday

 Today was incredibly long, but since there are only nine minutes left until Wednesday, I'll try to make this post quick!  We started off at the park with friends--we're sad because some of them are moving out of state this week!

 Then we went to a shadow puppet show at the library.

 And then it was on to Bartlesville to see friends!

 The kids spent a couple of hours in a water balloon war--the older siblings against the younger siblings.

 After dinner we went to the Kiddie Park--there are enough cute pictures I'll probably do a whole post soon.

 The first thing they rode was the roller coaster and Alice was half terrified and half delighted.

 Snack time!

 Jack and Alice were so excited when Emalee and Anna got out of soccer and came back to ride rides with them.

We stayed until closing and made it home just after 11:00.  Tomorrow is going to come way to soon!

Monday

 This morning we went to the movies and then to Target, where we picked up this floatie thing in anticipation of a visit to the creek soon.

 This evening we went to a presentation at the library on Venus.

 Afterward, the kids got to try out the telescopes.

 Alice wasn't impressed.

 She did really like this frog they found, though.

 Before we went home we stopped by the Sugar Shack.

Alice was determined to touch these leaves, but I finally said we had to go home.

Summertime!

 We spent part of the first official day of summer at the splash pad, which is kind of like playing Where's Waldo? as you try to check on your kids.

 Tonight when it was almost bedtime I decided to take the kids to Sonic for shakes.  Have you ever tried their Hot Fudge shake?  Oh, my!  It's a good thing I really don't like to go to Sonic or I would be there every night.

 On the way back, Alice said she was cold, so I put all of the windows down a bit.  The kids were so excited that I went ahead and put them all the way down, at which point they started freaking out.  You would have thought we were in a flying car or something.  After four years of riding in Jay's Jeep, I really prefer not to be windblown while I'm driving, but we just might have to do this every so often.

 Between birthdays and computer issues, I've gotten behind on blogging, so here are a few more summer pictures...

 Conquering the monkey bars after face planting in the wood chips

 Catching crawdads at the park

 The chalk art festival

 The kids went to Build A Bear with their birthday money.  Alice was excited to rub the heart and all and put it in the pony.  Jack just wanted to have a stuffed Sponge Bob, but the guy was trying to get him to go through the whole kissing the heart routine, too.  Jack didn't look amused.

 We went to see the Wonder Dogs at the library!

 Alice and Jack both got their reading medals from the summer library program (but Jack never came downstairs for me to take his picture!) and Alice earned her stuffed prairie dog.  Jack should get his soon--he read the second Harry Potter book in four days!

Happy Summer!