Bush Family Reunion 2015

Our family was in charge of the reunion this year,

so we thought it would be a great idea to bring my Dad's backyard carnival.

It was a hit!!

The candy/money dig is always a fun tradition.

A wonderful part of family reunions is getting to catch up with family that I don't get to see often.

I got a picture with my cousin Lonnie and her husband Roger.

I still remember when my sister Jan and I spent a few weeks with them one summer long ago.

We worked in their hardware store and just had a fun time with them.

Cub Scout Day Camp 2013 - Wild West Adventure

I got to go with Isaac

(and 9 other cub scouts)

to Cub Scout Day Camp again this year.

This year the theme was Wild West.

I made shirts for our boys again, I think they liked them :)

 Here are some pictures from our fun time.

Archery

Isaac was actually more excited than he looks when he hit the yellow area!

 BB-Shooting

Fun on the lake

 Craft time

 Fishing

Isaac caught a fish all by himself...with no bait

Some might say that, by the size of the fish,

he actually caught bait :)

He was excited though!

He loved riding the horses

He and I worked on a captain america logo in the leather working area

 Fun at the Pool

and slingshots

and throwing hatchets

More fun!

Silliness in the van on the way home...

We had a lot of fun with these boys!

Baltimore Grand Prix

On Friday August 31st we took a family outing to the Baltimore Grand Prix.

It was fun and loud too!

On our way back to our car we walked by this 9/11 memorial.

I didn't even know it was here. In my defense it has only been here since 2011 and I don't go to Baltimore very often.

I looked it up and according to Wikipedia, the memorial structure includes three 22-foot long steel beams from the New York World Trade Center, which were part of the 94th to 96th floors of the north tower. Twisted and fused together, the steel beams and damaged limestone pieces from the Pentagon’s west wall rest atop marble blocks bearing the names and birthdays of the 68 Marylanders who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Escaping the Dog Days of Summer

Last night we went to the free outdoor movie at the National Harbor.

We watched Hotel For Dogs, we were even allowed to bring Sasha.

She was a hit with many people there :)

Not a great picture, but you can see Isaac, then Grace, Anna is on Dallin's lap
and in the bottom right corner is Sasha and Noah.

It was a cute movie and a fun (free) family activity!

A week earlier on the 3rd, Mike and I went with some

friends to the Date Night Friday movie there.
(our view before the movie started)

We watched The American President.
...oh and before the movie we were entertained by a unicycle riding mime :)

It was a fun inexpensive date...it wasn't free because we went for dessert after :)

Air Show

Last Friday we took the kids to the Air Show. Yes I took my camera with me, but surprisingly we came home with only about 5 pictures. I know I know, that is so not like me...but what can you do.

Because Mike is so awesome we were VIPs and got to go to the VIP tent to have seating and some free refreshment...not to mention that we got VIP parking, that was pretty great!

Next year I think we will go a little earlier and take better advantage of Mike's sweet VIP status :)

We saw some great flying, including the Thunderbirds. 

The kids liked this plane that was flying crazy and kept looking like it was going to crash.

The kids also enjoyed looking at all the planes and helicopters. Here is Anna sitting in one that she thought was just her size.

We all tried a bean bag toss with beer goggles on. The first pair were bad and it was really hard to do, but some of us actually made a bean bag through the hole...the second glasses were a whole different story. The moment I put them on I hated them. They made me want to throw up. The point of it was to illustrate how alcohol can impair your vision...it worked!

I have to say though that the winner of the kid's favorite thing has to go to the pull-up bars (with a close 2nd going to the OceanSpray booth and their free samples.)

Anyway, we stopped by some Air Force recruiters who had some pull-up bars set up and were challenging people to do, well...pull-ups, of course. The kids wanted Mike to do it and win a prize so he jumped up and did 12 or so nice pull-ups for an Air Force lanyard. Yeah he could have done more, but he didn't want to show off too much!

Then all the kids wanted to try. Noah did 8 good pull-ups and won a t-shirt. Grace and Anna both surprised everyone by doing about 5 and 2 respectively and they each got a prize too. Isaac struggled through 1 and talked his way into getting a prize. Dallin tried a couple of times, but couldn't get one. The nice recruiters gave him a poster anyway.

Our friends the Sparks' were there too and most of their kids gave it a try. Then the kids turned on the moms, so I told Nanette that if she would try I would try. 

She couldn't do one, and sadly neither could I. What's even more sad is that these are 2 of the 5 pictures from the day...thanks honey!

All in all, we had a good time and though we thought it might rain on us, it didn't. We plan on going back next year...and taking more pictures.