Trees! Trees! Trees!

For those of you who have been to our house, you know we have a forest in our yard =)! Over the course the of last year, we have taken down three trees and have trimmed up a few of the others. We actually had grass in our backyard this year! Unfortunately, most of the trees are not climbing trees. Although, our kids have discovered that the Japenese Maple by our front door works pretty well and here they are showing off their climbing skills.

Bathroom Project Begins

One of the rooms that we never got around to painting is our upstairs bathroom.  We have been inspired to get going on it because we are having company in August and would love to have it looking much better by then! 

I have always been a bit baffled as to what to do with the lovely blue tile, or shall we say - aqua?  turquoise?  I'm not really sure, but it is not a blue that is currently in style and therfore, no towel, bathmat or rug will match!  The previous owners attempted to match the blue and paint the walls the same color....it didn't quite work out =).  So, I will leave the ingenious color scheme we came up with for another blog that will include our "after" pictures, but for now, I thought you might enjoy seeing the "before" pictures.
Please notice the lovely dark brown cabinetry that we are so relieved to have taken off the wall! The room already looks better without them!  The light switch just makes me laugh!  When we moved in five years ago, every single light switch was like this!  This is the last one to go (sniff!)...

The window trim is in pretty bad shape - lots of chipping paint, so this is really good that we are getting some fresh paint on there!

Alright!  Here we go!  We've scraped, spackled, sanded and washed and now we are set to go!  Here's my little helper (?).  One of the rolls of tape had only a little bit left, so I let Derek go to town.  He had an incredible amount of fun pulling the tape off, but got a bit frustrated that he couldn't get it to stick to the wall - mostly it just stuck to him!I'll be sure to update with "after" pictures as soon as we are done!!

Adventure in Hamlin

What better to do with a 91 degree day than to go to the beach! We have not been too adventurous with our young kiddos, but this summer we are determined to get out there and make some family memories =)! So, we decided to head out to Hamlin Beach State Park, which is only about 40 minutes west of us. More info here.

When we got there at 9:00am (we wanted to make the most of the morning and then head back home after lunch for nap time), the beach was pretty much deserted! We were able to pick a great spot to dump our stuff - the only shady spot on the beach =). We Bertrams get grumpy if we are too hot, so it was perfect to have a shady spot to retreat to.

During this time the lifeguards were practicing their skills with a rescue boat and surfboard. The kids were interested for awhile in watching them, but were getting antsy to go in themselves. By this time, we had discovered that the lifeguards were not "on duty" until 11:00am....it was about 9:30am at this point.....

So, we got busy playing in the sand to pass the time =).

Of course, playing in the sand is a favorite activity for Heidi, Kip and Derek! Even Peter got in on the fun for awhile =)

Finally! 11:00am! The lifeguards gave the go-ahead and Kip and Heidi were off. Kip decided it was tooooo cold, but Heidi stayed in for almost an hour. Peter and I took turns out there with her. Heidi asked if I still remembered how to swim =). She was very impressed by my handstand, although she made sure that I knew it wasn't straight =).

We packed up our beach stuff around 12:00 and headed over to the picnic area to have our lunch. We had just gotten out all of the food onto our plates when it started to sprinkle, then rain (Peter ran to the car to get the umbrella), then pour! We huddled under the umbrella - our food stayed mostly dry, but all of our backs were soaked! Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes and we all had lots of giggles over our predicament =).

We headed home for a much needed =) rest time....

Until next time!

A Swimmingly Great Summer!

We have a new pool! Well, a new kiddie pool, but it has a slide =)! Peter and the boys set off on a mission on Saturday to get a backyard pool for the kids. They found this great pool and after folding it in half (almost) to fit it into the van, they got it home. The kids are having a blast with it!

Every summer we participate in the YMCA's Backyard Swim Lessons. The program is fantastic! We go to a pool close to home that is so unique. The enclosed pool is behind the owner's house at the bottom of a steep hill - so, each day we climb down a long staircase (no railing!) to the pool. Kip has his lesson first and then it is Heidi's turn. Later this summer, Derek & I will go to a "mommy & me" class together.

This is Kip's first year going in the pool without mommy and the first three days he was terrified! His confidence is now soaring, thanks to a great teacher who knows just when to help and just when to push Kip to try it on his own.

This is Heidi's 3rd year taking swim lessons. This year she is swimming without a bubble and is going under water and even sitting on the bottom!

We are so thankful to have such a great place to go for summer swim lessons!

4th of July

Here we are at our town parade. Every year we walk from our end of our street, all the way down to the other end where it hits the parade route. The kids were looking forward to the marching bands, fire trucks and of course, the candy!

Our friends, Christina & Peter also joined us this year =).
Our friends, the Connors were in the parade this year! Eric is driving a fuel cell car from GM.
Our good friends, the Lilites, also joined us for the parade and for a picnic at our house. Abby and Heidi are great friends and LOVE spending time together pretending, dancing, creating.... The Lilites are headed to their new home in Oklahoma tonight - we will miss them SO much!
To finish off our 4th of July celebration, we all tried sparklers! The kids were a bit nervous at first, but really had fun with them. Derek even had a try with Daddy's help.
Happy Independence Day!!

Happy 83rd Birthday to Gramps!

July 3rd is Peter's Dad's birthday, so we headed over to his sister's house to celebrate #83! In this picture Heidi, Kip, Derek and their cousin Nathan are waiting for Gramps to blow out the candles. They began to say - "Come on, Gramps! Blow!"
In this picture, Derek was singing "Happy Birthday" to Gramps and would point to him everytime he sang the word "you"! He, of course, brought down the house =)