aaron.anica.emily.isabel.claire

Emily religiously has me apply sunscreen to her olive skin everyday and one day even told me that if I happened to get burnt I couldn't whine to her about it. I willingly oblige, but all her time in the sun has left her with a pretty awesome tan line and has become a source of humor for us. Thought I'd share. We went to this really cool sprinkler park down here with some friends. It's just a flat area with all these sprinkler type things that the kids can run through and have fun. Emily playing with her friend Lexi

We had a fun little excursion this week with our friends Helina and Bennett. On Wednesday we went to The Brooks Art Museum where they had an Andy Warhol exhibit that was really cool. The kids totally dug the Art Museum. Ha ha! (Note to self: Emily has not developed an appreciation for art museums yet, but she will.) We then dragged the kids to an Art Exhibit at the University of Memphis and it turned out to be closed for the summer, much to Emily's dismay. So we dragged them back to the car, but at least we got to see more of Memphis with our little sidetrip. Emily and Bennett on the Trolley Next we went to downtown Memphis and rode the trolley through the center of town and down to Beale Street. We ate at Hard Rock Cafe where Emily and Bennett had a hard time eating because they wanted to just dance to the music. On our way back to the trolley we stopped to listen to a live band playing some Blues Music. All of us at Hard Rock Cafe Emily and Bennett's favorite part of our...

Happy 25th Birthday to Aaron on June 13! Thanks for being such a hard worker and for always making us laugh. You are the nicest person ever it's no wonder you have so many friends. :) Thanks for being such a great husband and dad. We love you! Aaron's birthday wish was to go see Kung Fu Panda with our family so the three of us went and loved it. It was really funny and had a great message. We got home around midnight and watched a thunder and lightning storm on our deck while eating brownie sundaes. The rain storms out here are incredible! I've never seen rain like this before and it's so cool to watch the lightning because you can see everything without the mountains.

Emily has a chore chart that we mark everyday when she does her chores and then she gets paid at the end of each week for what she's done. One morning I was making my bed and she came in and asked if I was going to put a mark on my chore chart. I told her I didn't have one and that nobody paid me to do chores and she replied, "Uh-huh, remember that penny I gave you on Monday? Well that was for your chores." Thanks Em! I have to admit I was a little worried about being a stay-at-home-mom this summer. I worried about being bored or Emily and I driving each other crazy, but I've been surprised to find that I really enjoy it. Ever since she was born, I've always worked part-time or been in school so I'm proud to say that I'm better at it than I thought I would be! I was talking to my friend Hailey out here who has also been in school while being a Mommy and she said something that's really helped me. Instead of getting down, she said to look at it from...

Aaron and I celebrated our first anniversary on June 5th. What a year it's been! The best year of his life! Ha ha! The dedicated breadwinner that he is, he didn't arrive home until about 10:45 at night but we were able to have a nice little candlelight dinner. We got to go on a date on Saturday night (Emily wanted some time without us) so we went to Beale Street in downtown Memphis. It was pretty cool, here's some pics. Our self-portrait in the middle of Beale Street Aaron outside B.B. King's Blues Club A look down Beale Street Check out this one man band. He was pretty awesome, but the show-stopper was the guy to the left whose suit jacket was longer than his shorts. The name painted on the back of him - "Disco Felix."