July 2008!

July started off with my lil' Reed turning 5! yikes!! He wanted a very small party with swimming and a lion cake - so easy to please :) We had the adults work on churning vegan coconut ice cream that was SO yummy! Reed had a great time...









Then near the end of July, the boys and I went down to visit my dad in Jacksonville, Florida. He is fighting a tough fight against bone cancer. He's hanging in there through all the treatments and meds and we were glad to get to visit, and hopefully he didn't mind our noisy crew for a few days :)







One day we all went to the Jax Zoo - they've made HUGE improvements to the zoo and areas for the animals. It was really nice!











Of course we went to the beach one day!









The boys wanted to spend every free moment in the hotel swimming pool. Reed learned to swim underwater this Summer at a neighbor's above-ground pool - so he was eager to try out his skills in a deeper pool.

Very Cultured Flat Stanley goes to Netherlands and Rome!

This Stanley's trip was SO cool - I am seriously considering smooshing myself with a bulliten board and being sent through the mail to the Netherlands and Rome!! This *wonderful* family took SO many great photos - I'm sorry not to have space to share them all! I'll try to share the best ones - (at least by the boys' votes ;)

The letter:
Dear Boys,
Your FLAT STANLEY came all the way to my city, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

While he was here, these are some of the exciting things he saw and did:
went on vacation to Rome, zoo, windmill, park, played with playmobile, got the chickenpox.

The distance between North Carolina and Netherlands is approximately 6548 km or 3535 miles.

If FLAT STANLEY should come back to visit, he should wear jacket and hat and rainboots, because the climate here is cold, wet and cloudy.

Some other interesting facts about my city include:
The people speak Dutch. They like to eat french fries with mayonnaise, and Loempias or bitterballen. We celebrate SinterKlaas day on Dec 5 and not Christmas.

First some good play time:


These are just a few of the amazing photos from Rome:









Then back to the Netherlands and the zoo (with possibly the coolest playground I have ever seen!):




THANK YOU so much to our Netherlands hosts - you guys were wonderful - we all thoroughly enjoyed each and every picture, and your trip and hometown are just amazing!!