priceless

our family got a nice surprise last week with a phone call from the newspaper saying that cooper's essay about his daddy won for their "father of the year" contest.

cooper, chloe & kamrie all wrote essays about brad. they were really cute & were more than happy to write. (coop & chlo told me what to write for theirs) hunter & parker wouldn't write one-you know it's summer break & all! guess they won't get to enjoy all those gift certificates brad won! :)

thank you, seriously, to the republican & to all the business who generously gave $450 in gift certificates to the winner.

and, the biggest thank you goes to brad, for being a father who loves his kids & me, but most of all loves God. i love you.


cooper's letter:

I love my daddy more than monster trucks. and more than a firetruck. and dump trucks. and more than a scooper-upper truck that puts dirt in a dump truck. i love daddy because he is nice and he loves God. and because he's beautiful.

my favorite thing to do with daddy is ride in a truck. he's handsome. i love daddy becuase he likes to be like a monster truck driver.

from cooper dillan

politics

fyi, if your kids ever write to the governor or the president, send the letters!

after hunter's class was at champion lake & mill for a field trip we talked about needing to contact our representatives about getting the dam repaired. i encouraged the boys to write to the governor & president on our way to kearney last month.

the letters sat at the house for a few weeks but finally i did photocopy them & mail them in. parker's letters went to the governor & the president & hunter's went to just the president (he didn't want to write another one).

low & behold what's in the mccook gazette the next week?

"Champion Mill set for construction, repair"

the boys, especially parker, were thrilled to see their letters made an impact. a bit sorry to not see their names mentioned, or even the fact that kids wrote in & that's why it's being fixed. we just praised them for writing the letters & told them their voice wouldn't have been heard if they hadn't taken the time to write.

i'm just glad i mailed the letters!

parker's:

Dear President Obama,
Please fix Champion, Nebraska's dam. It's broaken and it has no water in it. A bunch of people is sad because they cannot go fishing or go swiming with the fishes and the ikes club cannot get prisez because they dinn't cech any fish. I am Parker Dillan and if you want to talk with m about it this is my number call ***-**** Imperial, Nebraska. From Parker Dillan

hunter's:

Dear President Obama,
We are in desprate need of repairs at Champion Lake in Chase County, Nebraska. About three-fourths of the water is gone because there was a gigantic flood in 2007. It flooded our crops and overflowed our lakes. Enders lake needed the water but Champion lake did not. Champion lake overflowed and broke the dam. Part of the dam was shot out by the pressure of the water. So all the water went out and the fish in the lake went out of the lake in the water. So we can't go fishing anymore. Every year the IKES Club has a kid fishing program. It teaches children how to fish and tie fishing knots. It is very important. So can you have people come and fix the dam, refill the water in the lake, and put fish inside the lake. Please fix Champion Lake!
Fisherman and Citizen of US,
Hunter Dillan
Age 11

crocodile dock

we've had so much fun the last 2 weeks with Crocodile Dock at church. Instead of doing a "traditional" week-long VBS, we've been using each day for our Sunday morning & Sunday evening curriculum. It's been great. I love how we can enjoy the decorations for more than a week too!

The Bible Church here in town was generous enough to give us some of their posters & their backdrop for the main dock area. It sure saved us a lot of work. It allowed us to do some other touches, like the playhouse for Rocky's Playhouse for the toddler/preschool kids & make the boat attached to the dock.

We've had a blast. Come & join us each Sunday in June & July from 9am-12:15pm & 6-8 pm. Help us ROCK THE DOCK!

whew!

seriously, i don't know where my time is going!

this summer is about 1/2 over & i can't keep up. between the dentist, eye doctor, swimming lessons, baseball, t-ball, church, work & just normal laundry & stuff I wonder when it'll be time to just sit & relax.

hopefully one of these days we can go camping! we decided in just a few years our kids won't want to spend time with us, so for now we'll take advantage of some quality time at the lake. we're anxious to spend our first night in it. the younger kids attempted a night out there by themselves & ended up inside within about 1/2 hr. a couple of nights ago i was going to sleep out there with them & one by one they kept going inside, so i finally did too. hunter was the last one to come in at about 1:30 am.

we got some hail here tonight & it broke the vents on the top of it, so now we have a bit of work to on it now. possibly a trip to larry's rv in my near future for replacement parts...

actually it's a God-thing how we even ended up with this camper. brad & the boys were on the way to a little town in iowa to look at one we found on the internet & the girls, cooper & i were at the ENT in north platte. i was trying to distract cooper while dr. fitzpatrick was looking in his ears so we started talking about where daddy was that day.

cooper: "daddy is going to get us a camper!"
dr: "what kind of camper are you looking for? we're selling ours."

so, long story short, the kids & i followed him home to look at it, liked it, brad turned around (they'd made it all the way to omaha) & we now have it parked in our front driveway.

fitzpatrick's had just prayed the night before that they'd sell it quickly. it was a God-thing for sure that we talked about it that day.

kam's field trip

beach day at cox's ponds with kamrie's class was fun. extremely windy, but extremely fun. i love being able to go the kids' events like this.

champion field trip

for a town that's barely visible on the map, champion has a lot to offer!

hunter's class was able to tour the champion mill & chase county museum on the last day of school. they also bbq'd hotdogs at champion lake before heading back to the school for ice cream.

in the slide show if you look closely you'll see a letter hunter wrote as a thank you in 3rd grade to the tour guide at champion lake. seeing their letters was really neat for them. also if you watch ntv, you'll see a picture of weatherman kent boughton when we was at the champion mill for a celebration several years ago.

after being at the lake, hunter & parker decided to write the governor & the president to ask them to fix the dam (it was damaged by a flood a couple of years ago). we miss going there for fishing & a shady place to play. there is not much water in it right now & the campground area is looking a bit unkempt.

wouldn't it be great to get a response from their letters?

spring concert

the kids' spring concert was fabulous.

parker had a solo & did great. he sang "take me out to the ballgame" & didn't miss a note.

kamrie & hunter's classes did the best i'd seen yet. especially the 5th graders. they were very animated singing about "old dan tucker." it sure made it fun to watch.

birthdays.

where does time go?

chloe turned 6 may 31.

cooper turned 4 today.

and it seems like

yesterday

we were cuddling them as newborns.

this morning cooper bounced out of bed amazingly fast (he's a slow mover most mornings) & was ringing a bell right in chloe's ear & saying

"chloe get up! it's my birthday!"

i love you both!