Sweet Summertime

It's been a really busy two weeks, all filled with the sweet fun of summertime.  John wrapped up his baseball season with a championship win in the ELS league.  His JTown competitive league didn't end so great, but his Red Sox team at ELS was all smiles when they took home the top prize.

Go Red Sox!

Last at bat of the season

That next day was our first swim meet of the season at LCC.  The kids did great, both winning first place in their events.  Our poor little team doesn't win many meets, but our kids still love to swim and we have fun watching them.

Sarah swimming the 100 IM

That next week was our first full week of summer break, and the kids enjoyed sleeping in and having nowhere to be.  John and Lawrence had summer football conditioning in the evenings, which gave Sarah and I quite a bit of down time alone.  We did some field hockey conditioning ourselves, watched the Bachorlette and other stupid TV, and basically just enjoyed being home.  

Lawrence played in two back to back golf tournaments...the Big Spring Member Guest and the Hurstbourne Member Guest (both with John DeCamillis as his partner).  Our 17th wedding anniversary fell in the middle of that, and since Lawrence has been on a pretty strict diet (he's lost almost 40 pounds!), we just went out for a quick dinner to Bonefish.  I completely forgot to take a picture that day, so I had Sarah take one of us before we went to the party for the HCC Member Guest.  I want to remember us at 17 years!

Look how fantastic my man looks!  So proud of him!

Last week Sydney came over to hang out one day, and we went to the pool and did some tie dying. The shirts turned out great, and the kids went on a tie dying rampage for a few days. 

Artists at work

This last weekend was the annual Antle family reunion down in Russell County (technically we had it down the road in Columbia this year at Mike and Laura's house), so we used this as an excuse to go tent camping down at the Lake Cumberland State Park.  I put tent camping on our family summer bucket list...our kids had never been, and after some serious pleading with Lawrence (did I mention he had just played in TWO back to back golf tournaments?!), he agreed, and actually got really excited about it.  We borrowed all kinds of equipment from our friends, and I must say, we had quite the comfortable camp site.  John definitely liked it...Sarah, well, it depended on what hour of the day it was (I think she liked it but didn't want to admit it).  Now Lawrence is making noise about going on a tent camping trip to Wyoming next summer!

Tent masters!

Home sweet home

We camped on Friday night and then headed to the reunion on Saturday.  First we stopped by Grandmother's house for a visit.  She was doing well, and seeing four of her great grandchildren made her smile.

The reunion was great...we got to spend some time with Mom and Dad and three generations of Antles.  The fourth generation has sadly all passed, but it was so nice to see such a large number of us still together.  

Mike and Laura's place is great...there was lots of jumping on the trampoline, hanging in the pool, and Shannon and I gave Mom and Dad their Mother's/Father's Day gift (gift cards for them to purchase a new grill...which they ended up buying themselves a few days before!).  Oh well, they can use them for something else now!

Happy "Parent's Day"!

Love when our family of four can hang out.  All too rare!

Nice herky, John!

Lots of cousins in the pool 

Sarah and Claire - CRAZA-ZY!

Since camping had gone so well the night before, we decided to stay another night, and I'm so glad we did because I had no idea the Russell County Fair was going on!  I have memories of going to the fair with my grandparents when I was little, and Papa was all up for taking the kids, so after dropping Meme off at Grandmother's we headed to the fairgrounds for a few hours of rides, games and some seriously scary people watching.  Russell County must have a LOT of tattoo parlors (that also offer piercings) because there was no shortage of tattoo adorned folks at the fair.  The kids had a ball...they rode tons of rides, played games (even won some!), had some yummy fair food, and being at the same fair their grandfather went to as a child is well, just priceless.  

All smiles at the fair!

Fair rides!

We packed up the campsite early Sunday morning and raced back to Louisville in time for our swim meet against Owl Creek.  The kids had another good meet, and from there we headed to over to Dick's to celebrate Father's Day with the Youngs. 

Go Hurricanes!  

Fathers are awesome!

Today we checked another item off our summer bucket list, which was to go berry picking at Huber's.  Laura Weis and I had wanted to pick strawberries, but they've come and gone, so we got to pick black raspberries (I never knew there was such a thing), blackberries and peaches.  Cobbler, anyone?  

Berry picking with the Weis Boys 

Me and my little farmers

As I reflect back on all we've done the past two weeks, I realize I haven't heard "I'm bored" this summer.  Now I see why!  Heading to Wild Dunes in South Carolina on Friday with the Youngs - let the sweet summer keep rolling!