Summer Fun

We've been:

Finding lots of bugs and rocks,

 getting BYU ice cream for lunch,

 sharing milkshakes,

 using lots of chalk,

 and splashing on an almost daily basis!

I think they're having a good summer so far!

The End and the Beginning

Soccer ended last month, much to the girls' disappointment.  Alexa had a great time, and Kaelyn actually ended up liking it, too.  After the last game, they all got little participation medals, which Alexa thought was so cool.

Right after soccer ended, T-ball started up.  Alexa has had a couple of practices, and one game, and so far seems to really be enjoying it.  The first game was really funny, watching the kids try to figure out where to run to, and the massive dog piles as all our out fielders tried to get the ball.  After the first inning, the coaches changed their strategy and just had a few kids in the out field at a time  and that helped the dog pile issue get resolved.

 Alexa's first home run.  She was the first hitter of the team, so she was technically the first home run on the team.

 They switched the order of batting in the next inning, so she was also the last run from the team.

T-ball at this age is an automatic tie, really, because every kid gets to bat and run the bases each time, but she's really enjoying it, and is learning a lot.

Our Graduate

Alexa graduated Preschool a few weeks ago! Suddenly we're the parents of a kindergartner, and I don't know how it happened so quickly! She loved going to preschool, both here and at her old school, and made lots of good friends.  We're hoping that some of them will be in her class next year.

The Mapmaker's Children: Review

The Mapmaker's Children, by Sarah McCoy is like getting two books for one.  Half the book takes place in modern times, following the failing marriage and newly forming relationships of Eden Anderson as she gets used to her new town of New Charlestown, West Virginia.  The other half of the book follows the efforts of Sarah Brown as she tries to help the Underground Railroad as much as she can.  While the first few chapters of the book have the reader wondering how the two stories are connected, soon the pieces start connecting, until the puzzle is totally completed by the end of the book.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was historical enough that I felt like I learned more about the Underground Railroad, as well as the abolitionists that helped, without actually feeling like I was learning.  I really liked the puzzle aspect of the book, trying to figure out exactly how everything fit together.  While the changing of perspective was annoying sometimes, it was only because every time I felt like I was getting somewhere in one story, it switched to the other, making it hard to put down! The emotions in the book were very real, too.  Both women had very real personal challenges that brought raw emotions in them.  Their romantic relationships both suffered from these challenges, but also made both women realize that they were still worthy of, and capable of love.  I would highly recommend this book to romantics that like a little historical twist.

* I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.