Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia and Paul's parents arrived home safely on Sunday! They drove over 2,000 miles to Florida and back. Nadia never got car sick! She used to get car sick on almost every ride that was an hour or longer. I am very grateful this has improved.

2. The kids had only done 3 nights of VBS last month (at the church where they go to AWANA), and our church had its VBS last week, while we were in Florida. I noticed a poster at the grocery store advertising a VBS taking place in our town this week, and the kids are thoroughly enjoying it.

3. I'm thankful for the progress Nadia is making with her swimming skills this summer, and in particular for the things she's learning during swim lessons this week! Next year I'll sign both Nadia and Ian up for swimming lessons.

4. Oliver is really making progress with his building skills (with Duplos or Mega Bloks). He also has been spending a lot of time playing at Ian's train table. Cars, trains, balls, and

blocks are his favorite toys these days! Yesterday at one point I asked him what he wanted to do, and he responded "go play choo choos". He promptly headed toward Ian's bedroom to play with the train table.

5. It's been fabulous having Paul around so much lately!

6.We had a great time at the Lycoming County Fair yesterday. The weather was perfect! Nadia's favorite rides were the swings (she rode them 5 times!), BIG slide (proof that we love our kids because that slide is very hard on an adult's backside!), and bumper cars.

7. I recently noticed that one of the local trash companies (not the one we've used the past almost 6 years) has started doing curbside recycling once a month. To have our garbage and recycling picked up by that company will only cost $3 more per month than what we're paying now to only have our garbage picked up. We're switching effective the first week of August, and the new company delivered our recycling trash can yesterday! We have been driving to another town to dispose of our #1, 2 plastics, cardboard, cans, etc. It will be much easier to put it out at the curb once a month!

8. I could list them every week, but I am very thankful for my three kids. Below you'll find Nadia's 6th birthday interview that I finally got around to doing this morning. She's wearing a costume that she pretends is Elsa's dress. Some of her answers were the same as what she said in last year's interview. For example, Friendly's is still her favorite restaurant, and pink is still her favorite color.