A Chimp?!

Look at me!! I held a real baby chimp this morning!! How often can your husband come home from work and say, "So, honey, what did you and the kids do today?" And you respond with, "Oh, you know, we held a baby chimp and a baby kangaroo. Got to feed some deer. Nothin' much." It was so cool. We went to this exotic animal zoo thing about 30 minutes from here and it was so fun! Got to see really cool animals up close and personal (obviously). Loved every second of it - even though it was a bit toasty out there.
Austin and Gab having some quality time.
Here's my BFF, Kim - she's the one who takes amazing shots of my kids. LOVE her (and so does that chimp! ha!).
Austin holding the baby chimp. He's wearing a diaper! (not Austin, the chimp)
And here's Austin holding the baby kangaroo - wow!!
Over the last 2 and a half months I have learned that I LOVE summer. I suppose I have always known this fact, but we have just had so much fun this year. Maybe because it was a "real summer" this year since Austin started school last year. Before that, summer was just another day...no different than winter, fall, spring...but now it's an actual break from routine where we just see what the day brings. I love it. I love my kids. I love taking care of them every single day. I love listening to their conversations as we eat breakfast in the morning (and let me tell you - there are some interesting ones!). I love having all their little friends (and moms) over to play in the backyard. And, of course, I also love when I get to go shopping all day by myself on a Saturday - ha! So, here is more of a peek at what we have been up to this summer. Enjoy!
On to some other summer fun...Lucas LOVES crackers. Not much gets in his mouth though.
Here's lunch time at the Turner backyard - The Marks came in town so we had to throw a bash.
And here's Baby Taylor - born two weeks after Lucas. Aren't they adorable?! They are totally getting married someday. I just hope the rule "the bride pays for the wedding" still applies.
My baby Lucas - So happy. And LOVES his daddy.
Austin's garden has gone crazy in our backyard. Here he is eating a potato straight from the garden!! He was so proud!
Lucas also LOVES his Papa. I don't know what Papa Settle does, but Lucas just gets giddy when he sees him.
Hmmmm....don't have anything to say about this one...
All the kids LOVE the tire swing Shawn put up!
Here's all the boys going for a ride. About 10 minutes after this, Austin puked. Neat. Little too much spinning I guess.
How in the world do those two girls fit in there???
Here's Austin with a bunch of his buddies - they are playing Bakugan...hadn't seen it before but he loved it (birthday present idea!!)
Shawn received some free tickets to a Royals game so we took all the kids. Even Lucas! We had such a great time. Weather was perfect - we had awesome seats and the kids had a blast.

We even tailgated! The kids were really concerned about eating in the "street". They were afraid they would get hit by a car...I guess that's good, but it was really funny too.

One of our favorite summer time traditions now is to go to Ohio Days in Waverly, KS (where Shawn is from) which is the big fair/carnival/parade. The kids ask about it all year long and absolutely love it. Mostly for the candy, I think...Here's the fam sittin' on the side waiting for the parade to start - quite a clan!!Ahhhh, summer time! Gotta love it!!
Now, enough with summer. Let's get that countdown to school going. 20 more days til first day of school. Not that I'm counting...
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST