Josh the "Parrot"

It has been a very crazy few weeks around here between going to Holiday World, starting my new job, our party with all the guys and gal from the fire house, and preparing for a garage sale. Josh has been doing great with Marge and they are finally forming a routine. We are so thankful to have Marge watch Josh while I am at work.

Josh is continuing to learn many new words. Most days he just "parrots" what we say. He repeats everything we say just like a parrot. The more he talks the better he is able to say the words. We have to be really careful with what we say because the next thing you know Josh is going to be saying a wordie durd. He already says "turd" for turtle.

On June 21st Lisa, Marianna, and Alex came over to play on the new swing set. The kids had a great time and Josh was totally beat after romping all day.

All the kids swinging together!

Here all the kids are playing with the train table.

The King of the Cart!

We have been meaning to take this picture for some time, but keep forgetting the camera. Anyway, where ever we go and there are shopping cart Josh has to stand up in the basket like he is King of the Cart. Of course, he is also the center of attention that way. He waves to everyone and they stops to wave at him.

Here Josh is waving to someone we are passing.

Josh loved the sprinkler. Matt got the sprinkler out to water the garden and it wasn't on for more than 30 seconds before he was running through it. We'll be doing this a lot this summer.

Grandma may have started something. Josh now likes to ride on the two-wheeler.

Have you met Ed Grimly?

Bye for now,
Matt, Jenny, and Josh

From playset to camping to High Water!

Since Josh LOVES going to the park and climbing on the playsets (we're convinced he is part monkey), we were FORCED into getting one of our own. The assembly has been time consuming since it comes in something like three pieces shy of a million. Of course, he had to help along the way.

Here, we discovered he can climb a ladder quite well.

And here we are rummaging through grandpa's tool bag. Grandpa called the next day and said he couldn't find @#!% in there the next day at work.

Grandma provided a good distraction but the slide doesn't work too well horizontally.

Hey! the silverware drawer! That hasn't been messed up yet. Josh likes to move his stool around the kitchen to see what he can get into. He stood and played in here for 20-30 minutes. That's 20-30 minutes for us to get something done. Yeah!

On to our second camping trip. We went to Lincoln State Park in southern Indiana last week. It's a very nice park and it happens to be 4 miles from Holiday World which is a fantastic amusement park. It has a couple of the highest rated wooden roller coasters in the country and a top ten water park. We'll have the water camera developed soon for those pictures soon and put those up. Josh is too short to ride the water slides but he should be good to go next year. It didn't stop him from terrorizing the kiddie pools for a few hours, though. The kid is a water junkie.

He did much better this trip. He stayed with us when we went on walks in the woods and was able to walk longer distances before he would tucker out. He doesn't know about poison ivy though so we had to monitor that. He also didn't have any problems with going to sleep in the camper this time. Last time he just wanted to run around and play in the twin bed but this time he just babbled for a little bit before drifting off. He also, still, did very well keeping his distance from the campfire.

We added a new experience to his young life - Kayaking.

He had a good time helping paddle, splashing his hands in the water, and touching plants as we drifted by. He sat in our laps very well for the half hour we were out. We didn't want to push it too hard this time but maybe we'll go out a little longer next time.

We have several REALLY messy face pictures from his attempt at eating roasted marshmallows but this is our favorite. Are you sure that's marshmallow?

Here's Josh and Jenny riding the train at Holiday World.

While assembling the rock climbing wall for the playset, he had to test it out and surprisingly did better than we thought he would considering he had never been on one. We guessed it must just be innate for a monkey boy.

I DID IT!!!

Now, the Great Flood. Thank heavens that God promised he would not destroy the earth by a flood, but he didn't say anything about a part of the earth though. We had so much rain Friday and Saturday that we thought we were going to need the kayaks to move about. Maybe if Matt was home we would have done that, next time. He he! (Secretly, we know you can't wait to see the pictures.) Anyway, the entire yard flooded. Thankfully, the house is high so it was safe and barn only had a little water in it. Also, my grandfather was spared from the flood waters in Martinsville. He lost power for a few days, but that is minor compared to what most are experiencing.

The lake, aka the back yard

This looking from the front of the house onto the street. The surface layer was washed away up the road from the house. On top of that, almost every road had deep flowing water running over it.

Side yard

This it tennis courts at Matt's parent's house. They had so much water in their yard that their dog, Annie, was swimming in it. She liked to never come in. We swear that she is part fish.

Well, today was the first day Marge watched Josh while Matt and I were at work. Unfortunately, Josh is cutting another eye tooth and is extremely fussy. Marge had a time with him in the morning, but things seemed to go better in the afternoon. Thankfully, our prayers were answered and everything went smoothly. We're sure that after a week or so they'll have a routine down and things will be great. But the big question is will Marge come back in the morning? That is yet to me seen.

That's all for now. Love to all, M,J, and J