A Hot July

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted! I actually started this post about 3 weeks ago so I'm just going to keep what I'd already written. Since I wrote this first half of this past we have: 1)Gone to Catholic Family Land 2)Cecilia and I then spent a week in Chicago with the Schultz's family 3)Celebrated Benny's 4th birthday and 4)Celebrated David Anthony's 1st birthday. And then on Monday the four oldest kids and my dad are going camping for three days and John Paul's 11th birthday is coming up and we still have a trip to Hershey Park planned (not till Sept. 10th). School starts in 2 1/2 weeks and life is pretty busy. So prepare yourself for one reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy long post!


I know I've MIA lately but I guess you can say I was just too lazy to sit down and blog. The computer is in the office which is the one room of the house (beside the basement) that doesn't have airconditioning and even with the ceiling fan it can get rather hot.
But, I figured I had to do a post about the 4th of July party and the Schultz's visit before we left for Catholic Familyland this Saturday. And Cecilia and I are going straight from CFL to IL to visit the Schultz's for a week, so I won't be back for two weeks. Of course I took a bunch of pictures, so here they are:

Before the 4th:

Ryan playing with Max, Rose, Ben and Joey. Campfire my dad makes, two dishes my dad made for a dinner one night.

4th of July McDonnell Party

Setting up for McDonnell's Got Talen

 

John Paul, Max and Ryan performed their skit first. They got off to a bit of a slow start which left us wondering how it was going to turn out. But it couldn't have been better. It was hilarious! 

John Paul and Max were in a movie, acting out a scene...

John Paul was mad at Max had "gently" shoved him around...

...the director (Ryan) called "cut" and came out demanding more emotion...

John Paul and Max do the scene again, this time with full out wrestling...   ...Ryan came out again telling them it was worse then before and they better do something really amazing or they were fired...

John Paul and Max go behind tree and....come out...this time when John Paul is mad at Max he uses the force and "chokes" Max... but of course their skit was much funnier in person! I wish I had videotaped it.

And I had to add this picture of Benny, right after their skit was over he came out from behind the tree in Max's "gangster" costume. :)

Annie, Brennan and Nate sang funny songs they found on youtube:

 The boys did a funny time skit:

Then a lot of the boys and Teresa Mattingly did a rap:

 

 Benny then came out dressed as Darth Vadar, he aparently was very upset that he wasn't in any skits so my mom put him in the jacket Ryan had used as his director's jacket for their skit, and the Darth Vadar mask and his lightsaber and:

Then siblings and cousins decided it would be funny if Benny "killed" them.

Look how crazy it got!

Then that night, only a few of us got to go see the fireworks and I got some cool pictures:

The Schultz family got to stay at our house for a few more days after the party.
We went a near bye park and played in the stream and playground:

We also set up our slip'n'slide and played on that:

Benny and Rosie going down

Nate (on top) and John Paul (on bottom) going down.

The that weekend Uncle Mark, Aunt Cathy and Brennan headed up to Grandad's house, Nate stayed at our house, and Annie, Cecilia, Dad and I all went with our youth group to the Steubenville youth conference.

Aunt Cathy, Uncle Mark and Brennan arrived back at our house about the same time we did Sunday night and then they left for home the next morning. Later that week Dad and I got to escape for a few hours and we took a hike around Lake Redman.

The bottom righthand corner photo was for this photo competition in our paper. Someone had to be making a "Y" for York somewhere around York County. This was our entry, my dad was pouring water into his mouth since the sign is for Lake Redman, part of York Water Company. (We didn't win, but we got honorable mention and the photo was in the paper.)

Another highlight of the summer (for Cecilia and me) is Wednesday With Scott. WWS. Every Wednesday of the summer (unless of course my dad's gone) he has WWS in the youth room from 12-5 with pizza, games, and snacks. It's a fun way to get to see our friends every week.

Clockwise from the top left: Cecilia and her "adopted brother", Jon; Jess and Cecilia playing pinball; me and Kathleen; Cecilia, her "adopted sister" Katie and Angela Marie

Then about a week later we went to the Aquarium with three of the nicest girls I know, Kelsey, Autumn, and Brianna are 10, 7 and 5 years old and have become great friends with John Paul, Max, Rose and Ben.

Learning about some type of lizard.

And lastly, we just hung out and relaxed in between getting ready for Catholic Family Land:

They are so cute!

Brother love!

Joey does anything Ben does; although Joey does seem to climb on the table by himself often enough...

"Uh oh, you caught me!"

Rosie just started to learn how to read this past school year, and while she can't read much, she can read the little board books that she has heard over and over again.

So there you have it. Our whole July up until we left for Catholic Family Land (the next post).
Love,
Mary Kate