Braden is 5

Braden turned 5 on September 18 and we celebrated! Braden has been envisioning his basketball birthday party since last year's football party. We love to celebrate in the Lee household... these decorations remained up for a week.


Our new basketball court came in handy for the kids' "drills" run by Coach Bryce and Papa the Ref. Addy and BradenAs if were weren't having enough fun; 6 Tribe Basketball players made a guest appearance. (thank you Travis for coordinating their arrival!) They ran down the steps onto the basketball court with the Tribe fight song playing in the background... magical...


They dunked for us and even did a mini scrimmage... Kristyn cried with joy at Braden reaction... what a moment!We are very thankful for a community of family and friends that enjoy celebrating with us... Of course there had to be a basketball pinata...The basketball players stayed for lunch and cake. They even sang Happy Birthday to Braden!Hot Dogs and orange themed food ... cheese balls, gold fish, hi-c... Nina did a great post on her blog about the birthday party... check it out here http://ninaandtravis.blogspot.com/2010/09/im-having-moment.html

Summertime fun

Summertime activities here in Williamsburg.

Blueberry Picking with the Ritners. We could have just riden the ferry back and forth and called it a day. (more ferry pictures on the ritner's blog www.jkaritner.blogspot.com) The kids loved picking and filling their basket, they even did amazingly well picking only the ripe ones. They were quick and enthusiastic ... I see now why they have child labor laws... Picking more blueberries then we could ever possibly eat means blueberry cake, blueberry muffins, and blueberries straight up...

Our garden actually produced vegetables. Here are our ribbon worthy zucchinni squash. We picked all of these in the same day... many zucchini recipes were developed...

Pools!

Fun dinners at picnic tables...

Braden swims... not exactly Michael Phelps, but we are still working on him. He would rather just play basketball or football in the pool, so this is actually a pretty big accomplishment.

We loved this fun water slide at the pool!

Our new Basketball Court!

The next time you visit the Lee household be prepared to play some hoops. We love our new basketball court that Mark Berry put in for us. Here are Ritner, Todd, Cookie, Ben and Bryce celebrating Bryce's Birthday.

The process of installing the court was thrilling for the boys(including Bryce). Stage one left us with a giant dirt pile in which to play. We decided to just clear this side area of our yard for the court... well it turns out we are not the best judges of space ... it looks much bigger without the bushes there... Endless hours of entertainment ...watching the "digger" and hopping in the digger once the workers left for the day were the highlights.

The many perches from which the boys watched the action: Rosie also enjoyed the dirtThe concrete truck arrives!

Making our handprints

The final product has already been enjoyed by many. Braden "shoots hoops" for hours upon hours and the boys love riding their bikes back there. Braden has already drawn the 3 point line and the free-throw line in chalk. (We lower the hoop down for him and he actually can make most of his shots... and Bryce can dunk...)Nina has pointed out in her creativity that it is really a multi-use space. She has visions of a dance floor, tent, rehearsal dinner spot... Nina's non-sports vision is matched by Ritner's sports vision: a walled in hockey arena, netted batting cage.

The bottom line is that yes, we have paved a good portion of our side yard (leaving the backyard grass for a football/soccer field) and No, we do not anticiapte either of our boys making the NBA ranks, but we do see many fun years ahead!

Some videos

Trina and I did program for a women's weekend a couple months ago and the kids became guinea pigs for our skits...

Fun times in the playroom

Stitches

Coleman had a little trip to the ER last weekend... Bryce and Papa were very impressed that he didn't cry getting the stitches put in (or during the shots to the area before the stitching occurred); he is a tough one. He has already almost healed...