COVERSTONE REUNION, FAMILY FUN

On July 25th, we had the Coverstone Reunion at our house. From Left to right; Dave, husband of Pat (jim's sister), Susan Mooney (cousin) and her mom, Aunt Jane, David (baby brother of the family), Kevin, Alex, Jim, Floreen, wife of Paul (Jim's brother).

Picture with me and Susan is missing.
Siblings, Dave, Pat, Jim and Paul, Annie is missing.

We all had a good time. Jim and Alex couldn't decided whether to ride the 4-wheeler or play air hockey, so they wore their helmets and played air hockey.Then they rode the 4-wheeler.I think this was everyone's favorite thing to do. Several people had never ridden before. On their first ride they were going so slow, by the end of the day, we'd see them zip down the field in a blur.

Floreen was wearing a skirt, but luckily it was stretchy. Paul told Floreen where the brake was about 4 times.
Pat cruising on her first ride.
Dave backs up out of the garage.
We had other outside activities.

Alex and Susan cooled off in the pool, but I missed the Kodak moment. Inside, David tries to conquer Guitar Hero.Pat and Jim share pictures and stories of our Coverstone Family History.
In the garage, Big Brother ties to whip Little Brother in a game of air hockey.Spouses compete.
What is a family reunion without food, food and more food?

We had a candy jar, guess how many candies? Pat won the jar of candies. She guessed 298 and there were 333 candies.
Alex drove the car over to where they were shooting the shotgun at the clay pigeons. Driving, the grandkids love it.
Alex wanted to shoot the shotgun, but he decided it was too heavy and too long. As you can see, it is as tall as him. The gun is special to Jim, it is his grandpa's 12 gauge shotgun.

Alex, helped Jim load the shells and fling the clay pigeons.

We recently hung this hammock that Crystal brought back to Jim and I when she went to Mexico, more than 10 years ago.
I asked Alex if he knew what the rope was for. In this video, you can see, he has it figured out. At the end of the video, he pretends to hit his head on the branch. Such an actor!

At the end of the day, I asked Alex, "What was your favorite thing that you did today?" He said, "Hmmm" and thought for a moment. Then he said, "My favorite thing was spending time with you." Awwwwwww

ALEX, BULL RIDING, AND FUN

On Friday, we took Alex to the fair. He loved the bull riding. At first, he was in the bleachers with us. Then he and Kevin went down on the arena floor, but he sat on a fence that was a little way away from the bulls. By the end of the evening, he was right up next to the fence where the bulls were. It was fun to watch him and the bull riding.It was still so hot. This long hair is a new thing for Alex. When he gets sweaty, he can twist the sides and it stays. I think he looks a little like Shrek.

So we tried to stay cool with snow cones.

We went to the 4-H barns and saw the animals. Little baby, BIG mama.How are ewe?

They had exotic animals. We talked Kevin into holding this 110 pound albino burmese python. That's the python's head in Kevin's hand.

Alex was fasinated with this tank of baby alligators.

Petting zoo--I liked the llama's hairdos.

Bounce house fun. Even though it was hot, Alex climbed in this thing a bunch of times.

What's the fair without the carnival rides?

You can hear the "excitement" in Alex's voice in this video. Its a little hard to see the bull in this video, but he is bucking all over the place in the chute. When they let him out, the cowboy doesn't stay on long and his hand gets stuck in the rope after he falls off. Toward the end of the video, the bull lowers his head, strokes the dirt with his front hooves, just like in the cartoons.

We all had a great time. Hope your summer is going well.

OH DEER, OH DEAR!

What can this be here?Yes, it is deer.

In the garden! The sunflower leaves, almost all the lettuce, a few beans and peas and the first and only ripe tomatoe!

Buffet time is over! No self respecting deer eats plastic netting with it's veges. Problem solved.

Another project, bye bye walnut tree. This tree has been dead for many years. We kept hoping a big wind would push it over, but no. Jim and Kevin decided it was time for it to go. Jim chain sawed the bottom half of the tree. Then as you can see in these videos the truck and a rope took out the rest.

FUN WITH ADDY AND SOPHIA

Last week we took the girls to a place in Wilsonville, called "Family Fun Center". I told them to make silly faces before we went inside.There are all kinds of fun things to do. Addy started out in front of grandpa in the race karts . . .

but grandpa pulled out ahead and won the race.
These bumper boats were a blast. They had a built-in squirt gun in the steering wheel. The stream of water went far and fast. There were 3 teenage girls and we had never met them. When we all got on the boats, we heard one say, "Let's get the old man". They were referring to Jim!(I tried to make him feel better by telling him, they probably thought he was 30). He's never been called old in his whole life. Addy, Sophie and I laughed forever and called him "the old man" all night long.
Can you tell "the old man" got it good. And the girls too. Me too. We were soaked! Luckily I had brought a change of clothes because I knew about this ride.

There was a two-story arcade. Needless to say, we dropped a few coins there.

Two mini golf courses. Photo moment.

Addy was our score keeper. We "fudged" a lot on our scores.

Silly -- evidently, they have been playing too much Guitar Hero.

BATTER UP!! Both Addy and Jim popped some good hits.

Addy and Sophia, rock climbing.

We left the place at 10:30pm and got home about midnight. It was FUN.

Today I took the girls to the Linn County Fair. What's a fair without little piglets?

It was 97 degrees. We were looking for shade the whole time. We went into this petting zoo area. I don't know what this little guy is called, but he is the cutest little thing.

Sophia and the twin goats.

Addy and this huge tortoise. He was at least 2 feet wide.

Sophia is going for a ride.

We checked out a few other things and went to the car and drove home with the AC on HIGH.