The wildflowers have finally started to bloom as has the sunflowers… must be that time of the year.  Luckily they seem to have survived the 13 days of +95 degrees, hopefully they will make it another month or two.

Today is the day that we ‘rescued’ Farley.  Back in the 2011 we found out Farley’s owner was looking for a new home for him as she was going through a difficult divorce.  Little did we know at the time, but the lady completely lied to us about Farley (“he loves driving in cars” among other things) or that Farley was completely crazy.  Since then though we have all grown to love him, some times more than others, and he has become part of the family.  We are guessing he is now about 6-7 years old (’40 something’ in human years) and his gray hairs are starting to show.  🙂

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Sam and Alex both got their annual check-ups for school last week.  Usually Alex wouldn’t get his until August but since they had an opening and we know August will be busy, Mom got him the next day after Sam.  During the visit, Mom decided to snap a couple of photos to text to Dad to let him know the visit details…

Alex weighs in at 5’8″ and 127 lbs.

Sam weighs in at 5’6 3/4″ and 147 lbs and for some reason Sam got to wear the paper gown. 🙂

Today was Father’s Day and we spent some time at the pool, had a nice dinner – Dad cooked, and watched an episode of Elementary, followed by the first couple of episodes of Daredevil on Netflix.  Overall a pretty good day.

Father’s Day dinner

Sam and Alex made a trip down to Oak Island last week (Wed-Sat morning) to spend some time with the Friday’s (Kelly, Joe, Reid and Drew) as they invited them down to their summer rental.  Just a few days before there was two very rare shark attacks at the beach (apparently a shark attack had never been reported here before).  Based on that the boys didn’t spend too much time in the water, but did do a little bit of swimming, spent some time on the beach and they also went fishing.  Sam caught a small fish and a small shark and Alex caught a small shark.  Of course the boys released them back into the water, but they were pretty excited about catching them.  We picked them up on Saturday morning and then drove back through Wilmington to stop off at Carolina Beach.  This may not have been our best idea because it was of course the Saturday before Father’s Day and the roads, as well as the beach, was packed.  We walked along the beach for a little while and decided it was time to go home.

Tiny crabs

Alex’s shark

Mr cool and his tiny fish

Carolina Beach

What do you do when the heat index surpasses the century mark?   Well, what else – you go to the pool.  Hottest day of the year and it is only the middle of June.

Apparently, even if you just turned 13 years old you still love Dinosaurs.  Sam’s b-day party is underway…..

Mom trying to corral in the boys in the front yard, ca. 2003.  Of course she still has corral in the boys every morning during the school year… although it’s more verbal than physical now.  🙂

 Today was Sam’s actual birthday and we had a brief party for him at home.  Sam’s first request as an official teenager was a steak dinner.  So when Dad came home he cooked the boys a steak and got them some cupcakes.  Sam still has a birthday party with his friends (going to see the next Jurassic Park movie) and another one with Nana and Gung Gung next weekend.