The Zorio Family

WOW! We sure did stay entertained the month of July. We did a little bit of everything. July always means blueberry picking, so we started the month with that. Clayton doesn’t like fresh blueberries so he usually isn’t too into the picking, but this year he actually enjoyed it. I think it helped that the day we went was a little cloudy so we weren’t super hot. He even ate a few fresh blueberries and did admit that they tasted better than the ones from the store even though he still claims to not like blueberries. The big three had a blast picking and eating blueberries.

July in Alabama also means the Athens Kiddie Carnival. This is one of our favorite nights every summer.

The kids had a blast. We saw several friends from school, our neighborhood, and from church. We took full advantage of the carnival and got there when it opened and stayed until they were about to close!

All 4 kids rode a few rides, but then Dawson and Carter (who have gotten a little old for some of the rides) went to play Bingo while Nora Kate and Clayton finished riding every.single.ride there.

Carter was the winner at Bingo! He won a Noodle Squirter for the pool.

The next morning we took the kids roller skating at Insanity.

Dawson’s scout troop volunteered at the Grand Re-Opening of the Athens Veterans Museum. The Governor of Alabama even came to speak at the event. Here’s Dawson at the event.

We started celebrating the 4th of July on the 3rd because Dawson was leaving for Boy Scout Camp on the 4th. Here’s Carter doing the first sparkler!

Happy 4th!

We even made our 4th of July dinner on the 3rd so Dawson wouldn’t miss. Burgers, grilled corn, shrimp, veggies, and red white and blue cupcakes.

Sparklers

Clayton has no fear and loved the sparklers. (It’s not as close to his face as it looks, it’s just how the picture makes it look.) You may notice there are no pictures of NK with sparklers. She’s not a fan.

On the morning of July 4th we dropped Dawson off for scout camp, but I’ve lumped all the scout pics together-but that explains why he isn’t with us in these next several pictures.

Then we headed over to our friends, the Houghs pool to swim and celebrate the 4th. The kids had so much fun.

Carter and Henry were the oldest boys since Dawson wasn’t there.

The kids were exhausted after swimming for hours, so we headed home.

Then the 360degree fireworks show started in our neighborhood. It was incredible! We sat in our backyard and watched about a 30 minute firework show in our neighborhood. SO neat.

The next day we went golfing at Sunset Landing.

We had a rainy afternoon while Dawson was at camp, so we went to see the new Spirit 2 movie at the Cineplanet. It was a really cute movie. The kids always love the automatic reclining chairs at this theater too.

We FINALLY finished this puzzle we had been slowly working on for about 5 weeks!

We checked another item off the kids “Summer Fun List” and visited the splash pad. Their friends Henry, Annie, and Ruby met us here. It wasn’t very crowded at all and it was such a fun day! We ended up staying way later than I had planned but it was just because they were enjoying themselves so much!

Love that I caught him mid-air.

She cartwheels everywhere.

The following weekend we went to their friend Ruby’s birthday party.

We finally got to pick Dawson up from camp!!

So here are all of his pictures from scout camp. He went with his troop to Camp Comer which is near Mentone, Alabama. He had an extensive packing list which took us hours to pack, and he had to pack in a footlocker. He was so excited about this experience, and as much as we missed him seeing his excitement it was easy to get excited along with him!

So here he is at drop off. We dropped him off here in Athens and he rode with the other scouts and leaders to Mentone.

Watching him pull his footlocker away. So hard to let him go away for this long for the first time ever.

Thankfully the scout leaders took pictures and put them online periodically so we got glimpses of Dawson during the week. He also took his new phone and was able to find a good enough cell signal 2 times to text us. Here the scouts are lined up. I think he said each morning and night they had to put on their uniform and line up.

They had a pretty challenging swimming distance that you had to be able to swim to earn the rank of “swimmer.” They had warned the boys that a lot of kids who are fine swimmers just end up their first year at camp as “beginners” because it’s swimming the length oft he dock several times and then swimming it on your back one more time and then floating to earn the rank of swimmer. Dawson had been practicing swimming laps in the pool every time we went ever since he heard how hard it was. Well, he earned the rank of swimmer! He was proud. The red and blue circles above show who earned swimmer.

Their troop came in first in the Banana Relay.

This is the celebratory picture.

Dawson’s tent for the week.

This picture is out of order, but these are the scouts who went to Camp Comer.

Their troop’s area at camp.

All the boys from Dawson’s troop who, like Dawson were enjoying their first time at camp were in a program called “Eagle Bound” and here they are with a patch they earned for that.

The nightly camp fire the last night.

We were all SO glad to have Dawson back home. We welcomed him home with one of his favorite meals-chicken pot pie.

Carter, Nora Kate, and Clayton made this giant poster board for Dawson to welcome him home that we took when we picked him up!

Nora Kate has still been enjoying her summer gymnastics sessions. Here she is working on the bar with the assistance from her instructor.

Checked another item off the “Summer Fun List” and visited that Space and Rocket Center.

I just had to snap this picture…Carter and Nora Kate have such a special relationship.

I have a strict “no wet hands in chip bags” policy at the pool because it’s just gross.

Carter got out of the pool, wanted one of what NK was eating but told her he had wet hands and asked her to feed it to him. HAH! And without hesitation and with a smile she did.

We decided that it was time to take the kids on some one on one dates with each of us.

John took Dawson to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then for a treat.

John took Carter to Dave and Busters.

I’m only listing those two because I don’t think he took any pictures.

Then it was my turn to take someone on a date, so I took Clayton on a date. The above is our car selfie.

We went to Early Works in Downtown Huntsville and he absolutely loved it!

He said his favorite was fishing in Biscuits Backyard area.

Dressing up

He jumped up on this old wagon and said, “Where’s Ma, Pa, and Laura?!”

I think he’s been listening when we have been reading all the Little House on the Prairie Books.

We found some Star Wars things to look at and he requested I take his picture with them.

After Early Works we went to Supper Hero’s for dinner! He loved this restaurant that he super hero stuff EVERYWHERE!

Clayton’s second camp of the summer was Kindergarten Camp at school.

On Wednesday and Thursday morning he went to school for 2 hours and did some fun activities and got a little used to being at the building. The camp had a Hawaiian theme and they had this photo op set up.

Clayton remembered our tradition of taking a selfie before preschool so he asked to take a selfie with me before the first day of kindergarten camp. Sweet boy.

Another summer fun list item…making ice cream in a bag.

And another summer fun list item…visiting the botanical gardens!

She loves the butterfly house.

Nora Kate hit her 1000 pages for summer reading!

So we took her to the Yard. She, of course, picked out a mermaid ice cream complete with a mermaid tail.

Clayton had moved up enough levels on reading eggs and sight words that we told him he had earned one too. He picked the dirt ice cream complete with worms.

And you may remember right before Dawson left for camp on the last day of June he hit his 1,000 pages. We didn’t have time to make it to The Yard before he left but when he got home we went to get his big treat! He picked The Green Machine which had mint chocolate chip ice cream and this HUGE brownie on it.

Another summer fun to do list item-Top Golf.

There’s Clayton golfing! He gets a lot of force behind it these days.

The new Space Jam 2 movie came out, so we went to see it the day after it was released. We went on the weekend so John got to go too! The kids really enjoyed it.

We had a couple rainy days which is abnormal for July in Alabama, but we did some rainy day activities.

One was making marbled art (cornstarch, acrylic paint, paper). That’s what they’re doing in the picture above.

We also made homemade bread bowls for our soup for dinner one night.

Another item off the summer fun list the kids made way back in May was to have their friends Henry, Ruby, and Annie over to spend the night. Here they are with cupcakes after dinner.

Here they are as we find out just how many pancakes 7 kids can eat. I think the answer was 20 and a half. They also had scrambled eggs.

They had a lot of fun playing inside and outside.

We took the kids fishing and Clayton was pretty proud to have caught this fish.

And Carter caught this one and then several more.

Another item off the Summer Fun List-have a water balloon fight.

Above they are in the middle of their water balloon fight and below shows how many water balloons we started with!

We ordered caterpillars to watch them turn into butterflies.

Above is the picture of how tiny they were when we received them. Teeny Tiny!

Within a couple of days that had already grown this big!

They grow fast!

The kids were amazed watching them make web like stuff and starting to turn into chrysalis.

In this picture some have formed a chrysalis, and some are still crawling around. You aren’t supposed to put them in the butterfly cage until they have all formed chrysalis. So we will wait a few more days.

The second to last weekend of July we drove the kids up to Tennessee and left them with Lolly.

She had planned a really fun week for them and called it Camp Lolly. They were there from Sunday until I picked them up on Friday. I think they had the best time! They did an entire summer worth of activities in just one week, from visiting several playgrounds, the wetlands area, boat ride and swimming in the lake, playing in the mountain creek while visiting a friends mountain cabin home, visiting Cades Cove where they saw bears, deer, and more, visiting a friends farm to feed and brush their new horse, getting to see their second cousin Corbin, seeing cousins Zoe and Zach and Nana and Grandad, riding the Foothills Parkway, Dawson giving a trumpet concert, a fire in the fire pit, swimming everyday, and the list goes on. They even had camp t shirts. I got the kids back on Friday and they have talked and talked about all their fun! These pictures are very out of order but they are all from Camp Lolly.