Kids at the Park

We went to the park for FHE this week. I played tennis with Rachel for a while. I was kind of nervous about it because I haven't played tennis since I broke my back. I was afraid that one of my favorite sports (not that I am any good, but I like to try) would make me hurt, but I was fine. Hooray!

We all ate a picnic dinner and then Summer and Rachel disappeared to sit in the car for the last 15 minutes of the trip while the younger kids played on the playground. Of course, I didn't start taking pictures until then, so I apologize for the lack of teenagers.

I don't know what Michael was looking at, but it must have been interesting...

This was a good climbing tree.

Earlier that day, while she was at school, Gwen cracked her tooth in half. I was prepared to make the two hour round trip to their dentist to have it checked out, but Stan was more pragmatic. He looked at it, said, "That tooth just needs to come out," and promised Gwen $5 if she pulled it out before the end of the evening. That is ten times what the tooth fairy usually brings to our house, so she went right to work and it was out before bedtime.

Finally Heather, in another tree, up near the top!

Tennis for FHE

Monday evening, we packed a picnic dinner (egg salad sandwiches, apples slices, carrot sticks, Doritos, brownies and milk) threw all eight of our racquets and a new can of balls into the car and headed to a local park with tennis courts for family home evening.

Naomi kept an eye on dinner for us.

Michael chased tennis balls...

...and followed his Dad around.

Here is Kelly enjoying a brownie.

If you are a longtime reader of our blog, you may have noticed that we eat a lot of brownies. We love 'em. We could eat them every day and not get tired of them. Here's the recipe -

Fudgey Brownies

¾ cup cocoa

½ teaspoon baking soda

⅔ cup vegetable oil, divided

½ cup boiling water (measure accurately)

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 ⅓ cups unsifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon salt

⅔ cup chocolate chips

⅔ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Stir cocoa and baking soda in mixing bowl. Blend in ⅓ cup of vegetable oil. Add boiling water; stir until mixture thickens. Stir in sugar, eggs and remaining ⅓ cup vegetable oil; stir until smooth. Add flour, vanilla and salt, blend completely. Add chocolate chips and nuts. Pour into lightly greased 13 x 9'' baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until edges darken and pull away from the pan.

Here is Gwen trying to escape the photographer (Summer).

Heather and Rachel both making contact with the ball.

Summer started out playing tennis, but soon changed activities and took most of these pictures.

Rachel and I played on a doubles team and had fun. We spent most of our time either getting close to beaning each other both trying to hit the ball, or...

...thinking the other one of us would get it and watching the ball go past us both.

Since Summer was taking the pictures, there were actually photos of both Stan and I to blog.