Greetings from the Johnstons at 400. Uncle Randy enjoyed playing with the Hutchinson Municipal Band on Saturday in the fourth of July parade. However, everyone else decided to keep Grandpa company at home. With Grandma at the wheel, we enjoyed a drive through the line up of the parade to try and find the band float for a picture. It was the way to see the parade! Hee-hee!

Aunt Vicki enjoyed getting to know Addie after her nap. She was all decked out in her fourth of July dress. Addie really liked hearing Grandpa's voice and would turn to him whenever he spoke to her.

Sunday: Rain, rain, go away, come again another day! It even flooded our streets. Luckily we moved the cars before they too got filled with water. It was a weird day for sure!

Happy 4th of July from Austin!

In honor of the Kinast Family Breakfast, James and I had friends over and put together a pretty tasty supper to precede the Austin fireworks over Lady Bird Lake. It included homemade hamburgers, a few sides, sangria, brownies, strawberry icecream (made by our friend Danny), and key lime pie. Yes, there was plenty of sugar, but there is a lot to celebrate!

I have included a few pictures of the Austin fireworks. Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July!

Blessings,

Hannah

4th of July!!! - Mary's Surprise Photo(s)

What is that in my hand you may be asking yourself??? We stopped at a lobster shack on our way to the Sharp House a couple of Monday's ago and I picked out my first lobster (paying a mere $9.00 for a nearly 2 lb lobster - time to take a peak in the KS grocery store tanks), soft shell and quite squirmy!!! Indeed this was my very first, hands on lobster cooking experience[the lobsters we received in the mail when we were kids were just terrifying] - Francois, as named by Mark(the guy in the background) who is the main stage manager at MSMT this year was wrapped in yellow bands. Mark was quite helpful in the gaining of courage to hold the lobster as I plopped it into the boiling vat of water that awaited it. Oddly, Francois looked quite well settled as he began to boil away in the water next to his little friend. Under normal circumstances, with so many details and such involvement in the process, I would barely be able to look at the lobster, let along crack it open, but after all of that, I was even able to eat it!!! Maine Lobster...yum, yum, yum!!!!

Erik's Turn

Good day family. I hope wherever you are and whatever you are doing is going well. As for my summer and life in general I'd have to say things are going pretty well. There's always things I'd change but I can say, standing back and observing my life at the moment, I'm quite satisfied with how things are running.
In every person's life there is a period of finding yourself and who you are. For me, that period of my life seems to be over. I know who I am and where I belong. I have the greatest group of friends anyone could imagine, and the times I've spent with them are some of the happiest moments of my life.
One activity in which I participate with my friends is Ultimate. We get together often for a pick up game. Every Sunday at 6pm those of us who can, play at WSU. The opportunity to play with a college team has strengthened our own team and now it has become an equal match. The games we play against the WSU team before last year and the end of the previous year were usually terrible losses but now we've become much better. I see myself in the shoes of the juniors that were here my freshman year, and now we're even better than then. Its looking like my high school life is starting to come full circle. Every once in a while, we have a movie night. We get together in the late afternoon or evening and simply hang out playing games and watching movies. So far our record is four movies. Each movie night has always included a disney movie. Several years ago I would have never thought disney would become one of my favorite things to watch. I've enjoyed every movie night, and some of the memorable events of these have been laying out over a couch into a fat sack(basically a super bean bag chair) cranium was played once after everyone had gone to sleep except for Stephen, Hillary, Me, and Abby. I can tell you cranium at three in the morning is very entertaining:) It was after this we went and lounged outside until the sun appeared as staying up that long had put us four in an odd state of mind where we were awake and didn't need sleep but still functioned as though we were sleep deprived.
Abby and I have had a lot of fun this summer as well. We took a trip to the zoo and recently I went along with her family to visit her Aunt in Mcpherson. She also is officially caught up on Chuck and has become a fan as well.
A couple of assignments I have this summer is my extended essay, for which I just finished a informational camp. I also have to complete two books for IB, The White Tiger and Elephant Vanishes.
That is all that I can think of as note worthy for now, other than National Youth Gathering in a few weeks. Love you all, God bless.
PS If you need a bit of entertainment and would like to see our Ultimate Team in action follow this link to a Ultimate Video created by myself and Abby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7pLePsK5c