**WELCOME******to****Christine's World**

Wow!! It sure has been a while since I've written anything here and it's certainly not because I don't have anything to write! This summer has been so busy and no doubt like many of you wonder where the summer went.

First off, as you can see I made some changes to my website. I'm still tweaking it so please bear with me.

In all it's been a fun summer. A few snafus here & there, but, hey, isn't that par for the course?

After Dan & I got back from the Caribbean, we got busy with the kids ~ spending Easter, Mothers' Day,  Fathers' Day, & birthdays together.

Easter we went to Matthew's & Amy's where Amy made a delicious lunch, but not before Gabe, Rhianna, & Emily investigated what was in their Easter baskets. It was truly a lovely time together.

On Mothers' Day, we met Don & Sarah and Don's parents at the Wildwood Lake Sanctuary. Before taking our walk around the lake, we took a look inside the Sanctuary's visitor center. There we learned about the various creatures and plants that inhibited the Sanctuary. We also learned the history and the importance of the Sanctuary.

It was a nice day to walk around the lake and to witness the spring vegetation and critters that were migrating north and coming out of hibernation. Here are a few pictures.

In June, we celebrated Fathers' Day, Matthew's and Gabe's birthday.

In July, we went to Don's and Sarah's to celebrate Dan's birthday. Sarah wanted to show us her vegetable "garden". As I said in an earlier post, Sarah is so creative with her gardening. She really has a natural instinct when it comes to planting flowers and vegetables.

After seeing Sarah's flowers and vegetables, we ate dinner and celebrated Dan's birthday with candles on a pie! The dinner was great, but the best thing of all was spending time with Don and Sarah.

On July 21 we celebrated Emily's 2nd year birthday. Amy dressed her in a beautiful pink dress and tied her hair up in a pony tail. It was so exciting. She received wonderful gifts and enjoyed messing with her birthday cake.

Beginning in February of this year, I started to follow the news of the Longest Walk 2, which began in San Francisco. Click here and here to read more about the event.

In follow-up to the Longest Walk 2, Dan and I traveled to Washington, D.C. where the walkers celebrated reaching their destination by holding a Powwow. Coming out in support of the Walkers were Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, and Darryl Hannah.

While in D.C. Dan and I realized how much we needed to make another trip to our country's capitol and tour the many museums. We are so fortunate to live in such a wonderful country as ours. We have so much to celebrate!

There is so much more to write about, but that is it for now. I will continue the next blog with our road trip to Schuylkill & Carbon County, Pennsylvania.

I have posted pictures of events mentioned in the blog on my Picasa picture site. Click here to see them.