End of summer pictures

Yes, I realize it is not technically the end of summer yet.  But with school back in session (we've got a whole 13 days in already), the carefree days of summer vacation are over for us.  But, we made a lot of great memories.

4H Fair

We spent 2 days at the fair this year.  On Saturday, our church helps in the pork producers building.  This year, the kids helped us out because we were serving drinks.  It was miserably hot (as you can see by their red faces), but they did a great job helping.  A highlight for them is always riding the rides.

This year, they had a really neat butterfly exhibit where you could go in a tent with a sugar stick and you could watch the butterflies eat.  It was really cool!

Our second day at the fair was a Wednesday.  We went to watch Grace show her pigs and then since it was kids day, the kids wanted to ride more rides.  I love that they are getting more adventurous and want to do the big rides now!  We had a great time on another blazing hot day.

Soccer

The soccer season ended the Saturday before school started.  The kids had so much fun this season.

Landon enjoyed the physical part of the game where Emmy enjoyed the social aspect of it. :)

Great season Marlins!

Strikes and Spares
On the last day before I had to head back to work, the kids decided they wanted to go to Strikes and Spares in Mishawaka.  We had a fun day mini bowling, riding bumper cars, mini golfing, and playing arcade games.  I also snuck in a little school shopping at Old Navy. :)

Daddy/Daughter and Mother/Son Day

Matt and I have really been trying to spend some time one on one with the kids to show them how special they are and to really get to know them better.  Last Friday, we let the kids choose for a day what they wanted to do and went our separate ways.  Emerson chose to go for a bike ride at a park, have a picnic, and go shopping.  Landon wanted to go mini golfing and to Toys R Us.  We let them take a little money with them to buy a souvenir to remember our outings.  It was such a fun day for everyone!  We will certainly do it again.
We went to Strikes and Spares in Mishawaka.

Landon and I played mini bowling and had so much fun!

went black light mini golfing 3 times

drove several go carts and bumper cars

"Look at all the tickets I won!!"

 Landon used his tickets for candy (of course) for himself and his sister.  He picked out a football board game from Toys R Us.

 Emerson and Matt rode bikes around Fiddler's Pond and had a picnic.

stopping for ice cream

riding a battery operated bunny through the Concord Mall

 Emerson picked out Play Dough and a cupcake set.

Hacienda for supper

Love these kiddos and the time we are given to spend with them!

Bowling and Upward Family Night

This week we had 2 more snow days for frigid temps (20 below zero with wind chill).  BRRR!  So we decided to take the kiddos bowling.  We'd never been as a family and Matt and I hadn't been since before the kids were born.  It's never been my favorite activity, but I thought maybe the kids would like it.  We were the only people in the bowling alley for our first game so it was quiet and nice to take our time and try to teach the kids.  They both had a blast.  Poor Em couldn't really throw the ball so she ended up rolling it down the lane.  We had a great time and I even had a few strikes (we did have the bumpers up! :)).  We'll definitely do it again sometime.  Landon asked if we could go the next day!

Since Landon is in Upwards this year, we also got to go to a free Family Night at the Missionary Church.  There were bouncy houses, face painting, balloon animals, roller skating, and popcorn, nachos, and sno cones.  All for free!!  We had a great time and ended up staying the whole 2 hours.  We did learn to do face painting first next year because the line was really long by the time we got there.

Olaf and basketball on the hand :)

 This was the first time the kids had been on roller skates and it was pretty crazy.  They had a ball but they were all over the place.  Matt is pretty anti-roller skating because kids get hurt a lot, but we tried it and they had fun.