Remaining Summer Pictures

I had a few summer pictures that I didn't get blogged before school started:

4-H Fair

We had one day to go to the fair before we went on vacation.  Luckily it was a gorgeous day and Todd had some ride tickets, so the kids got to ride just about everything they wanted!

Dance Party
Emerson's fun summer activity was to make her brother dress up and they had dance parties.  She'd blast the music and they'd both dance and sing.  She picked out the outfits! :)

 Camping at Chain O' Lakes
The first weekend in August, we went camping with the Davis and Frye families.  Friday evening it rained, but the rest of the weekend was beautiful.  After we went swimming on Saturday, Emerson complained of her ear hurting a lot.  We figured she probably had an ear infection, but of course no doctor's offices were open. So thankfully we got a prescription called in and got her medicine quickly.  Other than that, we had a great weekend!

Waiting out the rain inside!

 Swim Lessons
The kids both took swim lessons at the Nappanee pool.  They LOVED it!  We signed up for August thinking it'd be warm to get in the pool, but we were wrong.  Most mornings were in the 60's.  But that didn't stop the kiddos from getting in and swimming around with their instructors!

Tree Accident

One evening, a few days before school started, Em and I were going to Meijer to get groceries.  A storm had just rolled through and as we were driving, a large tree branch fell out of the tree right on our Honda Pilot.  Thankfully we were fine, but the hood and headlight were pretty banged up.  Over $3,000 later (thankfully covered by insurance :)), we have a nice looking new hood and front end!

Notice part of the tree still stuck in the light!

St. Louis/Evansville Vacation

This year for our family vacation, we didn't want to go to far, but we wanted to go somewhere different.  So we decided on St. Louis, Missouri.  Neither Matt or I had been there and it wasn't a long drive.  Plus we could stop and see Nate in Evansville, too.

In years past on our trips, I used travel tickets with the kids to help them count the hours down.  This year, I decided to give them each a bag of jewels and every hour or so they could exchange them for a small gift.  I figured I could also take them away if necessary.  The kids did so great, we didn't even start the gifts until we were almost there!  Emerson was thrilled about getting new gifts.  Once Landon got his full size Magna Doodle to make mazes on, he didn't care too much about the rest.  We didn't get to them all so I figure I've got some stocking stuffers now!
We started our trip at Grant's Farm.  It's a FREE animal farm that is run by Anheuser Busch (so there is also free beer).  There was a $12 fee for parking but there is no fee for getting in.  The kids had a great time checking out all of the animals.  I think their favorite part was feeding the goats!

                                                                                                                                                                   

Landon's new thing is taking a funny picture after all of our "serious" ones!

Picture of the parrots for Gma!

Some goats were more interested in our clothes than the bottles

Landon had fun feeding the goats too

Later that afternoon, we decided to head over to see the Gateway Arch.  It is so enormous.  There's no way to really tell from the pictures.

We got tickets for the 4:30 visit to the Arch, so we assumed we would get in line at 4:30 and then be at the top a few minutes later.  Little did we know that we'd have to wait in line for over an hour to check out the view for 10 minutes!  But the kids did great waiting and it was neat to see the view from 630 feet up!

The next day, we were debating between driving down to the Ozarks or staying in St. Louis another day.  Matt really wanted to catch a Cardinals game, but I didn't think the kids were old enough and I knew Emerson wouldn't really like it.  So we didn't.  We did decide to stay in St. Louis.  We went to the Science Center (which was also free and our Hotel, Drury Inn, had free passes to the Egyptian exhibit and the Omnimax Theater).  The Science Center was a little too old for our 4 year olds.

Then, later that day Matt found a Cabela's nearby, so we drove there and come to find out it was attached to a mall.  So we did a little shopping!  Not only did our hotel have a free breakfast, but they also had free "snacks" and drinks from 5:30-7:00.  So we took advantage of that and ate 2 meals at the hotel. 

Then the next day (after swimming in the hotel pool AGAIN :)), we drove to Evansville to spend the weekend with Nate.  We had much better weather this year.  It was gorgeous!  We went to play mini golf and went to a huge outdoor playground in Owensboro, Kentucky.  The men even got to play some disc golf together. 

Of course, I didn't realize Emerson's hair in her face until AFTER I looked closely at the pictures :)

We had a great week together as a family.  The kids were wonderful travelers and great at waiting in lines.  Which makes me wonder where we'll head to next year.  Maybe we'll venture a little further away.  Any ideas??

Indy Zoo

Last weekend we drove down with Todd and Cathy to meet Nate in Indy.  We had a great time (even though it was super hot).  We went to the zoo, went swimming, ate out at some yummy restaurants, and enjoyed each other's company.  Below are some pics from the zoo.  I elected not to take my camera because I didn't want to lug it all around the zoo, so they're just phone pictures.  The kids did AWESOME!!  This was our first experience without a stroller and they were great.  Wanted carried just a little, but walked most of the day.

Riding on the carousel.  Landon's first ride on an "up and down" animal.  It was a dolphin with 2 seats!

 

How cute is she??

 Our favorite animal exhibit at the zoo was the budgies (parakeets to normal folk :)).  There were hundreds of birds and we could feed them.  Several of them landed on our arms.  Even Landon, who normally doesn't care about animals much, LOVED feeding the birds.

This zoo also had a roller coaster which our kids LOVED.  They said it was their favorite part of the zoo.  We also saw a dolphin show (not great in my opinion) and watched Ice Age Dawn of the Dinos in 4D.  The kids love the "interaction" of a 4D movie, but Landon wasn't so excited about the dinosaurs.  He is really sensitive about things he sees on tv.
I realized after our trip was over that I actually didn't get any pictures of the grandparents or Uncle Nate, but they really were there! :)

Big Kids = Big Beds

We've known for quite awhile that Emerson (at 4 years old) was too big for her toddler bed.  But her room is sooo small, we delayed putting a bigger bed in because we knew her room would seem even smaller.  But the time had come to upgrade.  So we cleared out both kids' rooms, shampooed their carpets, and went shopping for new bed sheets.  Emerson chose Rapunzel sheets (it was between that and Barbie and I pushed her a little towards Rapunzel ;)) and Landon chose sports sheets.  We then moved Landon's twin size bed in Emerson's room and moved the spare full size bed into Landon's room.  His room is actually the one that looks a lot smaller, but he can still play cars on his bed.  Below are the before and after results.  Both kids are prettty happy with their new rooms!

Emerson loved her "princess canopy" but it really made her room look even smaller, so I convinced her to take it down to make room for her big girl bed!



Dog painting on Landon's wall which matched his baby crib sheets



New sports theme
We painted over the dog, paw prints, and fire hydrant to put up sports wall decals. 
Much more grown up!



Catch Up Post

Well, I am a bit behind! :)  So here's a catch up of what we've been up to the last month!  I'm sure this isn't everything (I know I still have a post about new beds and the zoo), but it's a start!

We found out right before Father's Day that my parents were in a car accident and mom cracked a vertebra in her back.  So she had surgery in Kentucky and is in a back brace.  She's such a strong woman and I know she's itching to get some work done around her house, but this must be God's way of saying, "Take it easy!"  Hopefully she only has to wear the brace a few more months.

The rest I hope I can say mostly with pictures:

The kids LOVED Bible School!  It was a western theme.  Yee haw!



We went to Friend Fest at Amish Acres and watched some great Christian music!



It was SUPER hot early afternoon.  But by the time we got in line for the swan, it started to cool down and Emmy still wanted to get wet!  So Daddy didn't disappoint.





This family of ducks was NOT afraid of anyone

 Then the next weekend, we had a girls/boys weekend.  The boys went camping at Chain O' Lakes in the canoe camp (the one we went to last year without running water!) and the girls had a sleepover at our house and went to Deep River Waterpark.  We had a great time with the moms and daughters and everyone did great.  It will be even more fun when the little ones get a bit bigger and sleep better! :)

Matt wanted to get a pergola for our back deck.  We don't use the deck near as much as we should because our tiny umbrella just doesn't give us enough shade, so he found this one and spent an afternoon putting it together.  It looks great and I hope we'll be able to enjoy it for years to come!



Swimming with the kids at Uncle Dave/Aunt Bets' pond



Saying Goodbye to Great Papa Stan

Christmas 2010 (Landon wasn't too happy to have his  picture taken!)

Same night a few minutes later (still one of my favorite pictures of the 2)

We have many wonderful memories of this great man.  Too many to capture them all here.  He will be sorely missed, but I'm sure he's having a high old time catching up with Great Grandma Betty!  He was the man who taught Matt to fish, who always asked and wanted to know what was going on in our lives, who ALWAYS had time for the great grandkids, who was a master gardener, and had plenty of smiles and laughs to share.  I am blessed to have known such a man as this.

Garage Sale, Boundary Waters, and Father's Day

Well, according to my last post, it's been over a month since I've shared.  The whole month of June has flown by already.  I always think I'll have so much time in the summer to accomplish my to do list, but somehow I've barely started.  But that's alright, because we've made some great memories!
The first week in June was pretty much consumed with me getting ready for a garage sale and Matt getting ready to go on his annual Boundary Waters trip with his middle school kids for the following week.  Our garage sale went really well.  We got rid of A LOT of things.  Selling most of it and then donating the rest.   I can actually see the floor in our storage room now!  Emerson helped by baking cookies and Landon was the ultimate sales man.  He asked almost everyone to buy his wonderful, delicious cookies (and who can resist 2 four year olds at a cookie stand?)  Not many people could...we sold all 5 batches of cookies, well the kids might've eaten a few too! :)

I know we wouldn't have been nearly as successful without my super helpful sis.  She helped set up and worked the 5 days of the sale!

Besides working a garage sale 2 weekends, the kids and I found plenty to do to keep ourselves busy while Daddy was gone for a week.  They went and stayed with Aunt Kristina (who is up here for the summer while Steven internships in South Bend) :), went to library, ate and played at McDonalds, had a playdate with Victoria, Parker, and Elianna, and visited with Uncle Nate.

Emerson is quite the performer! :)

Having a picnic supper while watching "Alvin and the Chipmunks"

Then, the best gift we could ask for, was Daddy coming home on Father's Day.  The kids just showered him with hugs and kisses and excitedly told them about their week.  Matt was really missed by us all.  You realize just how helpful it is to have a spouse take over responsibilities when he's gone for a whole week.

 Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend time with my dad or Matt's this year on Father's Day, but that will be in a later post.

More to come...