Birthday Fun

Happy 14th Samuel!  

 

 Nicholas enjoyed his bottle of root beer when we went out for Samuel's birthday.

Happy Birthday Samuel!

Here's to 14!  (No, he's not getting a school permit.)

Despite the date on the picture it was actually his birthday.
We love you Samuel!

First Day for Mom and Nick

Nicholas and I started school on Aug 24th!  My first first day in 14 years!  Nicholas enjoyed both his classes (they are slightly different MWF and TR) and my two days went just fine.  Well, I did give up at lunch time and go home, but that's when I'm supposed to be done. :)

 He left his backpack in the classroom on the preview night so it's just him for his first day picture.

In his classroom.

Here's a little look at my classroom, cropped funny so the kids' name tags aren't in the pictures.  My mom made the cute buntings for the windows plus a couple extra I strung other places.

We're looking forward to a great year!

First Day

The first day of school didn't make me as weepy about the kiddos growing up this year as some years.  We don't have a kindergartner and I have my own class to get ready for so that may be why.

Samuel- 8th, Thomas- 7th, first year of junior high!  Julia- 4th, Philip-2nd.

 Two at the grade school, two at the junior high/high school.

Nicholas and I start next week.

20 Years

We enjoyed Jeremy's 20 year reunion last weekend.  We went with the family out to a lake where the kids had a blast and then had dinner at a local bar that evening without kids.

Everyone enjoyed the kayaks and the jump pad.

 Thomas got really good.

 14 out of 40 some plus a few showed up after the picture. Pretty good turnout!

Pictures to go with my Fair Week Post

Jeremy's iCloud was almost full due to the fact that I never remember to get the pictures that I take off his phone.  So I transferred photos that dated back to 2012.  Don't worry.  I'll only post the ones from this month.

Ready for the parade.

Samuel competing in the tractor driving.

Done.

Thomas competing n the tractor driving.

He's done too.

Adults who want to can put in a dollar and do the Advanced tractor driving.  Winner gets the pot. This means they pull out of one stall and back into another with a big tractor attached to a trailer.  Jeremy did it.  He did not win.  He was awful.  He says he's only had to back into a certain place with a trailer a couple times in his life.  I believe it.

Philip's cool body paint.

Julia got some too!

A little more Ferris Wheel fun.

Always Fun

We had an L street reunion the other night.  Robyn and Darren were kind enough to host but turns out it's our turn next time because all of us make their house and yard just about burst!  Unless Fr Lee wants to host in his school's gym. ;)

Three of six girls, three of many boys who lived on L St. (For the record there were two houses, a boy one and a girl one and we didn't all live there at once.  People moved in and out.)

Four families, 20 kids.  This is all the kids except Nicholas.  He did.not.want. to be in the picture.  I think most of the adults had a Godchild there, we have lots of name buddies, at least one set of birthday buddies, all sorts of ages and tons of loud, energetic fun.  

Robyn posted on Face Book that she was glad we "grew up" together and I second the sentiment.  I couldn't have asked for a better college family and I love that we are still making memories together.

Zoo

We snuck in one more zoo visit before our pass expired.  There were a bunch of new things we hadn't seen and the weather was perfect so it was one of our best trips.
Here's a photo dump of it all.  :)

Family Time

We've been enjoying our two weeks between the fair and school starting.  We've just stayed around home as well as spending three days at my parents doing all the school shopping plus I had a class one day.
Double Spider climb.

 Boy lunch tea party

 Girl lunch tea party

 Candy house made from parade candy

 Ninja warrioring outside

 Thomas shot the start gun

 Yup.  I got to compete too.  Guess if I beat Philip or not.

The kids have been playing for hours in the sand so I went out one day to see what was so fun.  They had obviously done this before.  They dragged over the hose and some cones and got to work.  Everyone claimed a lake and got busy digging.  Samuel had a huge pile in the middle that he dug the side out of, put in the hose and then rebuilt the side with the hose in it.  They turned on the water and his lake started filling up and he dug and reinforced and fixed collapses.  Once his lake filled it went through a cone to Thomas's where he busily worked similarly to Samuel.  His lake fed into Julia's whose fed into Philip's.  Philips ran down a river into the plastic turtle sand box.  Nicholas was assigned an "emergency lake" a little off to the side.  There must not have been an emergency because his didn't fill but he was happy as a clam.  It was quite the operation and they all worked together with no fighting.  Maybe if cleaning house involved a hose they could do that without fighting too.

This picture is chronological.

 Everyone's individual lake.

This makes summer look magical.   I'll just pretend no one ever fights.