Summer shots

Here's a few random pictures from our summer...

Cole and his best buddy fist bumping during VBS snack!

A beautiful butterfly that was outside our back door for a while - Laine always notices butterflies everywhere.

Cute Cole!

And a summer picnic in the shade - complete with Laine reading to everyone while they ate.

First Day of School

School started this week, and everyone was so excited!

Mead is in kindergarten, and Laine is in 2nd grade.

Cole started "Little Pelicans" this year - a 3 year old program that meets 3 mornings a week.

Here they all are!  Cole was tired of taking pictures, obviously.

But he lit up once he got to the classroom - so ready for school!

Here he is with his best friend, Campbell, and below is his whole class.  Only 5 kids will make for a fun, hands on, year.

Already had fun making new friends on the first day.

St. Louis Spots - Botanical Gardens

This summer we have tried to visit a lot of the great places for kids to play in St. Louis.  One of the first was the children's garden at the Botanical Gardens.

Climbing up the rope bridge,

playing in the splash area,

sending boats through the locks and dams,

and taking pictures together with friends all make for an enjoyable morning.

Gymnastics Camp

Both Mead and Laine went to gymnastics camp this past week.  They loved all the different things they got to do!

Mead and Laine showed their skills on the balance beam.  Laine did a cartwheel off of the beam!

Mead loved jumping and running on the tumble track, and Laine worked on her flips on the bar.

They both enjoyed swinging on the bar...

and climbing up and/or swinging on the rope.

So glad they both had a fun, active week - a great way to end the summer.

Visit with Grammy and Papa

Penny's dad and Zandra, along with her son Jason, came to visit us last week.  They made a long drive to visit all their kids (in CT, PA, and MO), and it was really good to see them.

We had a nice visit with birthday celebrations (Laine's and Jason's), and we spent several mornings together doing fun things in St. Louis.

Thanks for making the trip from the Great White North, Grammy and Papa!

Happy Birthday Laine!

Last weekend was Laine's birthday - she turned 8 years old!

We started the morning with our traditional cinnamon roll breakfast.

Then we opened gifts, one of Laine's favorites being a friendship bracelet making kit.

Later in the day Laine met several of her friends at the pool, and then we came back to our house for pizza and cake.

We had a great day celebrating the special birthday girl.

Laine only has 4 girls in her class at school, so it makes for a nice sized party!

A couple days after Laine's birthday the girls decided to pool their money together and buy bitty twins from the American Girl Doll store - they'd both been saving for about a year!

They are both so excited about their new dolls.  Many adventures with them to come, I'm sure.

Kentucky Lake Vacation

This summer my mom and Alex invited us all to join them for a joint family vacation.  Mom and Alex, and my brother and his wife, both drove west from North Carolina.  We drove east, and we all me "in the middle" at The Land Between the Lakes.

None of us had ever been there before, but our midwestern friends recommended Lake Barkley to us, so we decided to give it a shot.  I've already posted a lot of pictures on Facebook, so I'll just post the remaining few here.  

We had a great trip, one of the adventures being a drive through the Elk and Bison park.  Kind of reminded me of being on a safari in Africa, though on a much smaller scale.  Really cool to see the animals so up close!

Along with boating, fishing, tubing, rope swinging, and enjoy good meals together, we also spent one morning at the beach on the lake.

Penny and the kids built sand castles,

Cole dug many holes,

and everyone swam in the midst of all the sandy play.

Here's the finished sand castle, complete with turrets at the top.

So many good memories from our vacation and glad for the time our families had together.  We are so thankful to Nan and Pop for suggesting and making the whole thing happen.