End of Summer

As an end of summer celebration we tried to go to our favorite little water park but they were already closed for the season!  Bummer!  So we changed our plans and went to one of the girls’ other favorite places! We invited a couple of friends to go with us and the girls spent the morning bounce, bounce, bouncing away!

I can’t believe how much all three of them have grown and changed this summer!  T measured them in February and again a few weeks ago.  Bug grew a little over an inch, Boo, an inch and a half, and Peanut an inch and three quarters!

Our little friend S.  So sweet.

We got pizza and pb&j and had a great time!

On Labor day (Monday) we took the girls shopping.  T and I both have fun memories of back to school shopping so even though they didn’t really need much we spent the whole day on the lookout for good deals! 

Our town has a new Target so we decided to try it out.  Highlight of the day was finding these new cart cup holders! Haha :)

Of course our bookworms got stuck in this section for a while.  I think they could stay there all day!  We literally have to drag them out of it!

We took Peanut to Noni’s for her nap and then were back on the town.  The mall was our biggest stop and we spent hours hitting several stores.

Funny girls.

We bought them a few new outfits, so when we got home we had a fashion show.

They were so excited these are all blurry.

Then they started dressing up Peanut in their new “school” clothes. 

It was a fun day and the perfect end to summer.  We started school the next morning!

Lake Day!

We really made the most of our last few days of summer!  We packed our Labor day weekend full of fun activities.  The girls got to spend the night at Noni and Papa’s when we did the adventure night.  Then we had some friends, who were camping, invite us to the lake for the the day.

It was so pretty and really made me wish we had made the time to go camping this summer. 

We’ve been so busy we just weren’t able to fit it in so I was extra glad that we had this day.

This picture made me laugh. :)

There was a little “island” out in the middle of the river.  (Part of this body of water is a lake, part of it is a river…I can never keep straight which parts are which).  The girls were tall enough that the water came up to their chest, but they were able to reach the island.  They spent a long time builing a rock fort.

Mr. M took Peanut for a ride in his kayak and she LOVED it!

She didn’t want to get out!  “Agin!”

We had to bring Cocoa with us since we were there all day.  There were 5 other little girls besides ours so she got passed around and fought over for quite some time before they finally went to play in the water.  She crashed.  I looked over to find her curled up on the towels. :)

T got to go water skiing with some of the other guys, and the big girls went for a boat ride.

Later I found Cocoa had crawled into my bag to hide from little hands. :)

The girls were digging in the sand and made a mud pit in which Peanut quite happily wallowed.

Then a bunch of us piled in the boat for another ride.  I think this was Peanut’s first boat ride!  She does NOT like the life jacket, but when we told her it was either the jacket or no boat she complied.

She wasn’t too sure what to think at first. I was really hoping she would fall asleep since this was smack dab in the middle of naptime but no such luck.

With this boat you can actually “surf” on a board behind the wake of the boat without holding onto a rope!  They had these big watersacks (I think they were called bladders?) to weigh down the boat and then got a couple of guys to weigh down the back end even more to create a deeper wake.  It was pretty neat! 

Pretty girl!

The kids were ready to go in after a while but the guys were taking turns surfing so we occupied ourselves with a few selfies. :)

I had been waiting for T to surf so I could get some video, but the girls had to go potty so we got dropped off at the shore.  This was the only picture I got of him.  I’m 90% sure this is him…although it was hard to tell from so far away. Haha :)

The kids swam and played for hours while the grownups relaxed and chatted on the shore.  Then we all dried off and changed and had a delicious dinner made by Ms. S before heading home.  The girls slept very well that night! :)

“Pway”

We usually all take turns praying at meals, and Peanut has started saying, “A***** turn!  A***** pway!” 

The first time she did this she folded her hands and launched into a string of unidentifiable words and sounds for a solid two minutes before stopping and saying, “AAAA-MEN!” 

So now at every single meal she has to “pway” although it doesn’t last as long anymore.  It’s pretty darn cute.  I got this little video.  It’s even better when she closes her eyes: scrunched up tight be still able to peek through.  I’ll have to attempt that on video later. :)

Swimming

We hit the pool one last time before it closed for the season.  Here’s Boo Bear swimming with no life jacket!  She went farther on our trip, but you get the idea.

I still can’t believe how much the girls’ swimming has improved this summer!

And our latest and greatest breakthrough…Buggy jumped off the diving board with NO LIFE JACKET! Way to go Buggy!

I really hope we can make it to the pool a few times this winter so we don’t lose these newfound talents!  Although I’ll have to find some warmer pools because my little chilly willies don’t last too long in cold water  !

High Adventures!

Earlier in the summer Groupon had a deal for one of those adventure places and I tried to get our bible study group to do it.  Only one other couple ended up getting it with us, but I was so glad we had some buddies to do it with!  It would have been SO fun to have all couples we knew, but we ended up  having an awesome time with M&K and the other couples.  Even though we didn’t all know each other, by the end of the night we had formed a fun, encouraging group and there were lots of jokes and laughs going around.

It was actually billed as a “Christian Couples Date Night” and at first we just did some fun, ice breaker type games. Including blindfold tag where you had to listen to your partners directions to escape the “it” person.  It was actually a lot of fun!  I’ve never sprinted across a circle full of people while totally blind before.  But T did a great job directing me and didn’t run me in to anyone. Haha :) 

We also played some other silly games…including this one called Velcro. I had to get a picture of M&K all bent over and twisted up.

Then we moved onto some of the challenges.  All of them looked SO much easier than they were!  This one was a V where you had to push against each other for resistance and walk as far apart as you could.

The wires were REALLY wobbly and it wasn’t easy!  T and I made it pretty far before falling off (right after K took this pic).

We had a really good dinner of spinach alfredo ravioli, garlic bread, and a really good poppy seed salad from a nice restaurant up the road.

Then it was time to harness up for the “high challenges”. M&K looked so cute I had to grab a picture!

Since none of the other couples were brave enough they gave the hardest challenge a try.  Once again, it didn’t look that hard from the ground, but once they got going I could easily see why it was labeled as the hardest challenge.  It was a ladder and wasn’t connected at the bottom so it was swinging freely and they didn’t have anything to hang onto except the next rung which kept getting further away as you went up.  They had to hold onto each other and pull each other up just to get up to the next rung. 

It looked SO hard, and they did an awesome job, making it over halfway up.  No other couple even made it past the third rung.

Way to go M&K!

K and I both did the balance beam challenge.  I thought they said it was 30 ft. in the air.  After we did it I found out it was 50ft! I don’t know if that would have deterred me, but it did feel REALLY high when I was up there!

T got a video of me.  I had to stop halfway through because my rope pulled tight and I couldn’t go any further.  Then the guy started asking me to do tricks, haha. :) but the hardest part was walking sideways to get away from the tree so I could come down!  I didn’t have any problem walking forward, but going sideways was a challenge!  So was stepping off the log and trusting that the rope was going to catch me!

For our couples challenge (we only got to do one for time’s sake) T and I chose the “Eagle’s Nest” and were the only couple to make it to the top! 

Ready to go!

Ironically the hardest part was the first part!  The rungs were a little far apart and I had to do some serious bending to make it!

It took a lot of upper body strength.  Several couples made it up to the diagonals, but got stuck on the tires.

Strategy session.

Let’s go!

*Just keep climbing, just keep climbing.*

I finally made it to the Eagle’s Nest (the rectangle at the top) but it was REALLY wobbly, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to stand up on it to ring the bell.

So we worked together and T held it steady so I could pull myself into a standing position.

“WE COMPLETED THE EAGLE’S NEST CHALLENGE!”  You had to shout that as you rang the bell. :) It was also 50ft. in the air.

What a great date night! I loved it! We were all sore and kept finding bruises the next day, but it was so much fun!  Haha :)

Maybe someday we’ll get to do it again!