First Day of School

I meant to get this blog post out much sooner than this. . . but finally, here are the photos and videos from the first day of school!

But first. . . dinner on Back-to-School-Eve!


The bird houses are center pieces are kind of random. It's what I had laying around. In my mind, they were posing as one room school houses. :)







We're focusing on being thankful this year. Each night during our dinner conversations, we each share something we are thankful for from the day.








Time for a good night's sleep! (Even though no one ever gets a good night sleep on the night before the first day of school.)

August 3, 2016: First Day of School!

Our Fifth Grader!




Our Second Grader!




Our First Grader!




Our crew!


This was also Back-to-Work day for me.


This is the time of year when I do my kid interviews. I like to hear about their first day of school; and then I ask general questions about life in general and what they are currently interested in. It's fun to see what answers are the same from year-to-year and what has changed.

Bella


Graydon


Curtis


Only 165 school days left until our next summer break! ;)

The last days of summer vacation. . .

School is back in session here in Indiana. And I have photos from that. But first, here's a little of what we did during our last week of summer.

Church camp! Andy and Bella spent a week at Camp Illianna.


This was before they left on Monday morning.


The whole group all ready to go!


The boys were a little sad that they couldn't go to camp yet, so I made sure that we had some fun of our own. A friend and I took our boys to King's Island, a roller coaster theme park near Cincinnati, OH.  As you can see by his smile, Graydon was completely in his element. He loved every minute of this day.




Curtis and I rode this coaster twice. He was in tears by the end of the second ride and I felt like I was going to throw up. Graydon went on it four times in a row and would have kept going if he could have.






It was Christmas in July there, so they had "snow" falling near the entrance of the park. Graydon caught some on his nose.


We stayed until closing to watch the fireworks.


It's been a while since I've been on that many rides in a row and I have learned that my adult self just cannot handle many rides anymore. I had to cut myself off in the late afternoon because one more ride would have made me lose my lunch!

Meanwhile, here is a little of what the campers were up to.




We have a sweet corn fairy that comes in July and August.


The big kids came home from camp on Friday and we had a weekend sleepover.


We were now two days from the first day of school, but we wanted to squeeze in one more day of family fun; so we went to Rascal's Fun Zone!

The main attraction here were the various go-cart courses. They even had carts that the boys could drive themselves.




Bella drove on the medium course. She could have driven solo, but she was feeling just a tad nervous at first.


There was also a larger, faster course outside that we all drove on as well.

And then Kitty found a yellow (his favorite color) car. And not just any car. This one said "CAT". A "yellow cat" car. Perfect for this boy.


Bumper cars!


Earlier that morning, Curtis decided to try doing a hand stand. He ended up landing on his face and getting a rug burn. Two days before school started. He began another school year with a head injury.


If you remember. . . this happened right before school started last year. He tripped and landed headfirst on the corner of a wall.

Maybe we'll be able to start second grade injury free!

I like to sit out on the front porch in the morning with my coffee, Bible, and journal. One morning, I glanced off and saw this awesome spider web with dew drops on each little strand. The morning itself had low fog and looked pretty cool. Some might find them gross, but I am kind of fascinated with spider webs.


Next up: back to school photos!