Camping

A great week in August to look back on:)  A few kid things I jotted down to put in the memory banks:

• At bedtime I lay with the kids almost every night for at least 7 minutes each and talk to them about their day.  I often fall asleep with them. If I fall asleep with Claire first, Luke will crawl out of bed and wake me up to get his turn for me to lay with him.
• Claire always needing my arm to be tight around her with my other arm out of the way.
• Claire learning to ride the balance bike finally!  Yay, interest in a bike!
• Claire has learned to go to the bottom of the pool by going hand over hand on a pole to the bottom.
• Claire helping me make muffins.
• So many zucchinis in our garden!  Lots of zucchini bread.
• Walking Dudley every night to the Ruzila's house to ride bikes/scooters.
• "The worst sound in the world" - what we call Claire's high pitched whining
• Luke eating anything and everything, his appetite knows no bounds and he is not picky at all (except he still won't eat pizza sauce!).
• Claire eating practically nothing and only wanting junk food or sweet foods.

Pictures from Isolene of their visit to the Botanic Garden

A famous plant that stinks when it blooms!

Adorable ice cream drawing

Isolene and her other nanny friends arranged for a visit with a local police officer they knew, all the kids loved it

Matt and I took off work on Friday to take the boat down to the Air & Water Show downtown with friends.

We took the Conklins down with us and met the Ronchettas and their friends.

Pura Vida boat - picture for you, Kristin!

Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon!

Back on the boat up in Lake Forest on Saturday with our regular posse before we went camping for the night in WI.

Water boy

Chris cooked us a feast!

Toad

Our adjoining sites were perfect thanks to a great scouting trip by Matt beforehand

Kids making their dinner

Chris making our dinner

Amazing!

Such a great time!

Kids watched a movie in the car theater style (with car seats) and with popcorn so the adults could enjoy their meal.

Everybody got to catch a fish

The girls loved playing with the worms

Alexandra hanging with the Dusters

Back in town in time to attend the Cub Scouts picnic.  Luke is joining the Cub Scouts this year.

Water rocket fun

On Monday I came home from work to join my family in the much hyped, long awaited solar eclipse viewing.  It is not a happy memory.  Maybe because it was a cloudy day so the viewing wasn't good, or maybe because I may or may not have damaged my eyes from accidentally looking directly at the sun for a second before I went back into work.  I was convinced I was going to go blind and spent 48 hours working myself up (and making Matt crazy) about it.