Random Summerness

We decided it would be fun to start taking the kids on little dates to spend some one-on-one time with them. This is from the first one I took Ella on. We went to feed the ducks at the nature center. I think she ate more bread than the ducks.


Alex loves making forts with the couch cushions, and I love when he falls asleep--those days are rare now!


Gotta love when the fair comes to town and you can be a little white trash. I have a weirdness about petting zoos (or maybe just fairs in general), but the kids really loved it. I think I used their complimentary hand wipes after they touched every animal.


This was definitely the weirdest thing I've ever done...and most disgusting. I have some weird fascination with farms. It's not like I'm from a big city, but I know absolutely nothing about farms and they're so interesting to me for some reason. For a while I was trying to find someone to let me come work on their farm for a day so I could see how things work, but nobody really took me up on that offer. Luckily I married a man who has a suspiciously large knowledge about farm life, mostly because he basically went to high school on a farm and they were required to take FFA and other farming classes. He denies this, but it's really the only thing that can explain his plethora of knowledge about farming. Well, I took my chance at the petting zoo to milk a cow. My face says it all--yuck! I don't like the feeling of that in my hand!


Alex started preschool this year! I had a big internal struggle about whether or not to put him in this year or just wait til the year before he goes to kindergarten. It seems like nobody down here puts their kids in til the second year, but I really felt like he needed some kind of outlet. The minute I signed him up I felt so good about it. He LOVES it! He asks to go back to Ms. Dianne's house every day, which is good because he usually has a hard time leaving us. He's been learning so many things I never thought he could learn at his age and he's already made lots of friends. The other day he started doing the alphabet in sign language. I never would've thought to teach him that. Isn't he a cute little student with his wee little backpack?!

The Narrows

We're grateful to Tanner's parents who came down to give us a much needed break and watch our kids while we hiked the Narrows in August. It was the perfect time to go and we had a lot of fun. We did the hike in one day (most people camp overnight and split the hike into 2 days) and it definitely took a toll on the old joints. I think by the end I'd sprained both my ankles from walking on rocks in water for 16 miles (12 hours), plus I had 4 open blisters on each foot. Tanner had much better shoes than I did and ended the hike feeling much better than me. We were racing to get out of there before it turned dark, but it ended up being so much fun and so beautiful. Unfortunately I thought I'd be smart and take a disposable waterproof camera, but the crappy pictures don't do the hike justice. We only have 3 that turned out well enough to scan, and they're not even at the really narrow parts. Despite all the scrapes and broken joints, it was fun to get out and do a hike without the kids!