It's the End of the Summer as We Know It (and we feel fine)

We snuck in a few fun times at the tail end of summer.  I guess it helped that school starting 3 days late gave us an even longer tail end than anticipated.

Backyard Camping:

Matt was out of town so my attempt at a campfire was the side burner on the grill.  Still made good s'mores and hot dogs!

Give these kids a can of soda and hot dog on a stick and it's a happy day.

A successful campout too.  Last time we tried, Mary had to come inside in the middle of the night b/c of itchy, itchy skin (thank you grass allergy).  She slept soundly this time.   We're hopeful to get to real camping one of these days but don't want to get ourselves in a jam if her skin has trouble.  This was a major step in the right direction.

Rocket Shooting:

Andrew's bucket list has a big item checked off (thank you Elwoods!).  For as long as we've lived here and as long as the kids have gone to the Elwoods to play, Andrew has seen the rockets in their garage and asked when we could go shoot them.  We've attempted in the past but the weather has always messed things up.  Well Happy Labor Day.  Tautkus and Elwood fams were rocket shooting and we got invited.  Andrew LOVED it (and the girls loved playing at the playground with friends).  A good day.

Family Carnival:

At the end of the first week of school we were wanting to do something family fun but not wanting to spend $$.  The kids planned carnival games and we had a fun carnival night.

Here's Whit playing Mary's blindfold game of scoop the dolphins.

Mary is playing drop the clothespin in the bottle.

Matt is playing Andrew's game of bobbing for grapes.  It was a hit!!!

Soapstone Mountain:

We have only driven by Soapstone Mountain State Park about a billion times.  Just before school started we hiked it.  Nothing difficult but we had fun and it helped give sanity our 'snow day'.  

 Whit and Mary made it to the top! (well....we all did)

 With some friends we went with.  Friends always have a way of making adventures more fun. :)

Check out that beautiful view.  We will be doing it again during leaf peeping season which is coming up all too quickly.

New Skirts:

The young women at church had a sewing night and I volunteered to help.  Ends up they were making super cute and easy skirts so I went home and made some for the girls.  Fun!

It looks like this is the only picture Annie is actually in.  She did hike with us, she did camp with us and she even rocket shot with us.  She did not get to be in the carnival.  Annie doesn't really nap anymore and at least 3 days a week, she tells us during dinner that she wants to go to bed.  It happened carnival night and she was in bed at 6:15 clueless to all the awesome fun she was missing.

And actually, it's 7:10 and guess who's been in bed for 50 minutes?  Yup, Annie.  She cracks me up.