School Days are here again

We officially have three kids in school.  Because Mark has been home with the kids Margot has not yet gone to school, but all that changes this year.  First up was Margot, who started a few days before the other two.  Our outgoing girl surprised us a little bit in that she was a bit nervous.  Mark and I both noticed that she was a bit off, or maybe just a little quiet.  She gave us some smiles, some hugs, and some waves.

Here's a little collage, with other pictures to follow:

 Happy to put on her new backpack

 A good picture of me and my girl

 Posing with her sister

 On her own...

 And all three together...

 And then just a few days later it was time for the big kids to head out.  Isla started Kindergarten

 And Sawyer headed off to 2nd grade.

Both posing with backpacks - they each picked out their school outfits wanting to wear dresses on the first day.

 And without backpacks...

All three grown up girls.  We think we're going to have a great school year.  We have lots going on the next month or two and hope to be better about sharing online what's keeping us busy...

Niagara Falls

We FINALLY made it to Niagara Falls.  This has been on our list of things to do for awhile but not something we wanted to do if we were going to have whiny kids.  We finally felt like they were good ages to try it out and had a good day, albeit with a few whines.  Best of all, Grandma and Grandpa hadn't been to the falls in awhile, or on the Maid of the Mist ever, so they joined us!

We made our way out to Niagara Falls and got some info on the park as to what we wanted to do. Mark made sure we took advantage of the photo opps.  We have this for all the kids too, but I thought I'd just grab his for the blog.

 We quickly realized we were in the wrong place for the Maid of the Mist and so we made our way down there.  Sometimes sisters even get along...

There's a number of things you can do while here, but we kept it simple and did the Maid of the Mist tour and just checked things out from the railing at the top.  With Grandma and Grandpa living so close we don't need to do it all at once...we can come back!

So off to the Maid of the Mist we went.  Here's a few of the falls from the bottom.  It sure is an impressive display of water's power.  We are standing on the deck of the boat.

Everyone got a poncho because we were venturing into the mist.  Here we are waiting for the boat to take off, with the Rainbow bridge the background.

Mark was the smart one and didn't put his poncho on right away - it's hot under that plastic - but we were ready to go.

 Mark and the falls

 We also walked up along the side of the falls

 Climbed a giant rock quickly, and got stuck

 And then did some sightseeing from the top of the falls.

We headed out to have lunch on the water before making our way back to the house.  Amazing wonder of the world so close to home, and I'm glad we took advantage of it.  We'll have to re-create this picture as they get older and we go back.

August / Buffalo Trip

Well, we got back from the Dells and had just two weeks of down time before we were back on the road again, this time to Buffalo.  We used those quiet two weeks to spend MORE time at the pool and just enjoy summer.  Sawyer took more tennis lessons with her new friend Kate from the pool, and the others just enjoyed seeing friends when they could.

On one particular day, our neighbor Lily asked Margot to come over and play, and Mark had an appt so I had these two sweet girls.  We scootered into town and went out to lunch together to one of our favorite spots.  They LOVED that it was just the three of us, and surprisingly got on well with each other.

It wasn't long though before we were back in the car driving to Buffalo.  We got a new DVD player (died before Columbus) and were armed with a stack of movies, which made the ride really easy.  We stopped twice and were greeted by Grandma and Grandpa in the driveway with hugs and a glass of wine.  We had a pizza party with Michelle, Al, Jon, and Harlow to kick off our first night - perfect.

Only to be topped by a day at the pool the next day which also include Kate, Ryan, Maeve, and Rory...and some superior diving board displays by Mark and Ryan.  The kids spent all day jumping, swimming and having fun and we went right to Aunt Kate's for dinner and more playing, and more cousins - getting to see Luke and Aidan too.

Now while we're there during the week most people have to work so we found things to keep us occupied and would see people at night.  We went to Niagara Falls, which I'll post pics from separately, and we did the walk to the Eternal Flame at Chestnut Ridge.  This was a fun outing because (1) it got our girls back into the woods, which we know Isla loves, and (2) was somewhat of a challenge for them to watch tree roots, etc.  Despite Margot tripping and wanting to be carried some it was successful, and as you can see we made it to the flame.

We also did lunches out - one in particular we met Grandpa Joe out for lunch.  Always good to see him.  Mark and I also, somehow, managed to get out three nights in a row without our children.  We went out with my parents to the waterfront, where I snapped this beautiful sunset...and had some great food and drinks.

We went out to dinner with Al and Jon while the girls had a slumber party at Aunt Michelle's...which we'll need to repeat because they are still talking about the chocolate pretzels they made with her. And then we went out another night with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, and parents while my cousins watched the kids and sat on a rooftop having drinks.  To say I can't remember the last time we were without our kids three nights in a row is true - I guess it would have been our trip to San Francisco a year ago.  Was a treat to know they were off having loads of fun too.

We also spent time at the pool - Aunt Jeanne's pool twice, Mark and Jen's pool, Eagle Ridge pool, and Wanakah's pool....not to say nothing of the day we spent in Lake Erie at Barb and Mark's new house. We actually did two different pools and the lake in one day which was crazy but fun.  The kids had fun with every single relative they hung out with which is what makes each trip special, though sometimes we end up a little pooped at the end of the day...

One other thing I wanted to do while we were in Buffalo was let Sawyer try golf.  I had toyed with the idea of getting her a few clubs at Play It Again Sports before we left, but quite frankly just ran out of time and decided I'd see what Aunt Kate had when she said she "had some clubs".  Turns out Aunt Kate had a whole bag and nice set handed down to Maeve from her cousins that they graciously let us borrow while we were there.  See how happy this girl is just to carry them...

We figured out a time with Grandpa and went over to the club to try and swing the club.  Literally, Sawyer had never hit a ball before today but she wanted to try and did really well.  She wanted no instruction from me, but did listen to Grandpa....who I should add was far calmer teaching his granddaughter than he ever was teaching his kids.  Here's our girl lining up.  She hit a bunch of balls on the range, then went and putt for a bit, and then when Grandpa went off to meet friends she went back to the range for more....and would have kept going if Mark hadn't come to pick us up for our trip to the lake.  She probably hit the ball about 75 feet and was really proud of herself.  I think we may just have a date at the range in the near future....

And I would be remiss if I failed to mention the Olympics with our trip to Buffalo.  This year was the Rio Olympics and we spent a lot of time watching while we were on vacation...mostly in the morning and at night.  Sawyer especially got into it - she would watch any sport and cheer on the USA, but her heart was in swimming and gymnastics.  She loved to cheer for Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps and wants to join the swim team next summer because of it!

Speaking of the pool, ours is closing soon.  It's been a great summer and while I personally have only gotten there 5-10 times, these kids have gotten our money's worth.  We went to the end of summer party last weekend where we took some funny pics, and danced to a DJ, and had some food truck pizza.

 And that leaves me with the rest of August - well, I went away for work to London and Brussels after returning from our vacation.  Was a very busy, productive, and fun trip.  I saw a good friend which was a bright spot, and ate lots of interesting food - indian, middle eastern, british pub, etc.  i love that.

While I was gone, Mark kept the house running as per usual.  He took the kids to Legoland one day too which they loved.  Here they are posing with Darth Vader.  Such attitude on the little one.

Though it was not too long after that shot that I got a text with this one.  That's right, Margot gave herself a haircut.  This picture kills me.  I love it so much and look at it often.  I love the expression and the eyes, and the fact that she didn't give herself a terrible cut.  It felt very 70s shag/girl mullet to us.

She was told not to cut her hair again, and we'll see if that sticks.  I think so many people asked her what happened to her hair that she's actually kind of proud of it.

And the remainder of August was spent getting ready to start school and activities up again...and boy do we have a lot of activities on tap.  Margot is doing art and ballet/tap, Isla is doing soccer, art, and ballet/tap, and Sawyer is doing lacrosse, tennis, art, gymnastics, and when some of that ends basketball starts up.  Crazy, but we were actually telling them no because they wanted to do more.

And because of the cuteness factor, here's a quick snap of my girl trying on her ballet clothes...

Margot walks on her tippy toes frequently (like 75% of the time) and so I wonder if she'll be good at ballet?  Here she is practicing.

July - Wisconsin Dells

Off we went to the Dells - a place known for their water parks - to meet Grandma and Grandpa, Ted, Charlie and Ben.  We were staying in a house in a little golf community which really worked great. There was a swimming pool across the street that kept the kids busy for hours, because it wasn't just a pool, it had basketball and slides.  Plus, they even made up their own game of running across the pool deck holding hands and jumping off the side together.

All in all, was a great week away with the family, and we jam packed it with activities.  We started off with a Duck Boat Tour which took us on land and on water to see some of the sights of the area. Here Margot is on the boat with Grandma and Grandpa.  I think she moved seats every 5 minutes and managed to sit with everyone over the course of the hour or so.  This was a good trip, though I think the older kids were eyeing the jet boat.  Note to self - regular boats just don't cut it anymore.

We did another boat tour, on a larger boat, a few days later.  This took us to different spots, including to Witch's Gulch which is a neat rock formation, almost cave-like, that has walkways now built in. Made for a fun little 1/4 - 1/2 mile walk to break up the boat ride and the kids found the nature interesting.

During that boat ride we also stopped at another stop where a dog does a trick jumping between two rocks.  This is a famous thing though the name of it escapes me right now...the perils of writing about it six weeks later.  Here we did another 1/4 - 1/2 mile hike of sorts, and scored some great pictures of the kids.  First up, our hambone....

 And then all the kids together...

We did two days of water parks.  The first was to Mt Olympus which is a water park and amusement park.  Was so great having five adults there to match five kids because we were able to get the kids on all the rides they wanted - many required adults ride with the kids, such as the go-karts, and we were able to do that with Grandpa riding and Grandma helping to keep Margot busy.  Afterwards we hit up the waterpark which was interesting.  This was the first experience and I think it scared a few kids. There's a big wave pool - think 5+ ft wave every 5-10 minutes.  It wiped Isla and Ben out which turned them off.  Oddly, Margot loved it, as did Charlie and Sawyer.  Then we found some water slide areas and played there for awhile.  We didn't last too long here - perhaps it was tiredness, after all we were already several hours in at the park....didn't stop us from hitting up rides on the walk back though before we left.

The other water park day we went to Noah's Ark which was awesome.  Going in if you'd have asked me if we would have stayed 6 hours I would have said you were crazy but that's just what we did.  All five kids were into it and riding the rides.  Some we did in pairs, some we did in groups, and others by ourselves but everyone found something they loved and really it wasn't until the last 15 minutes that kids got tired out.  We ended the day with ice cream for dinner.

Other highlights include the day we went to an indoor amusement park place.  It was hot, humid, and potentially going to rain so we thought this was a great option.  First up - indoor trampoline park.  All the kids loved it, and were sweating like crazy when done.  Made me think that the adults should have bought passes for a work out.

We stopped for a quick lunch and then were off to the amusement park section.  Think games and rides.  Charlie and Sawyer continued to be little daredevils and were off on their own with their unlimited ride bracelets.

 And the younger kids kept together as well on some of the less scary rides.

In between all of this we had lots of great food, much of it cooked by Chef Terry, had many bonfires in the fire pit, and cooked s'mores a few times.  Was a great trip, and looking back I think the kids all got along really well.  That, or I'm in the vacation aftermath glow, where I am only remembering the rosy parts which I suppose is a good thing regardless.

July Madison Trip

So mid-way through July we were heading to the Wisconsin Dells to meet up with the Harris side of the family and decided to do a night in Madison on our way up.  I had not been there before but Mark had good things to say, so why not stop on our way up through.

Mark and I sort of laugh about this trip because I did all the research and had some serious planning skills in place - I had sort of a make your own adventure choices that we could select from depending on our kids behavior, and addresses for every option to pop into our GPS, and really I think it turned out to be a good experience for all of us.

We started by waking up, having breakfast, and hopping into the car to head up to the Cave of the Mounds.  This is about 20 minutes outside of Madison and is a natural cave that is about 4 million years old. Crazy right?  It was supposed to be about 50 degrees or so in the cave so pardon the weird outfits - we dressed for 80+ degree weather outside, and then I threw leggings and sweatshirts on our girls right before walking in so we didn't hear any "i'm cold" complaints...and it worked!

You do a tour of about 20 person groups and walk sort of up and down and all through.  Takes about an hour and was given two thumbs up by everyone in the family.

 We learned about stalagmites and stalactites and saw lots of cool formations in the cave

 Margot helped us to take his picture.  The funniest part of the adventure came when Mark tried to take the camera from her to take this picture and Margot got mad and screamed, "I hate you!".  In a very quiet cave, everyone heard and laughed.

Here's our Cave of the Mounds picture - we liked it so much we bought it!  We never have pictures of the whole family..

We took off from there in search of lunch.  I had us going to a place called Ella's Diner, which is somewhat famous in Madison and known to be a good kids place.  There's lots of decoration and things to look at inside, and outside a giant carousel.  While the service and food weren't great, they were fine for the kids, and the carousel had them asking to go back. 

And on the ride...

After that, we headed to the zoo!  There's a zoo in the city that wasn't huge, but was free which was a nice draw.  We saw some great animals - Buffalo, giraffes, monkeys, lions, etc.  Everyone seemed pretty happy with this stop as well and they all smiled when I had them jump on a rock for a quick picture.

It was a hot day though and so we stopped for a popsicle to cool down before continuing on to the huge playground they had there.  We stayed until they shut it down.

After that it was time to find our hotel, hit up the pool, and order pizza.  I had purposely gotten us a suite which worked nicely.  We had a dinner table to eat at, and the kids had a separate area to watch tv than Mark and I.  While we often find it hard to get everyone to sleep at a hotel, and this was no different, all worked well.  Plus, they loved the club access that came with our suite and would get drinks and snacks, and breakfast the next day in their jammies.  All in all it was a hit.

We got up the next day and after said breakfast made our way back to the downtown area to hit up the Children's museum.  This was a really great spot.  It's not huge, but seemed perfect and around every turn was something to keep their interest, engage them, and they often had people there to lead different activities.

Margot got into this painting wall...

and the other two were busy doing arts and crafts, origami, a hamster running wheel, a three story jungle gym, you name it.  They even had a rooftop garden with chicks that we checked out.  As we were leaving Isla and Margot came across this nook which was from Montgomery Ward department store and had a bunch of old "house" stuff - doll beds, etc.  It was very retro and they loved taking care of the babies.  Isla especially was in heaven.

 And because Mark loves his filters, here's one of the girls sitting in an old hairdressing seat.  Looks very retro.

From here, we headed off towards the capital building.  We grabbed lunch on State St and then toured the Capital checking out the really cool architecture before heading back to the car for the short ride the rest of the way to the Dells.

July

July continued the trend of lots of time at the pool.  We stayed home for 4th of July weekend because I was away the weekend before, and Mark was away the weekend after.  It always proves to be a very relaxing weekend in our town.  Things kind of go quiet which I love.  It's like a calm settles in on the whole town.  Kind of weird when you think fireworks and such, but I just feel like everyone's very calm and happy about it.

At any rate, we were outside a lot.  We don't use our patio the way we should - our kids tend to be outside in the front, but I hope someday we will hang out there more.  Here is my shadow following me, and I took her picture because she carried her phone (a calculator) around all day, and would have pretend calls with people.  Harlow was the one she called the most.

 For the 4th, we walked into town to watch the parade.  Mark, Sawyer, and Isla were walking in the parade for Indian Princesses, and so it was just me and my girl.  We brought her chair and ended up getting a popsicle to stay cool while we waited.

It's always a great parade - we loved the fire trucks and vets marching.  There were lots of groups throwing candy and despite some over zealous kids by us Margot got enough to make her happy, and I was able to help some other young kids squirrel some away too because we had a front row seat and it would often come to my feet!

Here's our girl Isla marching.  She had a perma-grin on her face, and picked out her outfit herself - red/white stripes, and blue/white polka dots.

 This was the best shot I got of Sawyer.  They did come running up to Margot to give her a hug.

And I think my favorite picture from all of summer is this one.  The girls drew some chalk on the driveway and Mark got onto the ladder to take this picture from above.  Totally got this right - in summer you do just need to chill....

One other highlight from July was the first camping trip for the girls (minus Margot).  Mark and Ted had planned a night of tent camping for the kids which included some light hiking.  So our girls packed up and went off to Western Michigan on Friday to stay at their cousin's house.  These kids always have a great time together and as I understand it, this was no exception.  Charlie and Ben showed off their birthday present dirt bikes, and the girls even gave them a try (and liked).

On Saturday they all packed up into one car and were on their way to a park further north.  Here they are at the start of the journey which included hiking along the Lake Michigan shore.  They got some time to play/run up the dunes though it was windy and the water very cold, so no swimming.

They found a campsite not too far off the beach and set up tents.  Here they are playing around dusk in their jammies.  These long underwear that I bought for playing in the snow came in handy on this trip because it got chilly at night.

Mark tells me that Isla was "one with nature", and loved the experience.  I think all the kids did, but she seemed to revel in it and is a natural.  What can we say, our girls seems very content when allowed to run around in the woods so I guess we'll have to do more of that in the future.  Here they are hiking out in the morning about to head to the store for some much-wanted breakfast.

I think this might become an annual trip which will be nice.  Margot didn't go this year but in the future may be able to do it.  Instead, she and I stayed home and relaxed.  We walked into town for dinner, frozen yogurt and to see the car show.  The next day we hit up the farmers market and spent the day playing with our neighbor Lily, and before we knew it they were home.