The Last Days of Summer.

 We have had an unusually hot few days and we have been enjoying our last days of summer before school starts!  It was so hot we literally could only be outside for short periods of time with minimal clothing and lots of water!  Is this really Fargo?

When I first brought my camera out it was fogged up for quite some time with the temperature change between our air-conditioned home and the outside heat!  Yes, it was that hot!

 It is so easy to take pictures of these three cuties!  In my unbiased opinion.  I can't believe I will have to share the 2 older ones in a short time...oh school.

 Landon has started flag football already and Ryan has been helping coach.  The girls and I have had some quality time together while the boys are at practice.  Kenzie is sure going to miss big sister when she goes to Kindergarten, I'm quite sure she will not know what to do with herself!  Beauties!

 Nothing like a "big" movie to escape from the heat!  I took Landon, Kadence and Jack to Planes while Ryan hung out with Kenzie (she doesn't sit through a movie well at all).  The movie was great and when we got out to the car it was 105 degrees outside.  WOW!

Emma gets a lot of love in this house!  She has been loving up on the kids a ton lately!  She must know they are going back to school soon! What a great summer we have had!  Although I am not quite ready to share the kids every day, I think they are both ready to go back to school.  They both seem very excited!

Garden Harvest.

 We have started to get a TON of vegetables out of our garden!  We have had a surplus of zucchini and green onions, carrots and peas.  For some reason our cucumbers and potatoes did not grow this year!  Our tomato plants look great and we can't wait to start eating garden fresh tomatoes!  Our strawberry plant only produced tiny (but very sweet) strawberries so far which we have heard is not uncommon the first year.  We also have a lot of flowers starting to bloom!  Very exciting!  Our expectations were quite low for the first year so we have been happy with what we have been able to harvest already!

Ice Cream Treats and Aunty's.

 Why are ice cream treats so irresistible in the summer?  I think that is the one good thing about cold weather.  Ice cream just doesn't taste as good when you are freezing!  Landon had a birthday party and Ryan was working so I took the girls for a special treat.

 We had a very long time to play at the park while Landon was enjoying his baseball themed birthday party!  It was a gorgeous summer evening!

We headed to Omaha to see Aunty for the weekend.  Again, I did not take any pictures with my camera.  What is wrong with me?  I always regret it afterwards!  We bought a new "basket" for Emma to ride in on long trips.  Some friends of ours used it when they were watching Emma and said she did pretty well.  However, she did not do well with us!  Poor Emma gets so anxious in the car.  I feel bad for her but it is extremely frustrating!  We powered through and she was actually better on the drive home and even slept in her basket for quite awhile.

Jessie was at Aunty's house when we arrived and the kids were beyond excited to spend time with her! It wouldn't be a trip to Aunty's without heading to the Omaha Zoo.  We waited until Kristy and Grandma Sue were there.  The weather was perfect and we all enjoyed an afternoon of animal watching!

 It was unusually chilly for Omaha but the kids still jumped in the pool to swim!  They had fun swimming-especially when Aunt Kristy and Jessie swam with them.

Kadence tried out Aunty's hair extensions and thought she was Rapunzel!  What a cutie.  We were able to do some school shopping so Kadence was in heaven!

Ryan was in heaven when he was able to take a nap!  All curled up with Landon's blankets.

We had a great time with everyone in Omaha as usual.  The time went far too fast  and the car ride went far too slow!  Can't wait to go back!

Princess Dance Camp.

Kadence is starting her dance lessons at a new studio this fall.  I had heard really good things about the new studio-Dance Elite and it is WAY closer to us so I decided to give it a shot.  Kadence had a 4 day "dance camp" which was everything princess and she loved it!  It was 2.5 hours a day each day and she had so much fun.  The last day they did a little princess "performance" that parents were able to watch.

When I had spoke to one of the teachers on the 2nd day she told me Kadence was her best listener.  What a good girl!

 Melts my heart!!

 Kadence seemed to really enjoy the new studio so I am hoping that makes for an easy transition this fall!  I am so proud of her and I love how much she likes to dance!

The Dells.

Our family of five headed to Wisconsin Dells for the Strasburg family vacation.  We left on Saturday morning and stayed in the Twin Cities one night.

 We kicked off our water vacation with a swim at the hotel pool.  My cousins Amy & Mike, Casey, and Kym and her kids stopped by for a visit which was awesome.  I don't get to see them very often so we had a nice visit.  We headed to the Dells after a nice brunch with my Uncle Brad & Aunt Jan Sunday morning.  It was a long drive but we were beyond excited to be there!  Shame on me for not taking any pictures with my camera.  I only snapped a few with my phone.  Sad.  Oh well, I guess I was in vacation mode.  Which by the way has an entire different meaning when you have a 6, 5, and 2 year old.

Glad to be out of the car and having a drink!  By the way, how lucky is Ryan?

 We did a ton of water park swimming while we were there.  We stayed at the Wildnerness resort which had indoor and outdoor water parks.  I was thankful for this because again it was cold!  The kids got really cold when we were in the outdoor parks.  I always gladly volunteered to take them to the indoor parks since I hate being cold also!

The kids were able to do a lot of fun things.  Landon probably did the most of anyone and my girls sat out on a few things.  There was golfing, mini golfing, the upside down white house, the mining company, arcades, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, outlet mall shopping, water parks, go carts, and a ski show to name a few things.

The girls at Tommy Bartlett's ski show.  Cuties.

After 4 days of vacation fun we were headed back home!

Gary, Ryan and Landon left early Thursday morning in order to make it for the Twins game at noon.  The weather was great and they enjoyed watching the game with some great seats.  Would have been better if the Twins would have won tho!

Ryan was very excited about the seats and had a blast with Landon and his dad!  I was just a little jealous...especially when Justin Morneau hit a homer!

Sue, the kids and I headed out about 11am in order to meet the boys when they were done with the game.  We only waited about 20 minutes for them and then we were on our way and Ryan's parents were on theirs.  We had a great vacation with everyone being good and having fun!  I won't go into the details but there was a couple of incidents of puke.  (Not the same kind of puke that happens when you party too much-more like kids puke) Thanks everyone for the great summer vacation:)