Fall Pictures

I realized I haven't been posting much lately, so decided to do a picture post of a few of the things we've been up to.

No. 1 Son is part of a group of boys who like to stage a mock Hunger Games battle every now and then.  They have an awesome time fighting each other to the "death."  The weapons are either foam swords purchased at the Renaissance Faire or homemade foam sword, axes, bows and arrows and, of course, whips.

We took a trip to the Pumpkin Farm earlier this week.

They have a corn pit - best idea ever!  Since we went on a kind of rainy school day, we had the pit mostly to ourselves.

And finally, today is an absolutely beautiful day.  70 degrees in October.  But the cold is coming, and so Z-Man and Zoe took a trampoline break:

Bright Abyss

No. 1 Son plays bass in a band called Bright Abyss.  They recently play a festival at a nearby park, and had a great time!  The crowd of friends that came out to see them was just amazing - what a wonderful community we are part of!

Click HERE to see videos of their performance.

Summer

Well, most of the summer has gone by since I posted.  We've been enjoying a nice blend of activities and sitting around.  Probably the best thing that happened this summer is that No. 1 Son decided it was time to be baptized.  We headed into chilly Lake Michigan with our church and under he went.  Click HERE to see a video.

Another great part of our summer was the two weeks No. 1 Son and The Artist spent working on and performing in Les Mis with a local theater company.   What an experience!

The awesome cast

ValJean and Fantine

Gavroche with Fantine

The boys also got to be in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Ruben and Benjamin - another awesome experience! 

No. 1 Son is the one in stripes, The Artist is right beside him in the colorful vest.

Obviously, the boys have had an amazing summer of acting.

Z-Man has had a much more laid back summer.  He's been scootering, riding his bike, doing some swimming, and playing lots and lots of Minecraft.  He can build some amazing stuff on that game!

Drama Queen has had a fairly busy summer.  She spent time traveling with No. 1 Son and her dad, and then spent 2 weeks in Montreal at a French language immersion camp.  Add 4 weeks of drivers education to that, and you have a full summer.  Her school starts this week, and away we go into another year of learning and drama.

No pics of her - I'll try to get some soon.

I have to share a picture of the most creative use of Duct Tape I have ever seen.  The Artist cut his foot and found it hard to keep an band-aid on, so he just fashioned a shoe for himself.  It even comes on and off!

 

And now for some random pics of our little Zoe just for fun:

Hope your summer has been as great as ours!

Birthday Party

Since we were in Nebraska for The Artist's birthday, we held a party last weekend for him.  He had the great idea to have a progressive park party.  We invited a bunch of his friends to join us as we went to four of his favorite parks. 

The first one was fun - and nice and shady:

The second was was awesome, but in the full sun.  It lent itself to fun pictures, though:

Isn't this the coolest climbing structure ever?

We went to two more shady parks and ended up back at our house for pizza and air conditioning.  The Artist doesn't like cake, so he had popsicles after we sang him happy birthday.

Many thanks to all his friends who made his birthday special, and especially to EBY for driving the other van full of loud, hot, sweaty, amazing kids from adventure to adventure.

Pics

I am taking an online photography course from the awesome woman at www.AshleyAnnPhotography.com.  We got a new camera just before we went to meet Zoe, and I haven't begun to master it.  So today's post is all pictures, some using what I am learning, and some just for fun.

These last two were taken by Bryan but were too good not to include:

Family

We spent the last two days hanging around with family.  Zoe got to meet some new people, and so did mom and dad.

Cousin CP

Cousin KP

Z-Man got a special treat - a tractor ride with Grandpa on his restored John Deere.

Grandma Betty got to meet Zoe for the first time.  They liked each other a lot!

Zoe got really interested in daddy's watch:

I love how intent she gets when she's figuring things out.

There will be more family times over the next few days - we're looking forward to seeing everyone!

6 Months!

As of yesterday we have known Zoe for 6 months.  Can you believe it?  I can't - it's gone by so fast!

Sunday we spent the morning at church and then drove across Illinois and part of Iowa toward a family reunion.  No. 1 Son took some cool photos along the way - the extended sunset going West was gorgeous.

We didn't really celebrate our meeting day yesterday - we spent most of the day traveling.  We did stop for a while at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha to check it out.  They have some really great exhibits!

Zoe really enjoyed the fish especially - she's pretty cute too.