Devil's Lake
One of our favorite summer spots on a hot day...unfortunately (or fortunately?), we did not have many hot days this summer. We still made it to the beach a few times to play in the sand, picnic, and splash around a bit.
Beach babies
Lunch always tastes better when on a picnic blanket
Bundled up
Post-beach milkshake while Mommy is unloading the car. Ah, the good life!
Daddy joined us to build in the sand
Not sure what she is building, but I'm sure it will be great!
County Fair
The kids and I joined some friends at kids' day at the county fair. Everyone enjoyed seeing (and petting) the animals, doing arts/crafts projects, and tasting samples (freshly-made butter, apple cider, yum, yum). Eli got to choose his first ride to go on by himself...although he ended up with a buddy on board since his brave shadow, the little lady, wanted to join in the fun. Who knows, maybe they will be thrill-seekers and Daddy will finally have someone to ride with on roller coasters!
Cluck, cluck!
Ready for the open road (in a blue car, of course)
The perfect end to a trip to the fair - ice cream!
(PS - Evelyn had to ride home in just her diaper from this one after a little incident involving a bowl of melted ice cream being dumped down the front of her shirt. A self-inflicted sticky waterfall, so no hard feelings.)
The Butterfly Release
One of Eli's buddies gave him a butterfly habitat for his birthday. Real, live caterpillars came in the mail, and survived one of the few hot days of the summer as Mommy forgot to get them out of the mailbox, and then formed cocoons and turned into butterflies right before our very eyes. Super cool gift, and it made for some fun conversations at the breakfast and dinner table each day. There was only one incident of the cats knocking the habitat over, and after a brief scare due to the fact that we had red flowers that left blood-like streaks on the side of the habitat at the time of said knocking-over (Do butterflies bleed? Thankfully, we did not find out.), we confirmed that all ten butterflies survived and were ready to be released. We set them free at the edge of the yard so that they could hopefully find a new home amongst the wildflowers. They must have forgiven us for the cat drama, as they stayed around the area as we released them, and one even hung out for awhile on Eli's shorts.
Ready for the release
Eli's butterfly pal
Hello, little hitchhiker
Here Comes the Sun(Flowers)
This year we finally were able to check out one of the places that has been on my summer list for a couple years: the sunflower fields at Pope Farms. We were there slightly past the prime time (at least we were there...next year I'll try for being more punctual. Baby steps.), but still saw many beautiful flowers on a beautiful summer day. The kids were troopers and hiked the whole time, which was pretty super of them considering Mommy parked in the farthest parking lot (Oops. Again, next year we'll have our act together. Or not.), and so we had a hike up and over a hill to get to the fields. They had fun collecting sticks (and leaving them in a neat pile when Mommy said only one stick per person could come in the minivan), and ran from sunflower to sunflower to find and loudly identify their "favorite one".
Starting our hike. Between Eli's hat choice, the stone fence, and the rolling hills, it seems we could have been hiking in western Ireland.
Finding sticks. And did I mention that the kids each brought a bunny along?
Finally some sunflowers
Eli finds his favorite one (of this moment)
Beautiful summer day
Those eyelashes and that sweet face
Evelyn finds her favorite one
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