We Love Summer

Summers fly by in our family.  Between camps, vacations, downtime, parties, and more, we always have something going on!  

Both kids love to participate in the Springfield Art Association summer art camps.  This year Ethan did Animals in Clay and Stop Motion Animation camps, and Olivia did a metals camp (she especially loved using a blow torch!).

This is the summer Joe about blew himself up!  We used a kitchen torch to brulee marshmallows on top of a s'mores pie, and we then needed to refill the butane in the torch.  The butane leaked on Joe's hand/arm, and when he tested the flame a fireball went up in his face!  Thank goodness he was wearing glasses!  He lost the hair on his left hand/arm and even some hair on his head!

Cousin fun outside of Pizza Man!  

More cousin fun building the arch with Grandpa Brett at the St. Louis Science Center.

Teasing mom on the St. Louis Science Center's walkway glass windows over the interstate.

Our first time at the St. Louis Shakespeare in the Park to see A Midsummer Night Dream.  It was a HOT night, but we stayed in the shade and really enjoyed the play.

Ethan played summer baseball until the early part of July.  The later games were HOT!

Grandpa holding Olivia and Ethan on his 67th birthday.  Just because he still can!

Ethan and friend Andrew (in the foreground) and Olivia with friends Anna Grace and Ashley (in the background) at the Illini Country Club 4th of July party watching the belly flop contest.

Our first time participating in the Springfield Art Association Paint the Street.  We agreed on the Avengers logo with the Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Iron Man, and Hawkeye symbols.  We had a lot of fun doing this - it was like a giant block painting party!  In all, about 295 squares (all 6'x6') were painted.

Our backyard patio and entertaining area was completed in May, and Joe had an XL Big Green Egg grill installed.  He has been experimenting with it all summer, with pork shoulder, ribs, burgers, steaks, and more. We love to taste test his trials!

We spent many days at the IL State Fair this year.  This is the day that we went for the afternoon (we didn't plan to be stripe triplets!), and we left as a storm was approaching.  Good thing we left when we did - Springfield received a record breaking amount of rain (about 6 inches in two hours) and the State Fair flooded - farmers had to sandbag the animal barns, Happy Hollow was under 3 feet of water, the concert was canceled as the dressing rooms flooded, and many cars were stuck in their parking spaces due to water.

I always need to get this picture.

Ethan loves to ride the crazy rides with grandpa.  

Olivia and Ethan on their yearly Big Slide ride.  Poor Olivia skidded off of her mat at the bottom and got a rug burn.

They can get along when they need to!  

Who doesn't get donuts on their way out of the fair??

We went to a late August Cardinals game that was HOT!  But, we made it through the entire game so that the kids could run the bases.

While we did so much more this summer than what has been listed here, it is impossible to report it all.  I will end this post with our official end of summer - this kids going back to school.  Olivia is now a 7th grader, and Ethan is a 4th grader.