Tree decorating

First comes Thanksgiving, then Abigail's birthday, followed by Christmas.  Time to get the tree up!  I spent an hour trying to get the lights to work, before giving up and replacing them all with a new set of LED lights.

Happy birthday Abigail!

Six years old for my oldest (and only) girl!  

She asked for a cat for her birthday.  Almost every present she got was a cat accessory, and then later that day we went down to the local Humane Society and chose two cats to adopt (out of 200+ that they had!).  They promptly spent the next four days hiding under the couch, but they are slowly getting braver.

The brown one on the left is Jericho, and the black-and-white on the right is Lily.

Jeremy and Wendy get married

I had six roommates in college (house-mates, actually: we rented a house together), and Saturday I was happy to attend the wedding of the last to get married.

The flower girl and ring-bearers, possibly the cutest ring-bearers I have seen yet!

The wedding party... 

Here comes the bride!

The 5 Highlanders: missing only Dallas, who was home waiting for a new baby.

Camping Trip

This year our autumn camping trip took us to a lake in northern Ohio.  We had wonderful weather: just cool enough for a light jacket during the day, which made for good campfire weather at night. 

 

Breakfast-making in the camper

Breakfast is ready: bacon (a camping treat for us), eggs, and waffles 

Isaac's table was the oven door.  It worked well, until he accidentally shut it on his finger...

 

There were at least three playgrounds, possibly more.  Abigail was pushing Isaac at this one.

Making the evening's campfire.  We determined that Mommy was a much better fire-maker than Daddy!

 Fire at last! 

 Isaac collecting grass for starting the fire

Bedtime reading in the camper (On the Banks of Plum Creek)

The inevitable end of the camping trip.

Airshow

It is a beautiful day for the last Saturday in August.  Anthony and the kids are with my mom and dad at an airshow at the Hillsdale Airport.  I debated and debated on whether I should try to go with Isaac or not.  He seemed a little sleepy so I did not go, then when he did not go to sleep  upstairs I decided to go as he was upset when they all left without him.  So, we packed up and left only to have him fall asleep by the time that he got to the airport.  We turned around and came back.  I saw a garage sale sign on the way back and stopped.  I really hit the jackpot there.  Not only did I get new clothes for myself, I found 8 or 10 nice and educational books for the kids at only .25 a piece.  So, that was really fun.  I am a little bummed about not going to the air show as I can hear the planes now, but all's well that end's well. I'm glad Anthony and the kids can go.  I'm sure it will be fun and educational for the kids also.

 Sitting in a firetruck.  When we were at the hot air balloon show a month or so ago, Ethan refused to go near the firetruck because, "I don't want it to go 'Whoo-whoo!'"

 Us in front of a F4U Corsair, built in 1947.

The Corsair parking after its acrobatic run, demonstrating wings-up for carrier storage.

In front of it is an F4F Wildcat.  The two did some formation flying together, which is certainly a rare sight.

There were seven AT-6 Texans.  They flew a mock race together, demonstrated some four-plane formation flying, and finally flew the missing man formation while a bugler played Taps.

The kids enjoyed looking at the airplanes and watching them fly, though they were getting tired of the show near the end.  The highlight of the day was the cotton candy, however!

Abigail is off to the dentist right now with Anthony.  Abigail has one small cavity that needs filled.  Isaac is sleeping and Ethan is playing race cars.  Ethan has really been enjoying his Legos the past couple of days and making some pretty elaborate creations.  We are hoping to get some exercise outside this afternoon.  We need to soak up all the sunshine we can before the long, dark winter days.  Abigail discovered through random clicking with the mouse last night that she could draw different colored shapes on the computer with MS Word so she wanted to do that some more today.  She has remember all of the steps of things to click on and it is helping her reading skills as I tell her the name of what she needs to click on and we sound it out and she finds it. So, I guess it is graphic design for kindergarten:)


Since I don't want to leave Isaac out and don't want to make an entry without a picture, I posted a couple pictures of Isaac practicing his cuteness (and walking skills).

This is actually the picture of Abigail with
her yeast experiment. The picture of her silly face is her making a scary face by her dinosaurs.