Jackson's First Day of Second Grade

 

Jackson's first day of Second Grade!!!  His teacher this year is Mrs. Comer, and she is getting rave reviews...  He's also reunited with several friends from his Kinder class!  We can't wait to see what this year will be like!

Jackson's Special Day Plus One

Graham made sure we knew right off the bat this summer how feisty he'd be, and I felt bad for Jackson that the days weren't necessarily as fun/calm/quiet/more pleasant like he perhaps deserved...  Josh quickly thought of the idea to give Jackson a day all about him!  So, Jackson made a list:

 

 1. Fishing, 2. Park, 3. Pool (Creek), 4. Lego Star Wars, 5. Natural History Museum (Saved for a future date), 6. Mall (Did lots of times with Mommy this summer), 7. Go on a train (Tomorrow!), 8. Find 11 caches (Did on a different really fun day!), 9. Go on a tour, 10. Get a trumpet, 11. Have a playdate...

 

 ...12. Go to McDonalds, 13. Go to movie theater (Did last weekend), 14. Make slime (Did this on a rainy summer day already), 15. Make a present for Mommy, 16. Build a Lego (Saved for a future date!)

 They started off this fun day by inviting Izzy for some fishing.  Izzy ended up staying all day.  And, all night :)  After fishing at Locust Shade, they stopped at The Marine Corps Museum to play at the playground and visit a bit of the museum.  Then, lunch at McDonalds!

 

The afternoon was spent mostly having an adventure in the creek area behind our house.  These friends came home with them...   

The late afternoon activity was working on my special surprise!  Josh cut the wood and the kids got to work sanding and painting!

 

Then, Josh assembled the pieces into a box!

It's a place where I can keep special things :)

We took a small bathing break, and Izzy went home to collect her sleepover gear before joining us for dinner, playing Zelda with Josh and sleeping over.

We still needed to fulfill "Ride a train."  Luckily Burke Lake Park has not only a train, but a carousel, a great playground and cool woods to play in!  I loaded up our provisions, and off we went!

We bought our tickets for the carousel and the train.

The carousel was going to run first.

All ready for our train ride!

What a sweet bunch :)

Spontaneous tee-pee building!

 

We had SUCH a fun day with Izzy!  I think Jackson truly enjoyed doing all of the special things on his list :)  

Summer Winds Down

We had our first Family Movie Date to see "Finding Dory!"  It was the perfect activity for yet another HOT afternoon...

We loved the movie and the Qdoba dinner afterwards :)

We'd been meaning to catch up with these friends all summer!  It FINALLY worked out to meet up AND it was Kate's birthday!  We helped her celebrate with a little Cracker Barrel brunch :)

Haircut Day = Treat Reward!

Fill a huge container with Slurpee for a ridiculously cheap price...and then take it on your Target shopping trip!  LOL!

It got a bit breezy, so they got our their umbrellas "just for fun..."

...it pretty quickly turned to this!

Baseball, Here We Go!

Well, we made the big switch to baseball this season...  I was really nervous, but so far, I am already more pleased than I have been in the last three seasons or so of soccer, and we haven't even started playing games!  I'll call that a win...  Our call from our coach came even before the specified date, he was impressive on the phone and seems pretty organized.  We have a list of our first few practices and the game schedule is coming soon. Not only does Coach Rob know what he is doing while running a practice, he has TWO assistant coaches helping him with it all!  Such a pleasant change...

The weather is SOOO hot!  Hitting water balloons off the tee was a perfect end to practice!

This little brother enjoyed Jackson's baseball practice juuuussst fine: Coach Chris came over to Graham and gave him a baseball to hold. He showed G how to hold it and encouraged him to hold it really tightly. Then he asked him to hold the ball over his head and keep squeezing. Meanwhile, Coach snuck a water balloon over G's head and popped it just right so G literally thought he squeezed water out of a baseball!!!  Someone was pretty pleased with himself... 

Getting comfy at the plate

SUCH a *cute* stinker!

Killing time in the dugout during another practice!  Games start soon...!!!

We Have Such a Fun Daddy!

Our pirate water table that we've had for quite a few summers really needed to be retired, and I was really intrigued by the tutorial to make this cool water table!  Josh was pretty on board, and we bought the supplies and put it together pretty easily...  I stumbled a bit as I used the PVC glue to secure everything, but I think we have it worked out ok!  The boys really are loving it...as well as the neighborhood friends :)

Brother Teamwork finding a cache

We were at Holmes Run Stream Valley Park, and this paved trail was perfect for some scootering!

Who doesn't love a creek crossing (or about a dozen on this adventure)?

Scootering THROUGH the creek!

All Terrain Scooters (ATSes)

Love these little adventurers!

Selfie on a fun family day!

August Family Selfie!

What better way to end a fun outdoor adventure than with Rita's Italian Ice treats to support Pattie on Spirit Night?