Boulder Ridge

At the beginning of August, we had a play date that had been planned out for awhile to meet up with some friends at the zoo!

John Ball was having their dollar days – so we wanted to avoid the crazy – so we we headed to boulder ridge instead.  we had never been there – but were told it was fun, so we decided to check it out!

When we pulled in, there were zebras right by the fence in the parking lot and the kids thought that was pretty awesome!   

What i liked best about this place was it was super small so you could get up really close to stuff – but yet you still felt like you got to see lots of different animals….

turtles!these guys obviously didn’t read the sign (and mom was too busy taking pictures to read it!)

This was owen’s buddy…he loved watching this giant alligator!

the kids had fun in the bird area…owen was brave enough to hold a stick with some seed on it and hold onto one of them!!

Lil, Isabella, Owen and Syd checking out the fox running around and scratching his back on the fence

Carson, Alex, Lil, Sydney, Owen, and Lainey, they were SO good and had so much fun together!!!

Syd petting her friend 

Syd and Lainey

we took the tractor ride around the park to see the bigger animals, ate lunch and the kids had fun playing in the sandbox are. after that, we did another lap around and looked at the animals again!  it was a fun time with friends!

July

Toward the end of July, owen got to take a trip to the cottage without us; he spent almost a week up there with Aunt Mary, Grandma, Grappy, Kenz and D…needless to say he was quite spoiled and had an AWESOME time.

so while he was gone, little miss syd char got some time to be spoiled too! 

the fair was going on that week, so we took her to check it out….

she liked the camels!

but really liked the birds…

and of course she loved the food!!!!

Walkin with her papa

spoiled girl with her mama and papa all to herself…

Cran Hill

In July, we headed to Cran Hill, camping with a group from our church.

The kiddos had never been camping and scott and I hadn’t been in forever, so it was definitely gonna be an adventure!

This was actually our stuff as we were unpacking after our trip, but it gives you an idea of the madness!  We were piled in pretty good in the van!!

The kids all loved the tent! it worked out really good because there are three rooms – we took the middle and each of the kids had their own.  we brought three fans too, so we could each cool down – it was in the upper 80s/90s the whole weekend! :) 

cousins reading some ranger rick in the tent…

and of course they had to hang out in the campers too! 

There was a great little playground right across the way from us and the lake was just a quick walk too!  can you tell syd liked to swing?  she would just lean back and scream..it was cute!

spectators 

getttin a ride from uncle paul to the barn store

all of the kiddos! 

we kept pretty busy while we were there – jen, paul, kenz, d, owen and I went tubing on saturday morning – owen was not a fan and cried basically the entire way – but we tried to make the most of it! 

the bigger kids did some archery, and we ate plenty of ice cream from the barn store!  we also all did tie dye! 

the finished products

hanging out on the beach  

cuddling with papa   

feeding the animals! they were quite a hit for the kiddos

another thing owen tried out (which we were pretty surprised he went through with) was the giant slip n slide…he waited in line and went right down and couldn’t wait to get back in line and try it again!

mid-air shot!  

We also went on horse drawn wagon ride

the kids thought it was great

most of the gang! 

matt and paul throwing the kiddos around in the water owen ‘diving’ into the water

and floating around…

we stayed super busy all weekend and wish we would have been able to stay for more than just the weekend!  even though we were with a large group from church, we didn’t really get to hang out with everyone – the kiddos kept us very busy but we still had an awesome time and kole camping trip #1 was a success.

this is on the way home, I’ll say the kiddos were pretty tired out!!!

Family Pics

Back at the beginning of the summer – or maybe it was even back in May (?!) we had our family pics done by Kellie Janicki; they turned out so cute! 

it was SO.incredibly.HOT that day but we got through it! :)

love this pic of all four of us..

these two are so cute – she does anything he does

they love to hold hands – he has always reached over to hold her hand at random times.

sweet sydney charlotte

the fam

we attempted to get a pic of the two of them with us in the background…they didn’t turn out all perfect and posed…but guess what? these are my kiddos and these pics show their personalities so well! owen doing what he was told and syd trying to get away…

then owen saw a ‘bom-ba-deer’ (actually sea-doo – we’ve always made fun of them by calling them bombadeers – because so many people mispronounce  bombardier) drive by and in this pic he is saying - ‘look syd; a bombadeer!’

syd decided to check out. owen was still trying to be good and pose!

little man checking out the water…

eating suckers and checking out the boats on the lake 

our piggies