Dance Moves

Piano man

Pink shirt and shades. He's ready for fame and fortune...

Crazy kids.

Look what paraded through the house after dinner with friends...

By the way, MaryEmma (on the right) is Rudy's newest and current favorite girlfriend. He will readily tell you that he has a crush on her!

2011 Soccer - Rudy

Can you tell the poor kid wasn't feeling well?

He was better the next week!

Trying to keep warm at the end of the season...

Piano Man

The boys have started taking piano lessons and it's amazing how quickly they've picked it up!

Ohio Visit

James had a business trip to Pittsburgh on Thursday/Friday. Since it was the end of quake break, we figured we'd tag along and then head up to Ohio for the weekend.

Friday night, we met up with Grandma, Uncle Don, Uncle Bill, and Dawn and her family for dinner. After dinner, we went to Lakeview Park to watch the sun set. The sunset itself was kind of underwhelming since there were a lot of low clouds, but the park and the lake and the roses were pretty. Plus - there was sand and a playground, which made the boys happy!

We stayed at Grandma Lucy's house (now Vicky's house) Friday night. I haven't been inside since just after she died, so it was great to see it again and show James and the boys. Although, it was also weird being there and not having her around!

On Saturday, we had a very busy day with Grandma and Uncle Don. We went to the Carousel Museum in Sandusky (where none of my pictures turned out!), then to an antique car show, out for ice cream, to the Maritime Museum, to a pirate festival, and then to LEMmy's for dinner (home of the Lake Erie Monster, which the kids got to feed after dinner!).

Tofts Ice Cream. This is a SMALL cone!

We still had time to play at Grandma's Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Labor Day Exploring

We got back from camping on Sunday, thinking we would need Monday to get everything washed and packed away before returning to school on Tuesday. Little did we know that we'd be in the midst of our 3 week quake break!

Today, we decided to visit Ashlawn-Highland, home of James Monroe. It's a beautiful setting with a lot of history in the house, but the presentation needs a bit of work (at least compared to Monticello). Maybe that can be my next project...

Brady with President Monroe:

Rudy by the garden:

It was a drizzly day, but we decided to go apple/peach picking anyway. At least the mountain wasn't crowded!

Roughly 70 pounds of apples and peaches later, we headed out to dinner. (And we've spent the last few days making applesauce, "papple" (peach-apple) sauce, canned peaches, and peach preserves).

Labor Day Camping Trip

We returned to Bear Creek Lake State Park for a Labor Day weekend camping trip. Laura, Will, and Owen joined us for the second night.

Little boys and fire:

Doesn't Charlie look thrilled? Despite her face here, she really does like camping. We left her off her leash most of the weekend and she loved exploring around the campsite.

Smarshmallows!

Who knew filling the water cooler could be so much fun?!

Fishing, round 1. We tried again (twice) the next day and no one caught anything!

I can't remember what Brady was upset about but he was not a happy camper when I tried to get these pictures!

Fishing, Round 2.

The park had an archery activity on Sunday. We all tried it and were surprised that it was relatively easy to get the hang of. Brady LOVED it and even asked if we could put an archery range in our backyard.

Owen loved the water faucet. He was SO filthy at one point that Laura just stripped him down and rinsed him there!

Dirt = fun, right?