August Summer Fun

We were invited to go tubing down the river with some friends from church. We hadn't been tubing this summer so we jumped on the chance (Willow was at the beach). The river was pretty low and slow but we had a good time and floated the mile-long section two times. 

We stayed tied together for a while:

We enjoyed getting out of the tubes to float too!

Owen and I went school shopping and made it a date by adding in breakfast at our favorite bagel shop, then some time to play at a playground we haven't been to in a loooooong time. 

When you can't get along, your mother makes you play a game together to work on your teamwork. 

Owen's room has gotten out of control, so we "Marie Kondo-style" cleaned it over a weekend. He had to touch and sort everything in his room. It definitely got worse before it got better. 

Willow continues to enjoy her Raddish Kids box she gets each month. She enjoyed these bibimbap bowls!

Willow is taking an algebra class this year (that counts for her high school GPA!). We had Grandpa check over her work while he was over :)

I said earlier that if Owen wasn't playing Pokemon, that he was drawing it, making decks, rearranging his cards, etc. Well add to that "reading about Pokemon...while getting a haircut."

Owen played "Here Comes the Sun" in music class, which reminded us of our Beatles Guitar Hero Wii game. Owen usually just watches us with most of the Wii games but we forced him to try. Seems like Tilly enjoyed the music too!

 Chris had a lot of success with his garden this year! Check out the goods!! These kaleidoscope carrots were fun!

Lots of flowers too!

Cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and PURPLE potatoes!

The zucchini were HUGE!!

I've enjoyed continuing to play around with lettering. 

A card for our neighbor who so graciously watches the kittens while we're out of town (I actually looked at the kittens photos to paint their faces. Can you tell who is who?):

And a couple cards for Morgan :)

A few of the people I follow on Instagram mentioned a free Summer Creative Retreat that lasted about 12 days. There were live video tutorials but, thankfully, they were able to be replayed for 24 hours. I'd just started workdays, but was able to watch and try a lot of them in the evenings. I learned a lot and found a few new accounts to follow!

Beating the heat.... in the water!

July has been HOT! Every day in the mid- to high-90s with lots of humidity. With pools closed because of COVID we've had to think outside the box and find other ways to get wet and beat the heat. 

You can rent boats at a lake near where the Caldwells live. The one we rented was the double-decker party boat. It was tons of fun! We had a half day rental for 4 hours and that was definitely long enough! It wore all of us out!!

So how do you drive this thing???

The slides were fun for the kids AND adults!! Click here to ride it too!

(Now Owen claims he can walk on water)

Willow in slow-motion

Willow enjoyed a turn driving the boat on the way back in!

A local park has tube rentals down a 1-mile stretch of the river. They shuttle you to the drop in and pick you up at the other end. It's a full day rental so we were able to do one run, go home for lunch, then enjoyed a second run. If we didn't have VBS we could've fit in one more! There were 4 rapids on the float. 3 of them were class 1 (aka nothing really) and the other was class 2 (aka fun but won't knock you out of your tube). It was tough for Owen to reach the water with his hands or feet to steer himself much so he ended up wedged against a rock with the current too strong to have a chance to unwedge himself. After we got him free, Chris held onto his tube with his feet. When we were home for lunch we grabbed bungee cords and we all attached ourselves together for our 2nd float which was nice and less stressful for him.

 

We met Kim and the kids back at the lake by their house. There's a "beach" area that we enjoyed for a couple hours then had a picnic lunch. 

We bought kayaks last spring but hadn't had a chance to take them out yet....until now!! We headed to a local lake and enjoyed paddling around for an hour, had a picnic lunch, then enjoyed swimming a bit. We'll definitely be going back!

The kids enjoyed hopping out of the kayaks to float for a bit and cool off. We had them try it near the shore so if they couldn't climb back in the kayaks on their own, we'd be close enough to somewhere they could step back in. Lesson learned: they can't climb back in.

 

 

Lovin' the lake life!

A friend told us about a stretch of the river near our house that is dammed so you can paddle down and back since it's not a strong current. I was a bit nervous about bringing the kids to try it out, so Chris and I went while Nana and Grandpa had the kids. It passed the test so we'll have to try it out with the kids soon!

 It was shocking how much trash was caught in the branches along the river! Next time we'll bring a trash bag!

In other "water fun," Willow (and usually Owen) can not resist playing in the rain when it's warm!

The Caldwells got an above ground pool (and new camper!!) so we ventured out to their house for the day to check them out!

Cooling off inside:

Kim heard about Pipestem State Park in West Virginia through a friend. They have inflatable obstacles on a lake AND a splash park for kids. We couldn't resist giving it a try and were glad both dads were able to take the day off work to join us!

They had the splash pad to themselves for most of the morning!

The anticipation of the bucket dump!

The lake with obstacles was awesome!!

The obstacles were harder to get on than we'd thought!

Check out the kids here and here.

It was a fun day!

Another fun way to cool off in the heat is...ice cream! We heard about a food truck that parks at a local gas station on the weekends. It has amazing ice cream sandwiches!!