Summertime

Sampling of what a summer in Ohio looks like:

3 parks near us hire a 9-5 staff and load them with play doh, building blocks, wooden animals to paint, giant balls, ping pong tables, foosball, and mini bowling set. It's all free and you just show up and all the teenagers are eager to play with the kids. Brenden even asked one to play tennis with him and she grabbed 2 raquets, a couple of balls and they hit the courts for a good portion of time.
This girl is blowing up balloons and making balloon animals and bouquets for Kyleigh and Brenden.

We also held our 1st Lemonade stand. Pretty successful. Best part: it wasn't humid.
Regular lemonade, pink lemonade, cookies and cupcakes were offered.

 The kids' haul:

B and Kyleigh Mae took swim lessons at Trent's university. It was indoor and heated...even though it's summer...because it's Ohio...my thin-skinned kids wouldn't last very long in an outdoor pool without coming out shivering. This is a fun pool-it has a lazy river that pushes you along and a whirlpool that can really spin even the adults. 

Another park day.  Kyleigh is climbing the blue stairs.

 Brenden is pushing the giant ball around.

He and some other kids liked to haul it to the top of the playground and throw it on top of the monkey bars and then try to kick it off when they swung on the monkey bars. 

Coloring felt pages.

Feeding the turtles and carp at the pond near the park.

Attacking Mom with blades of grass. I was completely innocent. I have no idea what spurred him to do this to me. 

Mini-version of Lake Powell in your bedroom. Why not? (Blue blanket=water) 

Pink AND a skirt....it was a very good dress day for this little girl. 

She will find Trent and finagle her way onto his lap no matter what he's trying to get done. And he's just as guilty because he allows it :) 

One morning a couple months into summer, Brenden got a letter from his teacher, Mrs. Hoffman. It was such a nice letter. Telling Brenden what a good boy he was in her class and what she had done that summer with her husband: went spelunking in Mexico and saw some bats.

Our local library hosts various summertime events at their branches and this one happened to be painting the sidewalk. It was supposed to be paint that would wash away within 3 rain storms...like they've done in the past...but someone must have changed the paint, because some of those designs are still visible.

I may or may not have had anything to do with the BYU Cougars writing on the sidewalk. (And it is still definitely visible several months later. All these Akronites are probably wondering why and who would paint such a strange and distant thing on their turf.

There is alot of mention of Jesus on the sidewalk. People are not shy about blessing you with Christ's blessing in the grocery line, library, restaurants...basically anywhere public around here. (The next 3 photos have mention of Jesus scribbled on the sidewalk of the public library).

We brought along our friend Katherine to the park one day. She was fun to make objects out of play doh. Very creative girl.

These kids were hard at work making an assortment of confectionery goodies. They said they made cookies, cakes, suckers, cupcakes....

An afternoon well spent.

Ours is #1

They liked this crayola version of play doh (called model magic or something?) that I put the stuff above into a ziplock and took it onto the plane with us when we flew to Vegas. It kept the kids entertained for a good portion of the 6 hour flight.

I think these guys like the novelty of frozen yogurt with a large selection of toppings rather than actually eating it.

But, suckers are usually something they are able to complete themselves without any outside help. 

When Kyleigh's neighbor and church friend Sophia comes over, these girls waste no time getting their girly time in. If it's not dress up like a princess, it's tea party...but that day it was designing clothes for the girls on their sticker album. But of course it must be done on a giant princess blanket. 

 Our landlords have been painting our house to prepare to put it on the market once we move. With the new white walls in the kitchen, it was time to paint the two different colored wood pieces to match each other.

 An improvement...but that didn't take much from the state it was in previously.
Before picture:

 After:

 Wanted to add a little interest to it, so I bought some black and white scrapbook paper with designs I liked and threw it onto the back of the bookshelves with modge podge.

One evening, we decided to have dinner at one of the picnic benches that overlook an orchard just outside of town near Wadsworth at a place called Rittman's Orchard.  We even lucked out that a train passed us by and we could just see it through a small clearing in the trees below.

 These are the moments that Trent and I enjoy living out in Ohio.

Where else can you go to eat your sandwich next to the tractor parked in front of the raspberry bushes? 

Picnic blanket turned into a fort.

Somehow I was still able to find these guys' hiding spot.

fun and games. 

Kyleigh's expression in this photo is one of my favorite things to look at: 

On a different Saturday, we met up with 2 other families (Macey and Blanchard) at Hinckley Lake about 30 minutes northwest. They dam the lake to the right of this picture and it gives the kids a small wading pool to play around in. It was pretty crowded that day. 

Two of the Dads on kid duty while the women folk prepare a fine feast of hot dogs, green salad, fruit salad, brownies, chips and several choices of soda. 

Trent was manning the coals and had a few hungry tag-alongs. 

 Dads are always good for some rough-housin'

This little girl enjoys her fair share of rough housing, but equally is enthralled with pink ruffled shirts with ballet slippers on it, with pink heart shorts and Cinderella glass slippers. Pink and Princess=happy little K Mae. 

Trent was a funny dude when he pulled out the fine china to serve me some root beer one night. 

One day, the kids and I wanted to surprise Trent at his school, so we grabbed some ice cream at a small local joint and took it to him. The kids got a horseback ride out to our car when he finished his little treat. 

A little Saturday morning Bugs Bunny on the phone never hurt anyone. 

And neither does hooking up cardboard circles at the local Art Museum. This place is large and a main attraction in the downtown Akron area, so we took advantage when they held their kids' story time inside. (Parental guidance advised on some of the art pieces).  

 Would you have guessed that I'd have to really beg these guys to stop playing with the cardboard so we could go home for lunch?

For Kyleigh's birthday, we ran over to Toys R Us so she could pick out a big girl bike. (the reason for Toys r Us instead of a more legit bike shop was that I happened to find a gift card for Toys R Us when I was rearranging things to prepare for this new baby's arrival and had a chunk of change left on the card...and Kyleigh certainly didn't mind that her choices were mainly between Strawberry Shortcake bike or Tinkerbell bike).
On the way over to the bikes, we passed a green dune racer that these guys recognized and jumped inside after I took this picture: 

This is the bike she kept coming back to and felt comfortable riding, so it's the one we took home with us. 

Initially, when I tried to get Brenden to put this helmet on, he ran away from me and was scared when I tried to put it on his head. Once it was on, he was ok...as if realizing that the spikes weren't going to penetrate his head underneath. 

She rode the thing right out from the store to the car. 

And then we just had to give it a good test run, so we drove up to a hike and bike trail north of a small town called Peninsula and I think near Boston Mills and let the kids ride. Brenden had been riding without training wheels for awhile and was getting pretty fast. I was following them in the car since we had never been to this place and didn't know how long the kids would last and wanted to give them the option of throwing the bike in when they got tired. Trent had a grand time trying to slow Brenden down and hurry Kyleigh up. We've since been back to this spot and Kyleigh is getting much faster and more confident.

 While I was waiting along the side of the road, I saw a couple pelotons pass me by...must be a popular bike spot. Not hard to see why with the rolling hills and open fields in the very rural area.

Kids were not too tired and had a great time. This beats a couple rounds around the neighborhood block.

 Kyleigh was done, but Brenden wanted to go some more.

 The boy was not pleased when his ride was cut short instead of going back through the fields and across the giant bridge to where he started.

But now they both have a pal to ride around the neighborhood with...and they've got in plenty of riding before school started. 

The latest fascination: fort building. The configurations vary daily. 

Kyleigh was also able to hit the tennis courts a couple time during the summer after she got her own racquet and specialized kid balls for her birthday. 

B scored a couple points on his turn. Eyes on the ball, good stance....tennis camp really works. 

The day before school started, I took the kids to join two other Moms and their kids at the Zoo to see the new Bear exhibit. Teftellers and Blanchards are a good group to walk around the Zoo. 

Carter has two younger sisters in his family, so he often keeps an eye out for Kyleigh if she straggles behind the rest of the group. A surrogate older brother of sorts. 

 A visit to the Zoo is not complete without a stop to feed the animals at the petting area. Kyleigh would have taken home a couple of these goats had I let her. B was content to hand over his feed to his little sister. 

It's true-absence makes the heart grow fonder....Kyleigh misses her Dad alot and when she gets to catch him in the mornings before he takes off, she takes full advantage of the attention. 

Summertime wouldn't be complete without a little child labor. (Isn't this wallpaper great? No, it's not. And I'm all too glad that the landlords have made the bathroom a priority when redoing the rooms in preparation to put up the house on the market when we move. This bathroom no longer features flower power from the 50s). 

 I think I mentioned previously that the kids enjoy books. Well here's their reading chair and a pile on the floor from one of their recent offenses.

 Trent fully enjoys this time of year when he gets to watch his BYU Cougars play football. (Some Saturdays are better than others.....)

Depending on the time of the game, these kids get to eat their meal in front of the TV since that might be too difficult to convince Trent to join us at the table. 

And a little more fort building while Trent watched the game. 

Kyleigh's other friend, Hannah, came to play with us for awhile one night and the girls took no time at all to get all dressed up in princessy garb and snuggle together for a good movie. 

Can you have a summer post without a picture of an outdoor BBQ? It would be a blasted shame.
Good thing we were able to have a couple meals catered by charcoal. 

And all too soon it was time for school again. When I did their First Day of School interviews, Brenden said he wanted to become an Astronaut and Kyleigh wants to become a bonafide Princess.
Let the kids dream big.