"School was awesome today!"

Luke started 2nd Grade last Wednesday and today was the first day of Kindergarten for Will & Evan. On the way home today, Evan told me "school was awesome today!" Will came home and said, "Why is it so clean?!" Yeah, that one was good for a laugh. Luke had a great day, too. He said he managed to finally cross all the monkey bars at recess. Looks like we are off to a good start this school year...

Evan scraped his knee on the sidewalk while I was taking Will's picture...he quickly recovered (as you can see below) once I put a band-aid on the barely there scrape.

A visit to 'fake' caves....

We squeezed in one more day trip before school started...Nana & Papa came up for a visit to watch the last t-ball & baseball games of the season. We then headed to Old Man's Cave in the Hocking Hills.

Evan was disappointed in the 'caves'... he was expecting to go underground into a cavern, so he was forever complaining about not being able to find the caves. (In his defense, we've previously been to the Ohio Caverns and Olentangy Indian Caverns, so he was confusing caverns with caves, but that doesn't excuse his whining!) When we kept telling him that these were the caves, he finally said that, "no, these are fake caves!"

But an ice cream cone cheered him up!

The Wilds

A trip to The Wilds with Aunt Sara...

Some of my favorite Summer pictures...

Fair Days

So the boys and I headed to the Union County Fair last week. After visiting all the animals-- despite Luke's protest of the horrible smells and Will's exclamation that the pigs had big ears just like him-- we ended up at the putt-putt course. For $1, the boys could play 9 holes and a hole-in-one at the final hole gave you a coupon for a free game.

Will got a hole-in-one on the last hole and earned a coupon! He was so proud and kept saying it was awesome and he was awesome...he was clearly over the moon about it.

The first ticket Will won

Then we walked around the fair and the boys checked out the Fun House...

After that, they decided to return to Putt-Putt instead of riding anything. This is when the drama began. Will was sure he was going to win again and when he didn't get a hole-in-one on the final hole, he was crushed. He literally threw himself on the ground sobbing :( He was also upset at me for cashing in his coupon--he wanted to take it home and show his Daddy.

So we walked around a little bit, met up with the Bix's and then tackled the putt-putt course one last time. This time Will got a hole-in-one and earned yet another ticket! He was again thrilled and threatened to beat me up if I cashed in his coupon. I didn't. He took it home, showed it to Jon, and even took it to bed with him. I wish I had taken a picture of him sleeping with his 'golden ticket' next to him. Will's stubborn resolve and competitiveness is something to behold.

Will's second ticket...the one he took home and took to bed with him :)