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We had to have another backyard campout before summer was over… even though it felt more like fall!  Nate laughed when I put Meg in her fuzzy suit… but the overnight low was 43*, which was certainly not warm!  We had a wonderful evening as a family, though – good camping food, lots and lots of roasted "smarshmallows", and fun stories around the fire.  

oh yeah, and Carter ate his weight in Starbursts.   It is always hard to say goodbye to summer, but if you have to do it you might as well have a celebration like this!

In need of one more grand adventure before summer ended, we headed to St. Paul for the day.   I thought it would be fun (and fulfil one of Zach's scout requirements) to visit the capitol for a tour, and it was just down the street from the free zoo!  Perfect.  The capitol was beautiful, the kids were fascinated by the tour, it re-ignited my love of history and made me want to be a historical tour guide when I grow up, and we even got to climb up onto the roof to see the golden statue.  
Carter was hanging in there for the zoo, and he wasn't disappointed.  We rode the carousel (he hung on for dear life, Zach picked an "Indiana Jones horse" with a whip, and Emma rode on the outside, where it goes the fastest), watched the spider monkeys do all kinds of funny stuff, and saw the grizzly swim just on the other side of the glass from us (the zoo is small and the animals are all really close, so he was really RIGHT on the other side of the glass!)  I could have done without the stop at McD's on the way home, but other than that it was a perfect day.   

* so, we didn't take any great pictures at the zoo, but these ones make me smile… the first is Carter pushing Emma in the stroller up what is really quite a hill (although it doesn't look like it in the picture) – he refused any help and got her up all by himself.  He is one determined little guy.  The second was my attempt to get the kids to be nice to each other for just 5 more minutes… after a whole day of niceness, they were starting to bother each other on the way to the car.  I told them to smell all of the beautiful flowers as we walked past to the parking lot – which they took quite literally, and took a deep breath at each new flower.  It was hilarious.  

Wishing I had more days to do this… and all the other fun stuff of summer.  I am not ready to send my kiddos off to school yet!  We've been enjoying the last few weeks, pictures and stories to come!

Yeah, this is breakfast.  

I guess we have some adjusting of schedules to do before school starts…

Come to find out, Zach's eyes are almost as bad as mine.  He has discovered over the last week that glasses make lots of things easier… one of which is catching frogs!

 
After swim lessons this year, the kids made a goal of swimming once a week during the rest of the summer (no small feat with all 4 of them, one of which needs pretty much full-time shade).  We (creatively) made it, however… every week except 2 we swam, and then a dr. that works with Nate gave us a free pass to the RAC and we swam 5 days in a row last week – which was super, super fun.   

Zach and Emma loved the slide;  Zach could swim the length of the pool without touching, and Emma the width;  Carter decided it was fun to go under the water (and loved the sand at the RAC) and Meg's little arms and legs would splash so much every time she got in that her hair and big grinning face would get all wet.  With hand-me-downs and a bargain I couldn't pass up, Meg had 4 swimsuits this summer, so I'm glad she got good use out of them.  :)

So these incredibly brave ladies in our ward decided to host a $5, 8 week soccer camp for kiddos ages 3-5.  Since my big kids are playing this fall, it was the perfect way to get Carter a chance to play.  

I loved watching him do the relay race at the beginning of every session – they were supposed to run zigzag through the cones… he ran in a straight line but wiggled his hips, it was awesome.  It was his favorite part of each class, too!  

I've found a lot of coins in pockets in the laundry over the years… this is my first time finding one this big.  

Nate went to a Twins game tonight with a consultant of his, so we had to have some fun of our own.  A trip to the baseball park and a treat from Coldstone were not a bad consolation prize, even for Zach.