Summer is winding down (08.26- 08.29.2024)

MONDAY 08.26.24

Prepped for this weekend’s camping trip, went to Costco, back to school shopping (whew! So much stuff!) Did a Walmart order pickup.

How I woke up this morning: smooched awake by yams.
Helpers. At Walmart pickup.

Did some weeding around the yard, and i pressed some flowers harvested from some of the weeds that I pulled. They are annoying weeds (fortunately, easy to pull), but I will say the flowers are pretty!

Pressed some more flowers. These are weeds growing in our yard.

Jonathan and the the older kids went to climbing club.

TUESDAY 08.27.24

Today, the kids and I went to the zoo/aquarium. We used the tickets that we got from the summer reading program, (That saved us $220!! WOOT!)

The kids were most excited about the aquariums and so we started in the tropical aquarium habitats. They loved this.

There were some divers in one of the tanks
They were cleaning. It was fun to watch.
They’re buddies.

But if we’re being honest, the touch pools were the absolute favorite. The sea stars were awesome, of course. But the shrimp were such an experience. I don’t recall ever before experiencing a touch pool that had shrimp.

Basically, you put your hand in, near the shrimp, and they come along and start walking along your hand and then they start cleaning under your nails and pulling off dead skin pieces. It is the strangest feeling and the kids got such a kick out of it. Honestly, I did too.

I finally managed to drag them away from the shrimp and we went and wandered around some other parts of the zoo. We saw monkeys, tapirs, river otters, puffins, etc.

That monkey is living his best life.
The river otters were so cute. We watched them for quite a while.
They’re cute.
Tapirs are WAY bigger than I thought they were. I always assumed they’d be the size of a guinea pig or maybe a small dog. But they are, on average, about 6.5 feet long!! They’re big!
Puffins!
Baby puffins are known as ‘Pufflings’ and if that isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever heard, I don’t know if we can be friends.
Pengüinos!
Our lips looked blue in the light of the sea lion/seal exhibit.
Turns out Polar bears are MASSIVE
There was a replica of some ‘wolf scat’ and the kids got the biggest kick out of this. Especially Logan.
It certainly brightened his day.

We were walking by the tiger enclosure, and decided to sit down for a snack. And after a minute or two a keeper came out and started doing a keeper talk. So we were in prime position to watch the keeper feed the tiger. It was so cool.

After the keeper had finished her talk, she told us about the next upcoming keeper talks and one of them sounded fun, so we went right over there.

The show turned out to be a skit that introduced us to a lot of different animals and explained a little bit about their care and training. It was fun. And we got to see some really cool animals.

But, the absolute favorite, was this bird. The keepers were demonstrating ‘enrichment activities’ that they do with the animals:

2nD AQUARIUM

PLAY AREA

KRISPY KREME

WEDNESDAY

We went to a lake with our friends, the Hartleys

Back to school night with Clara at her Junior High. It was nice to meet all of Clara’s teachers. She has some really great teachers. And we’re pretty pumped about it!

THURSDAY (08.29.2024)

Back to school night @ the Elementary school. I’m so happy about the teachers we have this year! But all the teachers at this Elementary school are stellar.

He has a NAME TAG!?!?!?!?!
“Our crap could be your crap!” (I love an honest sign)

FRIDAY (08.30.2024)– Camping

This was our first solo (meaning just our family) camping trip this year, and since it was Labor day weekend, we got to go for 4 days (3 nights).

Last year, for Labor day weekend, we went to an awesome campsite. And it was almost immediately declared our favorite in the whole state. It is awesome for bike riding, hiking, and is really close to an amazing swimming hole.

And so I booked it for this year as well!!

Jonathan and I got the campsite all set up while the kids rode their bikes. Cause we’re nice. And they were getting underfoot and driving us a little nuts. 😂😂

The kids did a LOT of biking over the course of the weekend. Especially Isaac.

Until this weekend, he has been very firmly on ‘team balance bike’; whenever we’ve tried to get him to try a two-wheeler he just hasn’t been into it. But, today, as we were packing up the trailer for our trip, Jonathan had him try it again, and whaddayaknow, it clicked this time.

So, instead of bringing a strider for Isaac, we brought him a little hand-me-down bike and he went gang busters on it the entire time we were at the campsite. It was actually very difficult to pry him away from his bike the entire weekend. He was so excited about it! It was adorable.