The end of a summer

And just like that, summer is over. Here are some scenes from its last days of glory.

A couple of my handsome boys

A friend gave me a packet of pink Zinnia seeds for Valentine's Day- I love how there's one white one <3

New Glarus Woods State Park, five miles from our house, is a gem.

This boy loves his chickens.

This boy and Athena <3

Helping Dad make ribs.

Mike took the kids kayaking down the Sugar River... this was the picture someone took.

Checking out hig bug hunt loot.

Always making some sort of house, these two...

Being resourceful during cross country practice.

Mike took this lot to Noah's Ark last Monday for one last summer hurrah.

On a rainy day last week, I had planned to take the younger three to the Children's Museum, since we now have a membership, but when we were already en route, we discovered it was closed, so we instead went to the Verona Library, which is also pretty cool! And I spent a long time getting books for our new school year- they ghavce a much larger selection at this library.

We didn't have any runners in last week's high school meet, but I was there because I'm a coach. The meet was delayed because of the heat, so we were there three hours before any races, and becauase it was at a park with a splash pad, we ran to Walmart to get some discounted swimsuits (they happened to have a couple that were close-enough to Zeke and Penny's sizes) and some popcicles for th team, and the kids had a blast cooling off in the water.

What are you looking at?

Opal's trip to Florida

A week and a half ago, Opal got a last-minute surprise of going on a trip to Florida with her best friend, Ella! Ella's older sister was supposed to go, but she ended up making their school's varsity volleyball team and did not want to miss their first team bonding event and scrimmages, so their mom asked if Opal might want to take her place. Ummmm... YES!! She packed up her bag and they headed out the following day for three nights/two and a half days of fun activities, planned by Ella's uncle (who they were blessed to be able to stay with).

A lot of the photos that sent via text ended up kind of blurry, but you get the idea of what a fun time they had!