End of Summer Fun

Last Thursday we went to Seneca.  We pulled up to Mom and Dad's house to find a ditch full of water.  That kept the boys entertained for hours.

Charity already had her fingernail polish out and ready for me to paint her nails.  She had a very specific idea of what she wanted!  She loved it though and said I was the "best sister ever!"

We cleaned the boys up and changed them into dry clothes (Charity pulled Brody's outfit out of Judd's pajama drawer!).  Then they watched TV for a short while.

I love how Cole (and Brewer too) sometimes act like Judd is like every other uncle.  They snuggle with him and sit on his lap.  So cute!

Dad stayed with the little boys and Mom, Charity, Zoe, Blake, and I went shopping.  Mom wanted to get all the grandkids something for back to school.  Cole and Brewer chose to just have Nana pick up their things and skip the shopping!  She got them all cute outfits and Cole a pair of shoes!

Blake drove us around and we laughed and had a good time.  I love hanging out with them!

Friday we got up and headed to Silver Dollar City!  

The trip really isn't too bad.  The hardest part is pulling through a drive through to order lunch and dinner with 8 people.  It drives Dad (and the person in the drive through) crazy!

I'm so glad Mom and Dad got season passes this year.  We had a blast, all of us!

I love to watch my dad and Cole together.  Cole shakes and says, "This is so exciting" and Dad grins the entire ride.  

Cole even talked Papa into riding the teacups with him.

This is proof that my dad knows how to have a good time!

Dad pushed Judd and Cole and all our bags all over the hills of Silver Dollar City and we could barely keep up with him.  Then, after 6 hours at the park, I see him carrying Cole on his back to their last ride.

He also rode Wildfire (one of the big roller coaster that loops a few times) with me, Blake, and Zoe.  Not bad for a 66 year old guy!

Mom is terrified of the rides, but can sometimes be talked into trying one by the kids.  It is hilarious to ride one with her!  She did the American Plunge and the White Water Rafting ride with us (I think mostly because Cole was riding them and Zoe asked her to go too).  Zoe and Blake rode some rides together.  

He even talked her into riding Wildfire.  She was scared to death the first time, but rode it two more times after that!

Blake was resting in the stroller while waiting for the little ones to ride.

His rest didn't last long.  Yep, he's under Judd and Cole.  They love to pick on Blake!

We had such an amazing day and the ride home was easy.  Saturday we hung out for a while.  Dad showed us his pictures and uniform from when he was in the army and his old baseball uniform from elementary.  We had Judd try it on, just for fun!

It was a great time and a fun way to end Summer Vacation!  

Taylor Swift

Macy invited Zoe to go to the Taylor Swift concert with her.  She was so excited!

They went to eat at Joe Mamas before the concert. 

Zoe has not stopped talking about how awesome it was.  She loved it! 

It is a memory she will cherish forever!

Not Marraige Material

Cole tells me a lot that he wants to marry me some day.  It's so adorable.  I told him that he couldn't marry me because I'm already married.  He later told me that he really COULD marry me because he saw a kid on TV that had 2 dads, so it's okay. 

Well, today while he was in time out he yelled, "Mom, you're rude and I'm not going to marry you!"  I told him that he really wasn't very good husband material right now anyway!

 

Still....so adorable!

School Shopping with Meme

Meme came to Owasso to go back to school shopping!

Zoe's going into 5th grade and Cole is going to PreK!

 We took Meme out to eat for her birthday.  Zoe showed her how to put apps on her phone.

 Zoe's knowledge of cell phones blew Meme's mind!

We dropped the boys off at home and went clothes shopping.  When we got back Cole and Zoe organized their supplies.  It was a great day with Meme!

Branson Bound

We took a mini vacation to Branson for a few nights.  Zoe tried to get Cole all set up to help with the ride.  30 minutes into the trip he asked, "Are we there yet?"We got an apartment by the lake.  It was nice.

Cole got really excited about his "new Branson house", but all he wanted to do was watch cartoons and play trains.  So basically he wanted his vacation to be just like every other day.

Monday night we headed down to The Landing.  We walked around and ate dinner.  The reason Zoe has a fake smile and a choke hold on Cole is because he was making her really nervous around the water.

Cole and Zoe weren't really used to apartment life.  Brad had to keep reminding Zoe that she couldn't do leaps and tap dance because there were people under us.  Monday night, as we were trying to go to sleep, we heard loud music outside.  We walked out on the deck to see what was going on.  Cole kept yelling things like, "Those people are listening to music even when it's dark and time to sleep!"  They turned down their music after that.  

Tuesday morning we headed down to the lake to fish.  It was nice and cool.  

Cole made us all nervous climbing on the rocks.  He wasn't really into sitting around and enjoying nature.

 Zoe loved fishing with Brad.  She even put the worm on the hook herself.

She ended up catching 11 fish!Brad caught 8.  They were all about this size!  

Cole tried fishing for a couple of minutes.  He looked up at me and said, "Really?  This is fishing?  Just sitting here, waiting?"  He did enjoy the worms though.  

He grew really attached to this half worm (Zoe was cutting them in half to make them go farther).  He named him Thomas.  It started raining and Cole said, "Can we please go back to our Branson house?  Thomas doesn't like the rain."  I told him that we weren't taking Thomas back to the apartment with us and he cried the whole way back and said, "How come I can't have a pet?"  "Hadley and Brewer have a pet!"  

 It rained a lot of the day so we decided to try a train ride.  Cole couldn't wait to ride a REAL train.  He said it was James and we were riding in Annie and Clarabell.

He was shaking with excitement.  We found out though, that you can get too much of a good thing.  He started getting bored about 30 minutes into the hour and 45 minute ride. 

Luckily (I guess), they had a concession stand in the train.  

 A couple of snacks and a drink made the ride much better.

We all enjoyed the ride.  It was really beautiful!

 We started realizing that nearly every activity and show in Branson cost around $100 for our family. Call me cheap, but that's ridiculous!   

We found one of the only free activities there...the fish hatchery!  The kids loved it.  I texted my brother, thinking he would be impressed.  He just said, "Way to go, you know they have one of those in Neosho?"  

We spent the rest of our vacation at the pool and the lake.  

 

And also played trains and watched cartoons!