A Little Bit of This, and a Little Bit of That...Makes for a Huge Post!

Continuing on with the 1,731 photos from August, we had lots of fun close to home too.
 I took the girls to the zoo one day. Alyssa saw this pic and said, "If Daddy had come with us today, this would be a perfect family picture."


 




















They had a special dinosaur exhibit over the summer. Alyssa and Rebekah were not very impressed with the spitting and roaring life size recreations, in fact at times the way Rebekah was gripping my leg made me feel like we were in a three legged race to get out of dinosaur land, but Emma showed those T Rex babies who's boss!


 The birds were very active and caught the girls' attention.


 Cute little Spider Monkey.


 More dino fun.


 Happy to be at the zoo.



We also went to the Art Museum. I have to admit that I almost dread taking the girls here. Art Museums in general are not very child friendly at all, they can't touch anything, and I always feel like we are getting dirty looks from the guards if the girls even look like they are about to skip, run, or jump.

Case in point:
 This awesome table full of glass, some of which is broken and spilling off the edges, all in the name of art. I looked in from the doorway and told the girls that maybe we should just skip this room.



But the girls love the museum, so we go. Ours actually has gone out of it's way in recent years to create family friendly activities, which I appreciate very much!
 On this visit we checked out a study kit on American artist, Andy Warhol. The kit came complete with a beach blanket that we sat on in front of a famous piece of his work. There we read a children's story about him and his work. It was fun.


 Enjoying the Kohl's Next Generation Art Studio.


 Testing out their favorite chairs in the downstairs gallery.


 In the pretty, long, white hallway.


 Outside the beautiful ship inspired museum.



My mom and I took the girls to Betty Brinn children's museum one afternoon...
 Emma and Rebekah enjoying the ballet studio while Alyssa conducts the symphony orchestra.


 In the dramatic play area, making new friends while staging impromptu performances.


 Peeking out of the curtains from backstage.


 In the grocery store. Alyssa loved running the flower shop and Emma the cash register.


 It was so cute how Rebekah slid right under this car like she knew what she was doing.


 




















In the TV news studio. The photo Alyssa has her "reporting" from is a clock downtown that our girls call the Peter Pan clock. It was fun that they could go on location to places they see everyday as we drive around.


 Sweet monkey.


 Making herself part of the large interactive board game that the kids were able to run around.


 Also in August, we took the girls and Alyssa's friend, Annalese to a Brewers Game. Our seats were awesome and it was so much fun. I wish we were that kind of super fan family that goes to several games a season, but we're not. The fact that going to a game is usually just a once a year event, in a way made the trip to Miller Park even more of a special occasion, but we always have such a good time that I'm left wondering why we don't go more often.


 




















They put in several new games in the kid's area since we had last been to the park. The games were things like being timed as they tried to outrun a batter, peddling a bike to race the famous sausages, and tube slides. The girls loved them and there are lots of fun pictures in the collages here that I wish I could have posted individually.


Playing the Field:
 


Batters Up!
 


 Rebekah talked about the game for several weeks before we went. She was so excited, and every time we drove past Miller Park (which we do often) she asked when our game was. I think her favorite part of the entire game was the Famous Sausage Race. She had the hugest smile and her eyes sparkled when they came out to race, and I'm pretty sure it's the thing she's most looking forward to about next season. Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Ricki Weeks...too bad, so sad...Bekah's heart belongs to the giant Chorizo :-) It was also exciting when the guy behind us caught a foul ball and gave it to Rebekah, so nice of him!!

I think that wraps up our summer pretty nicely, now if I could just get the rest of our photos organized and actually printed out and scrapbooked. Yikes that's a lot to think about!

1,731 Pictures

1,731 Pictures. That's how many pictures we took during the month of August, and I only had the chance to share and post about a handful of them. Here are a few activities we did while visiting my parents one summer weekend, tomorrow I will try to share our pics from fun stuff we did around home.
 My mom and I took the girls to a butterfly farm. The weather was so hot we thought we were going to melt, but the farm was beautiful.


 The girls had fun running through the outside gardens. We had to be much more careful in the actual butterfly greenhouse garden.


 Enjoying the pretty flowers.


And now for the stars of the show...the Butterflies!! I was going to collage these pics, but it just didn't do them any justice...
 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 My parents and I took the girls mini golfing. Rebekah usually only makes it about half way through the course before she loses interest, but she played all 18 today! The older girls loved the cute animals and characters on each putting green.



We also went to one of our favorite children's science museums:
 




















Read this. Isn't the human brain amazing!


 All three girls loved the bubble exhibit.


 


 


 Windblown Ka'iulani.


 Kahiwa in mirrors. We are missing all our laid back summer days and spontaneous trips to parks and museums.

School Projects and Such

5th grade has turned out to be project after project for Ka'iulani. I think she enjoys the work (for sure the artistic presentation of her posters has been fun!) and it has been good for her to learn how to balance daily assignments with more long term projects. At any given time she has at least two projects coming up that she knows she needs to be thinking about. As she spoke with Dave's parents earlier today she was telling them about her project, and I thought they might like to see pictures of what she was working on :-)
 This is her project due tomorrow. She read a novel, Circle of Gold. The book was assigned to her, and the topic was a little heavy. But overall, once she got involved in the story, I think she liked it. She just kept mentioning how sad it was. The story revolves around this pin that the main character wants to buy for her mother but she doesn't have the money. Alyssa insisted that there needed to be a three dimensional aspect to her poster, so we used adhesive magnet strips to allow the special pin to actually come on and off the poster board. The envelopes each have a letter inside written from one of the characters to another, I loved hearing her ideas for this project.


 This is her previous project that she turned in during early October. They did a Social Studies unit on the states in the South East, and they had to pick a topic to do a report on. She chose Gettysburg, and almost all the photos seen here on her board were taken during our trip in June.


 Emma gets a lot of writing assignments this year, and she loves it! The yellow book in her left hand is a story that she was working on illustrating. The title says something like: Kleiner Bruder, Grose Wirbel. Without looking up any of those words, I'm pretty sure it translates to Little Brother, Big Problem. The larger book she is holding is a monthly reading log where the kids keep track of how much they read each day. There are mini book report assignments in the back of the book and so far this year they have been asked to complete three of them. Emma has done seven, she is so proud to turn it in each month.


 Earlier this month some firemen came to teach fire safety to all the kindergarten classes. It's not super easy to see, but Rebekah is the one wearing a pink t-shirt and being held by a teacher in the back of the photo. She appears to be looking at something very interesting on the ground.


 Rebekah has adopted this old Clancy's Pretzels box from Aldi's as a little desk. When I fix dinner each night she wants to sit there with a snack and do homework. She doesn't get any real homework, but she loves to pretend she has work to do while her big girls are busy with homework. She looks so cute sitting there coloring or practicing her writing.

Great American College Road Trip: 10th Anniversary

Last weekend the GACRT celebrated it's 10th Anniversary in Ann Arbor Michigan.
 




















The University of Michigan has a beautiful campus and it was the perfect time of year for a visit. Fall colors were at their peak, the whole drive was pretty.


 They had amazing tailgating locations ~ right on a golf course. Our van was backed up right to this fairway and bunker where we set up baggo and tailgated.


 Andy, Dave, Joe, and Nate.


 Doug and Dave at the grill.


 The Great American College Road Trip Founders. I'm not sure how it all started, but Nate and Dave were talking at a Northwestern v. Iowa game ten years ago about how it should be an annual tradition for as many of them as possible to get together each year and watch an Iowa Football game at a different Big Ten campus. I think the initial goal was to conquer the conference, and now ten years later, they just about have that wrapped up and they've never missed a game! With the tradition well established they might need to start thinking outside the Big Ten really soon.


 Nate's best friend and brother in law, Joe thought he should get into the founders photo too, since he's been to most (if not all) of the games too.


 Dave and I outside the Big House.


 Inside the impressive Big House. Over 112,000 fans in attendance today.


 The cool pink "M" formed by the Michigan fans. We were pleasantly surprised by how nice and hospitable the Michigan fans were.


 Herky and the band.


 The Swarm.


 Coach Ferentz making in-game adjustments.


 Adam Robinson running in for an Iowa touchdown.


 I-O-W-A!


 The Hawks greeting their traveling fans after the win.


 It was a great game and so much fun to catch up with friends. It was nice talking with Andrea and hearing about her and Nate's children.

We were reminded all day long of Dave's sister and her husband whose wedding anniversary is the same day as the game. We kept getting asked when our last trip to Hawaii was, and it was for their wedding six years ago. Cannot even believe it's been that long! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, KU"ULEI and ADDISON!

Next year: PURDUE!?!