the state fair

The State Fair is in town this week!  Tonight was the only night we could go and we got lucky with cooler weather and discount tickets!

I always love the goats!  Jason missed the deadline to submit his sunflowers this year, but he thinks he would have won compared to this year's competition.  

Emmy ran into a friend from school.

Bryce told me Chase had said they might go to the fair tonight too so I texted Kelly and they were there with one of her and Jason's cousins.  

It was a fun meet up!

We tried to get a group picture, but I realized later that we only got the tip of Emmy's head.  Oops!

beach getaway

Jason and I didn't really get to celebrate our anniversary this year because Jason played in a golf tournament, the kids had sports in the evening and we left the next day for our trip out west.  We made plans for a late celebration this weekend because Jason was off on Friday and Bryce didn't have any baseball games.  Woo hoo!!  This was also my last weekend before I headed back to work after my extended summer vacation so it worked out perfectly.

We rented my friend's condo in Nags Head for the weekend and it was perfect.  We headed down on Friday after we took the kids to school.  We got there in time for lunch and then we walked out to the pier, relaxed a little, went to Oregon Inlet to see the fishing boats come in and then we had dinner in Manteo.

The afternoon ended cloudier, breezier and chillier than we had expected so we had planned to go to Jockey's Ridge on Saturday, but the weather ended up being too beautiful to pass up a day on the beach.

I spent the majority of the day reading and relaxing on the beach.

Jason and I went to Mexico a couple of years ago and our mini bar stayed stocked with Pringles and "cacahuate" M&Ms.  This has become a favorite beach snack for us so we stocked up!

Jason spent the day catching sand fleas with his new rake and catching fish with his cast net.

He ended up catching a fish with his rod too! 

We had dinner at a fun outdoor restaurant overlooking the beach before heading in to relax for the evening.  This was such a perfect way to unwind and prepare for a new school year.  I'm lucky to have the schedule I do!

The kids had tons of fun with MeMa and PaPa while we were gone.  We face timed the kids Saturday morning and they were carving pumpkins.  MeMa texted us later in the day to let us know they all still had ten fingers when they were done, ha!

just some kid things

The second day of school brought matching shirts for the kiddos!

Nana's pool was still open after Labor Day so we went for a swim after school on the second day!

Emmy and her sweet friend Norah wore matching outfits on the third day of school.

Bryce and his friend Thomas are library helpers this year.

Kelly got chickens for her birthday and Emmy will soon be a chicken whisperer! 

Jason took the kids out on opening day of dove season and a fun time was had by all.

Emmy didn't do any shooting, just retrieving.  

Jason and Bryce went out another night to dove hunt and Bryce came home with a goose!

Jason loves that Bryce is old enough to participate in and enjoy his hobbies with him.  Just this week they went bowfishing!  

Emmy and I stayed home and had a movie night!

Wednesday was flu shot day for the three of us.  We got ice cream afterwards to make up for it, even though it wasn't bad at all!

It is such a joy to raise these two kiddos.  They bring so much happiness to our lives!

lewis ginter

I go back to work on Monday so I'm making the most of what's left of my time off.  Today my mom and I went to the botanical gardens.  It was a beautiful sunny day and it wasn't too hot.

We enjoyed the flowers and the butterfly exhibit.

I even had one land on me.

It really was a beautiful day.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch in the tea house before heading home.

just some adult things

Our Sunday school class/life group is full of lots of fun couples.  The girls in our group like to get together to celebrate birthdays.  We invited the guys along for this birthday celebration.  We had a fun time playing shuffle board and hanging out. 

I took my friend Katy to lunch on her birthday.  It was such a nice afternoon to sit outside and relax.

Some of the ladies from our church attended a local ladies retreat on Saturday.  

Saturday night we went to a Ducks Unlimited banquet with some friends.

It was an interesting, but fun time!

It sure is refreshing to have adult time with friends!

baseball

Bryce's fall baseball started the last weekend of August.  He plays every other Sunday with this league.

His team joined another league that plays pretty much every other Friday night.  Those games seem to fall on the same weekend as the Sunday games so far.

It's kind of fun playing under the lights on Fridays.

When you have a Friday and Sunday off from baseball, why not play on Saturday?  That's what we did this particular weekend.  We headed to Williamsburg for those games.

I really do enjoy watching him play.

We treated these games as scrimmages because it wasn't a tournament so the boys got to play different positions than they normally do.  Bryce always gets excited when he gets to pitch.

The boys ended up losing one and winning one.

We stopped at our favorite barbeque place on the way down and a new favorite custard place before heading home.  

We try not to make Emmy come to all the baseball games, but some times she just has to!

Ice cream afterwards makes it worth it.

swimRVA

The second graders at our school got to participate in a free 6 day swimming program at the start of school!  Lucky for me I'm not back at work yet so I was able to go each day and watch.  Lucky for her, it's been in the 90's still so it was perfect pool weather.

Each day the kids boarded a bus, drove to a local pool and did a 45 minute lesson and then headed back to school.

Emmy thought she looked silly in the swim cap. I thought it was cute.

Emmy started off in level 3 of 7.

The kids got to ring a bell every time they passed a level.  

Emmy made it to level 5 over the 6 days.

We were able to coordinate a class picture on the last day.

The kids to got to play and jump in the pool at the end of the last session.  They also got to slide down the slide!

Emmy did a great job and really improved her freestyle stroke!  Hope she remembers it next summer!