Saturday, September 12, 2015

Photo Shoot - 1st birthday Lily













Group Campout

This idea all started when I was on a bike ride. I ride through this massive campground on my way to Big Creek Lake and I noticed there was a cool circular wagon train style camping spot that looked perfect! The catcher was that you had to rent the whole thing - like 8 campsites. 

So I booked it for the last weekend before school started and emailed a bunch of friends. Well, they all came for the most part!

Andersens, Willers, Millers, Shoemakers (for some of it), Bosworths, Ensleys, us and Stones. We had just enough room to all spread out.

I created a "bring it list" so that people just had to bring large quantitates of one thing versus planning 3 meals for their family. We had hot dogs, and walking tacos, fruit, pancakes for breakfast and drinks galore. Had a great time eating and "hiking" the small trail as well as bike riding and going to the playground. We were pretty near a restroom so that was convenient.



Ensleys brought their pup Holmes and their awesome sleeping setup!














The scavenger hunt and giant bubbles were a hit. Also had a bean bag game and wiffle ball.


Most of the kids had flashlights or headlamps and I brought enough glow sticks and bracelets to share. The kids ran around until 10:30 playing their little good guy/bad guy game. We all talked about how well they did both in sleeping in tents as well as all getting along so well! No fighting and everyone laughed and had so much fun!



The next morning Kenna and Chloe headed to the playground and came rushing back after a little while. Chloe had slipped on the slide and broken part of her tooth. We all felt terrible! It involved rushing home, an emergency dentist and lots of tears...NOT the way we had intended to end our camping trip! I think at this point all is well, and we hope that the happy times outweighed the accident! I hope we can do it again next year!!!

Breaking Boards

Part of being an advanced belt is breaking boards. Kenna has to in order to advance belts each time, she gets soooo nervous, but hasn't missed yet!


#rideforwade

Recently a wonderful member of the Kyle's Bike family was killed by a drunk driver. Kyle organized a memorial ride where we would all meet at tressle trail bridge for a drone picture. The estimated participation was over 1000 riders! Jeff and I drove to Madrid and rode the 12ish miles to the bridge and back. Luckily Jeff remembered his light, because it was definitely dark riding home!

Great way to honor a man who lived for cycling!






Oh My Apples

Oh my goodness, the apples this year. I think we probably had 7 - 5 gallon buckets full :) I gave a ton away, made a ton of applesauce and apple pie filling with mom and we definitely threw a ton a way! Next year I hope to perfect the spraying method so that we can have worms gone forever!

Zach has LOVED learning to climb the apple tree this year!







First Day of School

Preschool: Mrs. Betsy
4th: Mrs. Petersen
1st: Mrs. Dunne









#spreadsomesparkle

A young lady on our street passed away 2 years ago. Her name was Erin and her mom really is amazing. She started what she thought was a small fundraiser to build a playground at the hospital that Erin got chemo treatments at. It turned to be a "sparkle run" that had more than 1000 participants and that raised over $30,000 to build the park! 

Every year on her birthday week people do random acts of kindness with the hashtag #spreadmoresparkle. This year it was so fun seeing on facebook what everyone was doing to honor Erin's memory. From pencils sticking out of the ground at the busstop, to money taped to the teacher's lounge soda machine. We decided to buy some pet supplies and donate to the ARL in Ankeny after Kenna went to Peyton's birthday party. There we ran into our neighbor who was adopting a dog!



Awesome Weather!

The weather is cooling down, and we have been enjoying more time outside! In my attempt to break the video game/screen trend on weekends at my house I have been trying to get the kids to the park, on a walk, bikeride at least a few times each day!

We went to Margo Franco park and the kids had fun adventuring....I'm trying to lighten up as Kenna was climbing up on the big bars and walking across them 7 feet in the air....eek!