Grant turns 12

You would think with summer wrapping up and school starting that things would

get slower...but somehow we're more busy than before! We miss the slow, fun

days of summer, that's for sure.  

We're behind on our August birthdays! First up is Grant, who turned 12 and 

started middle school!!! Aiiee! So crazy how fast time flies. He's still tall, blonde, 

the kindest person you'll ever meet, so happy and helpful, and such a great kid. 

We are so lucky to have him in our family.

We had a great weekend celebrating his birthday. We ate hamburgers and shrimp, 

did our birthday tradition of chuck-e-cheese, ate cake and opened presents,

played some video games, and had fun celebrating the biggest brother in our family. 

We love you Grant and hope you had as much fun we did!!

Of course, because he's so kind, he was fine with Claire "helping" him open his presents.

She's caught on that there's fun things inside packages that are wrapped! 

It's going to be so fun when it's her turn!

This is Claire's chuck-e-cheese celebration too as their birthdays are so

close together....she loves this place!

The motorized scooter was a big hit....

He said "surprise me" when it came to a cake.....so we made a strawberry cheesecake!

He loved it! We wanted something he'd never tried before. It was a fun surprise. 

Happy birthday buddy!!!! We love you!!

Trip to Georgia

Every summer we make the trip to Georgia to see Karen's parents. The kids really look 

forward to it and really enjoy it. They have a lot of land and pets and fun things 

to do around North Georgia. We have a great time and make great memories 

with Grandpa and Grandma and spending time together as a family!

We started out the week going to the dinosaur museum. They have so many fun

exhibits and the kids love it. This day they had reptiles to touch! So fun!

They also have a huge outdoor section

 

 

 Next we went to this place you can slide on the rocks and tube down. So much fun. 

The boys also wanted to seine with Grandpa. Claire got so excited to touch a fish!

She's always right there ready to get dirty and is not scared of anything!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another day we went to the lake and did canoeing and swimming. We weren't sure how

Claire would like the canoe, but it turns out she wanted to ride all day! Hilarious!

 

 

 

 

 

 It's also fun just to hang at the house. We shot BB guns, did archery, played with their

new puppies, went in the tree house, ran around in the forest, helped in the garden, and 

caught toads. It's a little kids dream place! It's like the best summer camp ever!

 

 

One day we toured a local gold mine cave. We've never been and it was so interesting. 

At the end everyone gets to pan for gold, and it was fun! The boys now want to

be gold miners when they grow up.  :)

 

We also mined for gems and Claire had the best time scooping sand into a bucket. 

Gotta love toddlers, they are so happy with the simplest things!!

 

 

 

 

 

 We had such a fun time. We love this tradition.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for having us!