Weekend before last we went to Sharon Woods in Cincinnati with Aunt Bobbie. The kids had a great time in the water features and playground area. Then we went to an indoor play area where the kids, once again had a great time. We all had a fun day and enjoyed the time we got to spend with Aunt Bobbie.

Having fun at Shawnee Park!

Our friend, and Keesha's co-worker, Susan, picked up this floofy skirt at a yard sale for Emery. Um, to say she loved it would be quite an understatement!

I'm still over a week behind of getting pictures here on the blog. These pics are from just over a week ago when we went hiking at Quarry Park. We hiked a two mile trail and the kids did remarkably well, considering it was two miles! That is a really long hike for Emery's short legs. The trail goes around an old quarry and actually goes down into the quarry for a short period. There is an area where Wright State University students are looking for fossils from when the area was covered by a shallow sea, around 400 million years ago. The fossils were pretty small so none of us found it too interesting. The last two pictures are of a discard pile where the scrap rock and fossils are thrown after the students are finished with them.

What a great way to stay cool!

When our field trip to the farm park was rained out last week, we went to the Boonshoft Museum in Dayton. As always the kids had a wonderful time. It wasn't very crowded at all. There didn't seem to be many summer school groups there at all. We've been there enough times, the kids know exactly what they do and don't want to do.

Last week we were learning about the letter F and talked about farm animals. The kids had a great time coloring the farm animals and gluing them onto paper. We had planned to go to one of the Dayton Metro Parks that is a working farm, but with the threat of rain, we had to cancel. We're going to try and go next week!

On our way home from northern Indiana we stopped at Grand Lake Mary's state park to stretch our legs for a while.

After partyin' hard at Nathanael's graduation party, and taking a dip in the pool the kids were exhausted!

On the 12th, we drove up to Granger, IN for our nephew Nathanael's high school graduation party. The kids had a great time visiting Aunt Suzanne, Uncle Rick, Matt, Nathanael, and Alyssa.

To help kick off the summer reading program at the library, they put up big sheets of paper, all around the library and let the kids draw. Of course Kenton drew dinosaurs and Emery drew pictures of her sippy cup?!?!?!? Yes, that's right her sippy cup! I really liked Kenton's dinosaur surfing on the big wave saying "Weeeeeee".

I am trying to take the kids out hiking at least once a week during the summer. Kenton absolutely loves being out in nature and I think Emery actually likes it as well. Here are some pics from one of our favorite hiking places, Siebenthaler Fen. It is a wetland area that is beautiful throughout the year. It's a pretty easy one mile walk. On this particular day they kids seemed to be into making funny faces for the camera!

We took a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo with Aunt Bobbie and had a wonderful time looking at the animals and visiting with Aunt Bobbie. We had never been into the petting zoo area so we made it a point to go in this time. I really thought Emery might be timid about petting the animals, but wow, I was very wrong. She jumped right in and had a great time! Kenton also enjoyed it. We visited several displays in the zoo that we had never been to before including the Mexican Wolf and the sea lion areas. And of course, the kids always have a great time riding the carousel.

The other night after supper, Emery and I went out to run an errand and Keesha fixed Kenton a special dessert while we were gone. He dipped strawberries and pretzels in chocolate sauce and apparently had a great time devouring it!