Fun times at the county fair:)

We went to the county fair twice this week. Once with our friends and once with my family since the cousins from Ohio are up visiting this week:) It was tons of fun both times. Athena is old enough now that there is a decent amount of rides she can go on and she had a fun time going on them with her friend the first night and then with her cousins the second night we went. Alton liked looking at all of the animals and rides and lights and was fascinated by the fireworks at night. It was his first time seeing them and he just stared at them with his huge eyes and his mouth hanging open in amazement:)

To the cow barn!! This kid LOVES TRACTORS!!!
Loves them:)

Loves these things too:)
Every one he sat on, he was "vroom vroom"-ing the whole time.

Made friends with a sheep.

This sheep must live at a farm that has little kids. It was such a good sport, standing there and letting Ena pet it for the longest time.

John had to hold him back or I"m sure he would have been trying to climb and lay on these calves like he does with Amber.

The first thing Ena always wants to look at is the chickens. Why are they always so excited to see something that they can see every time they go to grandma and grandpa's house?

Alton really enjoyed the chickens as well:)

Ten Years:)

Yesterday John and I had our ten year wedding anniversary:) It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, yet when we pulled out our wedding album last night to look through it with Athena we were surprised at how young we look in the photos! We had an outdoor wedding at our friends summer camp and it was beautiful. The weather cooperated perfectly and we had a hot sunny bluebird day:) Being that we got married back in the olden days, our pictures aren't digital so these pictures are photos of photos in our album. I know I could scan them, but this was quick and quite frankly even though I know we have a scanner in the house I have no idea where it even is;)

John surprised me with this gorgeous bouquet of flowers when he came home from work!

You know how when you get married you think your 10 year anniversary seems like an eternity away and you make all kinds of plans for it? We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Being our silly young selves we declared we would return for our 10 year anniversary. Well lets just say I'm not writing this post from Hawaii;) Our trip back to Colombia this year and most recently the shiny new water heater perched in our basement put the ka-bosh on anything extravagant. We celebrated at home with Chinese take-out with the kids instead and that was just fine with both of us:) We know when to count our amazing blessings when we see them! John's mom is coming to watch the kids next Saturday though so we can go out for dinner just the two of us;)

Beach Bunny and Little Kahuna

Athena started swimming class this week at the outdoor pool in town. While the bigger kids are having swimming lessons you can pay to swim in the baby pool with your little ones. It works out perfectly since lessons are 45 minutes long it gives me something to do with Alton while we wait for Athena. Also, he likes to play in the water but most of the pools don't have open swim until noon and it's just not quite as fun to take an overtired toddler to the pool in the middle of what should be nap time;)

Guess what Athena did today at swimming lessons? She jumped off the diving board!!! I couldn't believe it! She just marched right up when it was her turn and jumped right in to the teacher waiting for her in the water below:)

The jump! The splash!
Hurray!This morning I made a bunch of home made meat balls that we're going to have for dinner tonight for spaghetti and meatballs. She was watching them bake in the oven and told me a few times how good they smell and how excited she is to have them for dinner. As we were walking out of the pool she announced to me "Mom now I love spaghetti and the diving board"

Snooger Paps!!

One day when I asked Athena what kinds of fruits and veggies she wanted me to buy for the week for after school snacks, she asked for "snooger paps". It took a few minutes of her describing to me what it was, but I finally figured out that she wanted "sugar snaps". It was so darn cute though, that sugar snap peas are still and will forever be known as snooger paps in our house:) Well, guess what we found when we checked the garden today? A few snooger paps!!! She really was excited to show off (and then inhale) the snooger paps. Poor thing is squinting into the sun in this picture, thus the funny face:) Lots of other things are coming along also.

I spy with my little eye some cherry tomatoes! Cilantro seems to be coming along. I see lots of mama's favorite pico de gallo in our future:)
Here is the box with the carrots and the second and third planting of radishes.
We picked the first planting of radishes a few weeks ago.

Check out these gems:) They were dee-lish!The flower barrel in the middle is filling in nicely also. John said I planted it way to full. Pshaw! Silly boy!
A few green beans were ready too:) Just a handful. All of which got chowed down on the spot by the princess.
Woke up to see this little guy peaking out from the field of marsh grass behind our house. I'm really hoping he doesn't like snooger paps!!

Friday nights at the Zuge Zoo:)

Most Friday nights I don't plan a meal and instead we set out a spread for snacking on throughout the evening. It's a great family night of hanging out, eating and relaxing together. This is a typical Friday night spread for us. Cheese curds, summer sausage, cheese spread and crackers, guacamole & chips, blackberries, peaches, roasted edamame. We also had some crispy butterfly shrimp but they were still in the oven when I took the picture. Ena's favorite is the guacamole and the shrimp. Now that Alton is a toddler, he can eat most of this too. I make sure there are at least 3 different things that he can have. He loved the cheese curds, sausage, blackberries and peaches all cut up into little toddler size pieces.
I've been getting into the summer groove this week. This week was my first week off of work after working some summer inservice days and going to an out of town conference after the students last day of school 2 weeks ago. Now I'm done for the summer and I have 7 weeks home with the kids before I head back for inservice again and the littlins head back to daycare. It finally got nice and warm this week and we set up our giant pool:) Athena is thrilled to have the "spa" all to herself while Alton naps in the afternoon. We really splurged and bought a sprinkler today too;) I"m going to try to soak up every minute of summer and spending time with the kids!