Back to School - 2017

Back to School means routine and schedules.  You get used to relaxing, staying up late, etc all summer!  We all agree that it is nice to have a routine too.  Back to School we go!

 

First thing for school - new hair!

Another donation for Alex

 While Matt headed (with my dad) to St. Louis for the solar eclipse, I took the kids to Unpack Your Backpack at school.  All of the kids have lockers this year!

 First day of School Picture - 6th, 6th, 8th & 10th!

First day went well.  Will got to have two lunches, as he realized he went to the wrong class during the lunch hour...went to lunch with that class then went to the correct class after lunch...only to find out that they were at lunch!  Off to second lunch!  Overall, all 4 kids adjusted to their new schedules, lockers, etc within the first week of being back.  I'm pretty proud of them!

Will said he was ready for picture day...haha!

We spent the afternoon at my parents a few days later and I happened to have my camera with me.  I always enjoy Mom's flowers.  It's easy to walk around the yard together and enjoy God's beauty through her flowers.

Freeport - 2017

Our Annual trip to Freeport - a tradition everyone looks forward to every year.  This year wasn't any different.

Matt and I realized on Friday that our weekend was open (for the most part) so we looked at the weather (Sat - 80° and partly sunny, no rain...Sunday, same but YES rain)...we opted to go on Saturday.  While driving to Freeport, we quickly realized that the weather forecast was wrong.  It sprinkled off and on and was very overcast. It looked like the skies would open any minute!

We drove to Krape Park and enjoyed the quiet of the park as the look of rain kept people away!

We rode the carousel - thanks to Kaitee having some $1s...evidently they can't break a $20! 

Kaitee's not sure about the freaky head behind her...

While the kids are a bit too old to "play" at the wooden playground, they aren't too old to make a "Ninja Warrior" course out of the playground and run it as a competition!  With the exception of two other families, the playground was all ours! 

We had a blast watching the kids as they ran against their own time - it was actually a tight competition! 

Matt even tried it!  All was good until he tried the tornado slide...hence the kids laughing in this picture!

More of the kids' competition...

I love to watch the kids as they fly across the monkey bars!

We walked across the bridge and noticed a lot of damage to the banks of the river.  No doubt that Freeport was hit by the July flooding to the northern part of IL.

We planned to go to the park first and head straight to the paddle boats.  Last year we missed out of this because of no cash...the year before because of an hour long wait.  We pulled in to the park and the first thing we see is this....

NO BOATS!!!  Are you kidding me??

 

We asked the worker at the carousel and she said it was because of the flash flooding in July - a piece of the dock broke off during the flood so all the boats and trailer had been put into storage until the docks could be repaired.  She then said they anticipate repair by the next weekend.  Of course you do!  Oh well.  It makes for a funny story, I guess. 

We continued our walk towards the waterfall, where a few of the kids took some pictures.

We noticed the huge amount of debris from the flooding while we were walking back to the car.  Notice the foreground - dead grass, so sad to see this happen.

Driving from Krape Park to Union Dairy, we made a stop at Little Cubs Field (Little Wrigley). 

Sheffield Ave

Ivy and the homerun basket

I didn't notice the scoreboard at the time...but now see that the Cubs score is game 7 of the World Series!  That definitely wasn't there during our last visit in 2012!

Found this cute sign in the cemetery.



So, Matt did the ordering this year.  He forgot that there is a kid's size scoop...which is more than enough for adults!  As you can see, Kaitee got the adult size - 1 SCOOP!! Some of the kids ended up using a bowl to hold all the extra ice cream!

A little sidewalk "ice cream" art!

We drove from Freeport, north to New Glarius, WI to find some letterboxes. New Glarius is a quaint little town full of Swiss heritage.  Very cute and fun!  We enjoyed spotting the dressed up cows as well as seeing all the quaint buildings.

Another great day trip to Freeport!  We even saw these sand cranes on our way home!  Very neat.