i love summer...

This past weekend was a working weekend. Yard work, and more yard work. Wade pruned trees, mowed grass and scrubbed the camper. I weeded and than when I thought I was done, I found more weeds. I swear it hasn't been that long since I weeded last. The plants in the garden grew 1/16 of an inch over the monsoon that has been the last three weeks. But the weeds in the flower beds...

But even with all of the work, I love summer. The kids love summer too. And here are a few pictures on why...

Rylan's Pre-K Graduation

On Thursday, Rylan officially graduated from pre-kindergarten. High Mount had a graduation ceremony, and then provided cake and punch for all the graduates and their families. The kids sang quite a few songs, complete with choreographed dance moves. Very cute!

Rylan was very proud of himself. And we were very proud of him as well. Rylan is anxious to become a kindergartner and eat lunch at school everyday. However he says he is going to miss his friends that will remain in pre-k.

Rylan & Sofia's Field Trip

Pre-School funding is in jeopardy of being cut in Illinois. One of the small changes the program made this year was cutting all field trips for the pre-k program. Needless to say, that when Rylan got wind of Noah's field trip plans, he was jealous that he and Sofie were being left out. So I took Rylan and Sofie to the Botanical Gardens for their own private field trip. The current featured exhibit is DinoQuest. Neither Ry nor Fi are particularly into dinosaurs, but they both loved seeing all of the statues. Rylan was non stop with the dino questions. The most repeated question being "are the statues real dinosaurs?" and every time the same answer "Yes, Rylan they were real animals a long time ago, however these are just plastic statues..." Such a smart little man...

Noah's 2nd Grade Field Trip

For Noah's 2nd Grade Field Trip, we started our day at the Sheldon Concert Hall to watch Beauty and the Beast. I know that I had seen Beauty and the Beast ages ago at the Muny, but it's been a REALLY LONG time, and in my head Disney's version was correct. Or at least close to the real version... Which is not so. There is no Belle. (Don't tell Sofie). And there are extra daughters. All that being said. It was really good. There were only five actors, several playing more than one part. And no real scenery to speak of. But, the actors had wonderful voices and were really committed to their characters. It was great. And best of all 300 little kids thought so too, so all of the parents got to watch the show in relative piece and quiet. Hallelujah!

After our lesson in culture, we feasted at the Spaghetti Factory on the Landing. It's been a while since we ventured that way. (I think the last time was a Holiday dinner with the Humes family! And I can't remember if Sofie & Chloe were even born?) Again. Kids loved it, and were pretty well behaved considering it was a sit down restaurant.

After lunch we headed to the Delta Dental Theatre. The home of the World's Largest set of teeth. One of only 2 sets! Wow, more culture! :) The kids even got dental health souvenirs to take home...

Noah's First Baseball Game

On Monday night, Noah had his first real baseball game. He had a little stage fright while he was batting. I guess last year, hitting off a tee, was a little less stressful. And he didn't really swing at much. But, he did great fielding and helped his team get the only out not supplied by the pitcher. They ended up winning the game 9-1...

Cardinals Baseball...

On Saturday, Wade and I took the kids to the ballpark for a Cards game. The kids love going to the baseball game. Noah took a lot of great photos of his favorite baseball player, Albert Poujols (5). While Rylan and Sofia were content to fill up on all the free goodies and play tag with the other Best Buy kids.

As for Wade and I, we appeared on the Kiss Cam. Which was a first! It's a surreal moment to recognize yourself on TV, when you didn't realize you were on TV to begin with...


Sorry, it was a gorgeous day out, so no flash...