Race for the Cure

I participated in the Race for the Cure this year, which is a huge fund raising event for breast cancer research and treatment. I mean it's super huge!!! There are participants walking and running the 5K. They raised $900,000 this year with this event. This was the event I have been training for all summer. So was Jennifer - and here we are, all ready to go!


Here is a shot of part of the runners waiting for the starting gun. We are the short little faces in the middle.


Almost to the end! It was such a beautiful morning, a crisp fall morning, which made for an easy run.

yeah!! we did a great job - finished at 29:20. Must have been those great signs and cheering team that made us run so fast :)

Fort Meigs

We took a trip over to Fort Meigs this afternoon. I have never been there before, so this was new to me too. We got to see the fort, museum and also talked to some people dressed in period costumes. One of them even fired off a musket, which cool to watch, even though it scared the kids a little with the bang :)

I think the kids had the most fun climbing around on top of the monument though!

Did you guess this one? yep, it's the statue of Liberty.

Camping at Pokagon

We decided to take another camping trip at Pokagon, even though every time we go something bad seems to happen. This time was different - our spell was broken. We got the campsite on time, didn't have any issues getting there or setting up, and had beautiful weather all weekend!


Note the big rock by the campsite - it was a great hit with the kids. And when they weren't climbing and jumping off of the rock, they were riding bikes around the little cul-de-sac we had were on. Very nice!


It was also nice that the kids are getting big enough to ride around the great trails they have at the park. Zack is getting so big he can make it up hills by standing up on his bike and pumping hard on the pedals.

The leaves haven't started turning colors yet, but the weather was a little chilly and you can tell Fall is right around the corner.

The kids were racing up and down the toboggan run. We made a vow that we will come back this winter and go for a ride.

We took a walk down to the springs and had a drink of the fresh cool water. It really was as good as bottled water!

Sydney only found one caterpillar the whole trip.

On Sunday there was an seaplane "fly-in". The lake behind the Inn was the perfect landing spot for these planes and about 25 of them arrived.

It was pretty cool to see them land in the water, cruise over and then pull onto land.

"Sharing the brain"

Alan and I have a phrase, it's "sharing the brain". It's what we say when we finish each other's thoughts or thinking the same thing. Well we must have been doing that when we shopped for anniversary cards. We had a good laugh when we opened our cards to each other, and found the same one!! I don't know how many other times that has happened, but I do know we picked out the same cards back on our 10th anniversary too (it was in my scrapbook)!

Just goes to show you that even after 17 years of marriage, we're still a great pair! xoxo

A trip to the Zoo

It was a beautiful day, so we decided to take a trip to the Zoo. We spent a lot of time over in the new kids area. It's so much fun. We had to giggle when we saw Zack walking around in the water with his shorts pulled up so they wouldn't get wet. His legs are so little and white, they just looked so cute!

Inside they had a table for face "painting'. It was more like crayons so it was very easy for the kids to decorate themselves.

Zack did a great job - so colorful! He even colored under his chin :)

Roar!!!

The butterfly exhibit was closed - but we did find this two headed species still buzzing around...


And no zoo trip would be complete without a pose on the animals.

Fulton County Fair

It's a sure sign that summer is coming to an end when the Fulton County Fair starts. It was a beautiful day though - not super hot, but definately not chilly yet either. This year we decided to let the kids go on some rides. Since we'll be going to Cedar Point soon we said that they could only pick a few rides to go on.

The both liked going on the race cars, but after that they had different favorite rides. Zack still likes the little kids rides.

Sydney liked the giant slide.

One of the best parts of the fair for me is getting those delicious milk shakes!! Sydney loved hers so much that she didn't want to share (we were supposed to share, we only bought two of them). She even started crying when she thought I was drinking too much! geez

The burgers are excellent too!

Probably the highlight for the kids was to go on the bungee bouncer. They had really wanted to do this in Cancun but we thought it was too expensive. Thanks Grandma for the extra spending money!!


Sydney bounced pretty high but wasn't able to do a flip. I bet next year she will!


We tried out all of the farm equipment.

After our long day at the Fair we went home for dinner and then went out to see our friends Ethan and Annette at their campground in Grand Rapids. A long, fun day :)

Date Night!

We shipped the kids off to Grandma & Grandpa's house and headed out for date night. We went to see the Mud Hens play. I got some tickets in the Buckeye Telesystems box suite - which happens to be the best seats in the house! They were right next to the announcers box. Free food, drinks and a great view. Couldn't ask for anything more! well, except for the Mud Hen's to win. This was their last game of the season and they Mud Hens lost by one point 11 to 12.

Dawn and Henry had a good time too.

Put in Bay

It was time for our annual trip to Put-in-Bay since the summer is almost over. Today was surprisingly chilly for August (high of 70 predicted today) so that got me all confused as to what to wear. I like to be "prepared" so of course we wore shorts, and took along pants and jackets. I'm glad I did because Zack and I wore our coats for most of the time. Especially on that chilly trip back the Ferry!

After our journey over to the island, we had lunch at our favorite place, Frosty's! Their pizza was especially cheesy today. Yum!!

Just think - only a couple of weeks ago we were on a tropical island looking at dolphins - but today on our Ohio island we visited a fish hatchery run by Ohio State. It was pretty cool! The best part was that we got to hold a snake, and go fishing!

The kids have been asking about fishing for awhile now when we go camping so we took advantage of the "free fishing for kids" program. Alan caught 3 fish and I caught one! The kids didn't quite get the hang of it yet, and we didn't want to spend too much of our time there, as we had rented a golf cart, so we "helped" them out by fishing for them :) The fish we caught were actually "bad" fish that are taking over the Ohio waters so we did our good deed for the day.

Another cool part was that we got to feed our little fishes to some big fish! When we dropped our fish into the tanks they were gobbled up immediately!!

We took a trip around the island on our golf cart. Although our cart wasn't as pathetically slow as last year, it still wasn't a speed demon. We decided that it's in the cart company's interest to give people slow carts to extend their rental time! Anyhow, we stopped at Perry's Cave and took a tour of the cave.

The kids had a lot of fun playing on the playground as usual too.

and finally it was time to head home after a ride on the Merry-go-round. It was a great day!

What's for lunch??

Now that Sydney is in 1st grade we have the option of packing lunch or buying. As a "treat" we thought we'd let her buy lunch once a week. So I reviewed the choices with her this morning. Tuesday hamburger, Weds wraps, oh, and Friday pizza! After hearing the choices she asked "is there anything like a peanut butter and jelly??". Guess the $50 we loaded on her lunch card is going to last us a looooong time.