Back to school! (First day of Kindergarten!!)

It's back to school time!! I can't believe school is starting already, since it's only August 19th. But the kids are excited about it, and ready to go. We now have two offical "school age" kids - Zack is heading off to kindergarten this year!

Nice backpack selections...

Zack was super excited about going to Kindergarten. He kept asking "how many more days...?".

Waiting at the bus stop for Sydney's bus to come.

There she goes !!

Zack headed off to his kindergaren class. Here is his desk - at the "green" table.

Miss Katie is his teacher.

Bird Lake

We had the very great opportunity of going up to a cottage on Bird Lake that is owned by Jacob & Kendall's grandparents.  Well, we kind of invited ourselves to go along, but I think Jennifer was happy to have us there :)  I thought it would be a great way to enjoy one of the few remaining days of summer before school begins.  The lake was a quick hour or so drive away, and the kids kept entertained by communicating by walkie talkie the whole ride there (between separate cars).

The kids had a lot of fun playing on the beach area and wading in the water around the docks. 

We got to take a trip around the lake in the paddleboat.  It was a beautiful day, really sunny and warm.

Jennifer made some super yummy brownies.  They were chocolately and gooey!  Delicious!!

After lunch Jacob show Sydney and Zack the finer points of jumping off the docks.

Block Party

I think today was the hottest day of the entire year.  Seriously!!  Way hot!!  And of course it was the day of our block party.  In the middle of the day.  ugghhh  Even so, we loaded up the plate of treats, grabbed the lawn chairs and headed over to the street of the party.
We had the honor of having the new Walleye (hockey team) mascot visiting our party.

The kids had a bike parade to start out the party.

There was some seriously yummy food at the party.  Even Zack found something he liked (shocking!!  haha)

The fire department visited also and showed off their fire truck and equipment.

We even had a clown to entertain the crowd.  He did great job and also made balloon animals for everyone.

Although we had fun, I was ready to head inside to get out of the sun!!  whew, I was whipped by the end of the party.

Day 8 - the bonus day!

Our flight doesn't leave until 8pm, so we have another day to hang out at the Kennedy Space center. Today was the only day it really rained much during the day, so we didn't mind being indoors again.
But to start our day out right, we had to have more ice cream.... for breakfast!! yum, I could get used to this! Hey, it is vacation after all.

Kennedy offered many opportunities for us to be become spacemen (or is that "spacepersons"??)

Alan got to repair the Hubble Telescope!

Hanging out with the moon man

Sydney is guiding the rocket safely into space (or maybe she's just talking to her friend, I can't tell)

Here we are hanging out on the moon!

Well, that wraps up our trip. Despite the hot hot weather, we had a great time!

Day 7 - Aquatica!!

To beat the heat of Florida we decided to spend another day at a water park. We picked Aquatica, the new waterpark owned by Sea World. This park was so beautiful! Note - I didn't actually take any of these pictures, because I left my camera in the car - but words just can't describe this park!

One of the most fun "rides" at the park was this river - Roa's Rapids - kinda like a lazy river, but it's not lazy - and it's rapids! You just float around in a life vest and the very strong current shoots you around. So much fun!

The park has these super cute dolphins that look like mini killer whales. They are Commerson dolphins - so cute, I could just take one home to live in my pool!

Aquatica also has two wave pools, which have some pretty good waves, but nothing like the huge wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon. We let the kids go out in the wave pool since they both had life jackets on, and when we finally went out to check on them they were bobbing around out in 6 foot water! yikes, better keep an eye on them next time :)

There was a body slide tube that went right through the dolphin pond. A bit hokey though, because I'm pretty sure none of the people on the slide actually saw anything as they went sliding through there!

This was a super huge splash zone set up for the kids. There was so much water pumping through that thing, it was incredible! It also had 2 huge buckets that fill up and dump down on everyone. It was hard to get the kids off of that thing!

Here are some Macaws enjoying their day...

This was a really fun ride that we got to ride down in pairs on a tube. I insisted that we tried all of the colors since I liked it so much. We also got to go on another ride with a huge tube that was really fast, it scared me! The same tubes were used for another ride in which we all got to ride together.

But I think the best ride by far was this Racer ride. You lay down on a rubber mat, head first, on your stomach, and race down this thing. After gaining a bit of speed in the tubes, you shoot down the 300 foot hill and race to the end!! I thought Zack might be scared of it, but he loved it. Sydney was hesitant to go on it at first, but we talked her into and she said it was fun too.

We would definitely go back here again :)

Day 6 - the day of REST

After our busy week, we needed a day to rest a little. It involved sleeping in really late (well, maybe it was 8am, but it felt "late"), shopping, swimming and dining.

After a late breakfast at iHop (oops, I was trying to forget that dining experience with the kids...) we went for a swim. The kids spent their time jumping in the pool, and running around looking for lizards.



Our pool was really nice and quiet.

While we were swimming Alan took a break to get his run in for the day since he is in marathon training. There he is in the yellow shirt behind the window on the right! :) I too brought my workout gear, but it remain packed in my suitcase all week. oh darn.

Here is a cool lizard that we were so close to catching (haha, good thing I have a zoom lense!). We did see a blue tailed skink though, that was definately something new.

After pool time came the moment the kids have been waiting for all week - time to spend that money!! Zack headed straight for the Lego store and picked out a set. He also bought some space crazy bands and a book over at Kennedy Space Center. Sydney decided on a Disney kitten. Because she REALLY needs more stuffed animals. uh huh.

When we walked around Downtown Disney after dinner (at the Rainforest Cafe) we ran into this cool lady who was all painted up like a statue.

The area was pretty busy (and oh so hot).

They have a hot air balloon ride which looked like a full moon when it was all lit up. I didn't see anyone riding in it, but I bet the view is pretty good from up there!