Summer Fun

We had a lot of fun this summer doing lots of activities together.  We went strawberry picking at the beginning of summer to make our traditional strawberry jam.

Owen learned how to launch rockets in Cub Scouts over the summer, but his fun was cut short when his rocket landed on the electrical line.  Luckily, we found it laying on the ground a few days later.  Rocket launching is definitely on our bucket list for next summer. 

Nathan's family came to party with us at the beginning of summer which really kicked things off for us in a fun way!  Cousin time is best fun there is!

 Owen was so excited to bungee jump during our adventure walking to Kentucky with the cousins.  He claims to be afraid of heights, but managed to jump pretty high.

Pictures with Grandma during our mini reunion in Ohio

 The kids might tell you that one of their favorite summer activities was completing the Butler County Donut Trail.  We visited 10 donut shops in a 30 minute radius in early summer and received tshirts at the end!

 Our weekly visits to Kings Island Amusement park were probably another big highlight of the kids' summer.  Dallin and Owen both got a little braver this year and rode new roller coasters.  Dallin is almost ready to graduate out of Snoopy Land.  Even though our annual passes include admission to the water park side, we only visited it once the whole summer.  They prefer riding lots of rides.

 We ventured to Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop one afternoon with a friend of Owen's.  They were excited to get their own personal bag of loot.

We worked on a few Cub Scout requirements at a nearby fossil park where you can actually dig for real fossils and take them home.

They CAN get along sometimes!

We rode a riverboat on the Ohio River for the first time this summer.  It was a 1 1/2 hour historical cruise along the banks of Ohio and Kentucky.

We learned that the paddle on the back is just for looks and doesn't actually move the boat anymore.

We spent many nights outside at our fire pit this summer or camping since we love the outdoors!  if you look closely, Trenton is wearing his Donut Trail tshirt!

A local nursery plants a field of sunflowers every year near our home for the community to enjoy taking pictures with.  I made our crew head out there one morning before church this year for the first time ever.  It was a little too sunny and we had fun avoiding lots of bees, but it was beautiful!

We ended the summer with a Cincinnati Reds game thanks to Ashleigh scoring us a couple free tickets with her Straight As all year!  The kids' love going to games not to watch baseball, but to play on the playground there and eat lots of ballpark food.