The End of Summer

Even though it's still very hot out, the signs that summer is coming to an end are all around. My daughter starts school on Monday and a lot of kids are already back to school. Labor Day Weekend (aka Dragon Con) is next weekend and of course, September is only a few hours away.

This summer wasn't very exciting for us. We went to a few birthday parties and went swimming several times. We watched Star Wars in the park and went camping. But a lot of our summer was inside because of the heat and the thunderstorms.

I'm not a huge fan of summer. I'm either roasting or freezing. The weather has been crazy this year with a lot more extreme storms than usual. So I'm glad to see summer going away.

Of course, that's partly because we have a lot of exciting stuff coming up in the fall. Disney World mostly, but also Emily's birthday. We are also going to go to the Eliada Corn Maze with the Girl Scouts and of course, there is Halloween.

Even though it probably won't feel like Fall for a while, I'll be decking my halls with Halloween things as soon as we get home from Dragon Con. Mostly because I love my Halloween stuff but that means I can have it up longer since we'll be at Disney the first week in October.

I hope you all had a wonderful summer and have an equally great autumn season!

Emily's 6th Birthday!

Because the Browncoat Ball was the weekend of Emily's actual birthday, we opted to have her party the weekend before. My dad and his wife came into town a few days before and kept Emily with them.

This gave Todd and I a chance to go on a date night as well as get things ready for the party. Todd made her cake the night before and I put together the Lego sets that were going to be her cake toppers. Emily had also requested a Ninjago pumpkin. Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to carve that as well.

The morning of her party dawned very, very wet. This made me very nervous since the party was

outside at the park. And I had no idea how many people were coming because half of her class didn't RSVP.

I tried not to freak out and I went to church. My dad, his wife, Esther, and Emily met us there. After church, we went home and my aunt, uncle and Emily's friend / 2nd cousin, Elliot. We all went out to brunch at IHOP and then went home to wait for Todd's aunt and grandmother.

Finally it was time to go to the park. The sky was overcast but it had stopped raining. We had brought towels to wipe down any surfaces that needed to be and set up in the covered shelter.

Emily had wanted to have a Ninja party because she loves Lego Ninjado. While looking on Amazon, I found inflatable ninja swords and got those as party favors. It was a great purchase because for most of the party the kids were happy to run around the park, waving their swords around.

We all ended up in the pavilion, with the adults blowing up balloons and the kids chasing them about. Todd had forgotten the cake knife at home and while he was going to get it, Emily opened her presents.

Right after she finished with the presents, Todd arrived and it was time for cake. Todd's grandmother has a cake that is famous in the family and no-one has been able to duplicate it before. Todd tried the cake and failed badly but he managed to perfect the frosting. It got his grandmother's seal of approval. He's trying to make the cake - his 2nd attempt was better but not quite it.

The birthday party broke up and we took Emily's haul home. Then we went to see my dad and Esther for a bit since they were leaving early the next day. Emily fell asleep in my arms for a bit - she had had an exciting day.

It's hard to follow up Disney World, but Emily said she had a good birthday.

Palm Sunday and Family Time

 After our busy day on Saturday, it would have been nice just to relax on Sunday. But that didn't happen since I was up early on Sunday to get ready for church.

We are Lutheran and Holy Week is a big deal in our church. Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter. This past Sunday was Palm Sunday and my choir was singing at the early service.

Everyone got to process in with their palms at the beginning of the service - Emily was very excited to wave her palm. Because Todd came to church, I got to sit with the choir which was nice.

After church, we left right away. Todd's Aunt Denise lives outside of Charlotte. Todd's cousin Mandy, her husband and daughter were down visiting. Since it's only a couple of hours drive, we wanted to make sure to see them while they were in NC.

It was great to spend time with family and to meet Kenzie who is now a toddler. Living in NC is great but we don't see a lot of our family because we haven't been able to get to Michigan for a couple of years now.

Emily and Kenzie played great together despite the age difference. While Kenzie was napping, I took Emily to the neighborhood park was only a few blocks away. They have the standard playground equipment including a merry go round, which none of the parks we frequent have. So Emily loves the merry go round.

I made the mistake of letting Emily push me on the merry go round. I hadn't bee on one in years and once I got off I had a migraine. Beyond that, we had a great time.

I ended up in bed as soon as we got home. With as full as our weekend was, I really over did it. But it was worth it to see family and have family time with just me, Todd and Emily.