Bring On Fall

So, it's been a month almost since I posted... and I was doing so good at being consistent there for a while. Oh well. Since our last post we enjoyed a long weekend camping with friends, made a trip down to Hastings for Labor Day, and got some additional work done on the kitchen (including replacing the fridge with a shiny new one that I got to fill up today). So... here's how it went.

We spent the weekend of August 19-22 out camping at Muskellunge Lake State Park. I'm not one for staying the semi-modern state parks - I would rather have my space than flush toliets and electricity. In fact, while we were there we did not plug in the camper and we were closer to the outhouse than the bathrooms, so our family made equal use of the running water and non-running water facilities. After all, it's camping - the goal is not to be squeaky clean and all. And the girls got good and filthy having a great time with all their friends. They played in the big lake, the little lake, the playground, and had lots of fun picking blueberries. And over that weekend Olivia started saying Abby and really took off on the use of words with her mouth open. She's becoming a little talker.

We went down to Hastings for Labor Day - it was a good trip, even though it always leaves us worn out. The girls had lots of fun playing with cousins and seeing almost all the grandmas, grandpas, and great grandparents. And we finally got to swim in Grandma Mary and Grandpa Scott's pool. Olivia and Abby also got to take a tractor and 4-wheeler rides at the farm and Grandpa Scott took Olivia to see cows, which is now her favorite word. She looks for the cows in the toy box and walks around the house telling me about her cow. She is even figuring out how to moo on command. We got to bring back most of a pig that was butchered for us (yummy!) and a spinning wheel that belonged to my grandpa's family (I'm not sure how far back it was, so I can't tell if it was a great great grandma's or just a great grandma's). Either way, I now have a great wheel and I'm pretty excited to try and get it spinning this fall.

Abby starts Cubbies tonight - it's weird thinking I have a kid big enough to go to Awana already. It goes so fast. She's got her book, vest, and book bag ready, although I am not sure about how well she will do when we get there. We tried to sign her up for dance this fall, but every time we talked to her about it she told us she wanted to go "when I'm five." She's saying the same thing about Cubbies, but we are making her go, even though we decided to let her skip out on dance for at least this year.