days 108-112

Okay... my excuse of the day is.... blogger was down yesterday when I went to post these photos :-) A long wait for photos you've already seen before, but I'm still trying to get caught up (or at least, less behind) on my photo a day photos.

day 108....
... fishing at grandpa's pond.

day 109....
... Wilson's Creek Battlefield.

day 110...
... Silver Dollar City

day 111...
... celebrating Alex's birthday at Incredible Pizza!

day 112...
... Liverpool Legends!

days 103-107

Okay... my excuse this time is this particular group of photos... not a very inspiring bunch... all cell phone photos (except one where there's no photo at all... sigh). But here they are....

day 103...
... cleaning out the ol' inbox... I should probably do that more often, don't you think? (phone)

day 104...
... Clara's colorful outfit (phone)

day 105...
.... my first (and hopefully last) missed photo of the year. I had a massive headache that day... to the point where I sat in the car and hoped to not throw up while my family ate dinner at our usual Friday night place. I had powered through until that point, but once we were all together and our day was almost over, I gave in.

day 106...
... Alex and Jeff got up early and ran the Race to Wrigley 5K. Alex had a personal best that day! (Jeff's phone)

day 107...
... ROAD TRIP!! The backseat crew on our way to Missouri! Mango wasn't part of the backseat crew for long though... she ended up as co-pilot up front (phone).

days 98-102

Sorry for disappearing for a few days... strep hit our house AGAIN! Poor Clara! But she's feeling much better now and life is getting back to normal (well, as normal as our life can be!).

On to the photos...

day 98...
... it was finally time for a haircut! My less shaggy, less red boy.

day 99...
... fun with the Juicy Fruit Sweet Talk app.

day 100...
... bike riding in the alley season has begun!!

day 101...
... forgot to take a photo until late... so here's a crappy phone photo of Jeff reading his Kindle.

day 102...
... forgot again until late... so another crappy phone photo... but this one is of my TV watching buddy... Mango!

days 93-97

day 93....
... pedicures! (phone)

day 94...
... the boys at the NCAA Final Four Championship game! (take by Jeff)

day 95...
... Alex and his brand new Nintendo 3DS!

day 96...
... Clara didn't have school (report card pick-up day), so while Alex was in guitar, we decided to check out the children's resale shop near-by. There she found a bag of American Girl Doll clothes... these are two of her dolls modeling their new outfits.

day 97....
... bedtime and I realized I hadn't taken a photo that day... so here are the kids, in Clara's room checking out her book fair purchases (phone)

days 88-92

I am soooo behind on posting my photo of the day photos! I have over thirty to post.... YIKES!! But, as not to overwhelm myself, I'll attempt to post five or so at a time until I get caught back up.

day 88....
... a trip to the CVS Minute Clinic for Clara... double ear infection. (phone)

day 89...
.... pajama day at school!

day 90....
... a little before school craziness in our house. Alex practicing his guitar (the beatles, if I remember right) and Clara dancing along. It was mismatch day at school, hence the stripes and plaid.

day 91...
... the boys waiting for their cab to the airport. On their way to the NCAA Final Four in Houston.

day 92...
... Alex in Houston... ready to go to Bracket Town! (photo by Jeff)

Friday....

On the last day of "All About Alex" week, we headed off to Branson to catch the Liverpool Legends. Alex loves The Beatles and they were offering discounted tickets that week, so why not?

We got there a little early, so the kids posed with the cut-out of the band...
Alex had $10 he had gotten from his great grandma for his birthday and found the perfect thing to spend it on...
Stylish, no?
Then we went into the theater and got settled into our seats for the show....




(editing stage photos makes me nutty so these are all straight out of camera, except for some slight sharpening)

We all really enjoyed the show. They sounded GREAT! Alex had a great time singing along to all of his favorites and discovering a couple new songs he hadn't heard before.

This group is run by Louise Harrison, George Harrison's sister. She was there at the show and the kids got to meet her. She even came out during intermission and took questions about The Beatles from the audience. It was pretty cool. Afterward, the kids got autographs from the performers and Louise Harrison. I took some photos of that with my point and shoot, but it's upstairs and I'm downstairs (and I'm lazy) so I'm not going to include them in this post :-)

Happy Friday!

(and thanks mom and dad for a great week!)

Thursday...

On Thursday the boy turned 11!

We started the day at Target to finish up camp shopping and to pick up a couple of last minute birthday gifts.

Then we were off to Incredible Pizza to meet Grandpa and Grandma for Alex's birthday lunch. Alex got to spin the birthday wheel and won a pass to ride the bumper cars. It was also Double Thursday so whatever money we gave the kids to spend on games was doubled. They took advantage of this, and amassed quite a pile of tickets...



And here's a little video with their grand total and their loot...



Back at Grandpa and Grandma's house... Alex got a special treat...


... the chance to shoot a "real" gun.

Later it was time for presents. I think he had a pretty good day.

And now it's official... he's had more birthdays than he has fingers to count them...
(he had to borrow one from Clara :-)

Wednesday...

On Wednesday my mom and I took the kids to Silver Dollar City. Our original plan had us going on Thursday for Alex's birthday, but the forecast was looking a bit iffy, so we decided to go for it on Wednesday. It turned out to be a perfect day to go. It was a little cool in the morning, but it warmed up nicely.... plus there were nearly no kids at the park so Alex and Clara were able to ride whatever they wanted as many times as they wanted.

The kids headed straight for Thunderation (their "warm up" roller coaster), but it was closed that morning. We all ended up riding the nearby Flooded Mine ride instead. Mom and I just rode once, but the kids stayed on to go through again.

Next up was the swings....
They stayed on for a couple of rides, but then they got a bit chilly.

On the way out of the area where the swings were, we decided we needed a little snack. The kids wanted to try this spiral cut potato thing on a stick.

Alex couldn't wait to dig in...
But it was still a bit hot :-)
Next we did a bunch of wandering around and ride riding. I didn't get my camera out that much, so there is a large chunk of our day that I don't have photos of.

Later in the afternoon, Alex finally worked up the nerve to ride Wildfire (watch the video on the link to see why it took him a while to work up the nerve). One of the last times we were there, he thought he was ready but then flipped out when they started buckling us in and had to get off. This time he was ready. I rode it with him the first time. He LOVED it! He went right back around and rode again... alone this time.

I hung out with Clara in the gift shop and watched her try on hats....


Alex was back from his ride and wanted to get in on the fun....
I did shoot a little video that day. Here are the kids on the swings and PowderKeg (Clara's first time on this ride... I think)....

Tuesday

Since Alex was studying the Civil War earlier this year, we decided to start our Tuesday with a trip to Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. We thought the kids would last a couple of hours but boy were we wrong! We were there nearly four hours!! And I think they could have lasted longer had we packed a lunch. We just had no clue that they would be that into it all!

We started out the day at the Civil War Museum...
This is where the kids picked up their Junior Ranger booklets and started to work...
We were the only ones in the museum which was very nice! There was an extremely helpful ranger there who answered all of the kids questions and gave them all kinds of great information.
Next we drove over to the Visitor Center to watch the movie about the battle at Wilson's Creek. After the movie and answering a few questions in their booklets, we started on the driving tour.

First stop was Gibson's Mill...
It was a nice little trail through the woods to see the remains of the mill that was there during the battle...
We found this cool little toad on the bridge railing...
Next stop was the Ray House....

The kids stood on the same front porch that Mr. Ray stood on to watch the battle that was taking place in his corn field.
It made us think about how the lives of ordinary people where impacted by the war. The family had a battle taking place in their cornfield and had their house turned into a field hospital after it was over.

The next couple of stops we did as drive-bys.... mom drove, I read from the guide and the kids looked out the windows.

We stopped again at #5... Sigel's Last Stand....
Here the kids worked on the "know your canon" section of their booklets.

Our final stop was at Bloody Hill. The kids and I walked the trail to find the sink hole (used as a mass grave after the battle) and the Lyon monument....
We drove by the last place on the tour and then headed back to the Visitor Center to have their booklets checked, take their oath and receive their Junior Ranger badges and certificates...
Since it was nearly 3:00, we thought it would be a good time to finally have lunch, before going to visit great-grandma.

Later at grandpa and grandma's house, grandpa got out his (replica) muzzle loader to show Alex...

They had a good time exploring all of the parts together....
Even though this "field trip" was more about Alex, Clara really enjoyed it as well. She showed her teacher her Junior Ranger badge yesterday and today she's taking photos and her booklet so she can do a presentation about it to the class. She was so excited when she left this morning!