Carolinas Vacation

Jonas and I went on a vacation in the middle of August (yes, I am aware that it is the end of October... I'm getting there!).  Our first stop was to visit Aunt Laura in North Carolina.  We really enjoyed the trip down there, even though it took us 13 hours!  We chatted, listened to a bunch of audio books, and stopped to take in some of the views.

Laura and Carlos took us swimming, canoeing, and out for Dim Sum.  Jonas loved watching shark week with Carlos, and we had a great time catching up with our friends.

From there we headed down to Myrtle Beach for the rest of the week.  We had a gorgeous view from our hotel room.

Jonas' favorite part was playing in the waves and letting them crash into him.  He liked playing on his boogie board, too.  We had some fun on the beach building sand castles and sand volcanoes.

We went on a helicopter ride that went over Broadway at the Beach and the ocean.  Jonas couldn't have cared less about the views, but he loved the headset he got to wear and talking with the pilot.

We also went to Ripley's Aquarium.  We loved the walk through tunnel and seeing the sharks swimming above our heads.  Jonas also really liked the fish he could touch.  We visiting the tiger sharks several times and waited 1/2 an hour for a sting ray to come close enough to touch!

We went on a 2 hour boat tour and saw lots of pelicans and dolphins.  They liked to follow the shrimp boats, and even those were pretty neat to see!  On the way back to the dock, they asked Jonas if he wanted to drive the ship.  Super cool!

We also went to a pirate dinner theatre, but it was pretty dark in there so we didn't really get any good pictures.  On the way home we stopped overnight at Aunt Laura's again and drew a big mural of our trip to Myrtle Beach on her driveway with chalk!

It was definitely a fun vacation, and I hope you enjoy the pictures...even if they are over 2 months late!

Erie County Fair

We managed to fit a day in at the Erie County Fair before we left for vacation.  Papa and Grandma brought the Lafferty girls, and Duane and Brynn and Bransen came with us, too.  

We saw some animals, of course...

And saw some shows, including a trampoline stunt show, sea lions, and a balloon guy.

Bransen wasn't overly impressed with Cirque Zuma Zuma...

We played some Duck Duck Goose while we waited for the men to bring us dinner.

Papa bought all the kids (and us too) ice cream cones!

After we checked out Brynn and Bransen's 4H projects, we made some beaded keychains with some of the helpers there.  Jonas made a snake!

Railroad Tracks

Duane and I took the kids for a walk down the railroad tracks by his house.  They had fun balancing, exploring, and throwing rocks off the trestle.  Don't worry, there were no trains!

Black Lake

Jonas got home from another fun vacation at Black Lake with his dad.  He told me he had fun playing with his zillions of cousins, fishing, playing bocce, and eating ice cream.  He listed off 30 things that he did (he counted)!

Summer Fun

Jonas and I always have fun together in the summer.  These are just a few things we've done in the past couple days.  There's no real theme, just good old-fashioned quality time :-)

We spent a lot of Monday baking and cooking in the kitchen.  Jonas loves to help out, and he's getting good at it, too!  We made chocolate chip cookies, pasta for dinner, and ice cream cake for dessert on Tuesday.

Tuesday we spent some time at Grandma and Papa's house.  Jonas had a blast playing with all his cousins and Brynn and Bransen.  We took a walk around the block, played with chalk, and played chalk bowling!

After all the excitement, we cozied up with Aunt Lisa to read some stories before bed time.

Toothless!

Jonas came home from Black Lake missing a bunch of teeth!  The tooth fairy couldn't find him on vacation, but luckily she came here last night and gave him $2 a tooth.  Love that toothless smile!