Batman

Guys wear the football jerseys for their favorite teams when they watch games. Gage wears his fave superhero when he watches superhero cartoons. Somehow I see a connection here. Gage, wearing batman as he watches batman!

Pantry reading

Our girl has discovered Magic Treehouse books and loves them. Apparently, she can't put them down.  I can relate, I am constantly reading books on my kindle I strange places :-)

I can't believe she's reading chapter books. Junie B. and the magic tree house are her favorites now. 

Smarty pants savannah is doing great in school. She has spelling tests and reading comprehension tests each Friday now, and has scored 100 on every one. 

Way to go!!

A break in the heat

Finally! After temps in the 90-100 range for months, We finally have a beautiful day. Today we woke up to temps in the 50s and a high of only 84. Yippee! If course, it will head back into the 90s.

Gage went outside and calls me excitedly saying mom come quick, you won't believe it. When I walked out he said "do you feel how COOL it is? Stand in the sun. Stand in the shade. Can you believe it!?!" 

A comfortable day has everyone outside - finally! They are swinging and shooting water guns at targets. 

They are also hanging in the hot tub, which you can imagine is the last thing you want to do when it's 100 degrees outside!!

Fall is coming, I can feel it!!

CHOM

Usually we just stay home after savannah gets home from school. Today we decided to get out and do something so we headed to the childrens museum. Gage drove the old truck.

Savannah pretended to be an astronaut using these big gloves to put puzzles together.

Gage gassed up the truck.

And both of them went crazy in the flying ball booth!

We topped it all off with some frozen yogurt at sweet cece's. Dessert before dinner's not a bad thing now and then!!

pops

Early this summer, Steel City Pops opened in Tuscaloosa, and we finally made it there! It's a small business that started in Birmingham (a steel "town",hence the name) and makes gourmet popsicles.  They have traditional flavors (strawberry, lemon, etc.) and crazy flavors -- hibiscus flower, pineapple jalapeno, blood orange, etc.).  Savannah had hibiscus and it was really yummy.  She thought it was very neat that she was eating "flower juice":-) Gage had a creamy chocolate pop that was delish too. We decided we definitely need to go there more often!

We had just left my hairdresser (Miss Meagan), and Savannah's hair was looking great. It certainly never looks that good when I am the one doing her hair!!!! 

Gage & school

Gage is back to school also!  How is it possible that he is just 1 year away from Kindergarten?!

Savannah | 1st grade

Savannah starts first grade today!

New car

I've been talking about getting a bigger car for about a year. Apparently, the long trip in a small car did me in because within days of getting home, we bought this gmc Acadia! Love it :-)

summer | recap

As today is the first day of school here in Alabama, summer is officially over.  What a summer it has been. We hit 19 states this summer! Here's a recap...

beach trip to Gulf Shores

 fun month at home of playing, crafts, sprinklers, etc.

 AL natural history museum

 the Vulcan statue & museum in Birmingham

 camping out in the yeard

 discovering Lake Lurleen in AL

 Dino World in KY

 visiting Grandma & Grandpa Rapp & Uncle Eric's family in PA

catching Savannah's first firefly

catching a lot of toads

Savannah skipping her first stone at the grove in CT

 Adam's 20 year reunion in PA

 visiting to the Miller family in Pittsburgh

 visiting all the grandparents, cousins, and other family in CT

picking blueberries with Great Grandma Rooney

 riding the old steam train in Essex, CT

 riding the oldest carousel in the country in Watch Hill, RI

 visiting Mystic Seaport in CT, where Gage got to hoist the sail on an old ship

 visiting the Peabody Museum and Pepe's pizza in New Haven, CT

 a trip to the White Mountains in NH

 (multiple) children's museums

 feeding the baby cow (Oreo) at Grammy's

Quassy amusement park with the cousins

building stuffed animals with cousin Elizabeth

 Savannah riding the Wooden Warrior roller coaster!

 spending time at the lake and bowling with the cousins 

Gage turned 4 years old!

 Gage's birthday party in CT with the sturdiest pinata on the planet!

 cartoon museum

 Georgia aquarium

 Smithsonian museum of natural history

 Smithsonian museum of air & space

 National museum of Native Americans

the White House and the rest of the Washington DC monuments

Adam bought and sold about 20,000 comic books (literally)

a long ride home to AL with Aunt Karen

and finally..buying  a new car!

GA | aquarium

We had planned to drive from Atlanta to Charlotte, NC for our next leg of the trip back to AL. But, we got an early start and hit Charlotte at noon, so we decided to push on. Well, we ended up driving all the way to Atlanta, which was probably a little too far to go.  But, while we were there, we decided to go have a nice dinner at Legal Seafood, and stop by the Georgia Aquarium.

 

 

 

 

The next day, were were on the road early again, and made it home by morning!!

dc | wrap up

We wrapped up our trip to DC by walking on the Mall toward the Capital.  We stopped at the botanical gardens along the way.

 Gage's panda was happy to find some bamboo that he could snack on...

 

 we caught a great glimpse of the Capital's dome as we left the gardens

 And Savannah had to help hold up this big planter

 By this point, Gage was exhausted and refused to be in any pictures because he just wanted to head back to the hotel

 

 

On the way back to the hotel, we found a wall of past presidents and their famous quotes...Savannah was rattling off all kinds of presidential trivia, including that Teddy Roosevelt had a pony while he lived in the White House. 

dc | indian museum

Although we had not planned to visit the National Museum of the American Indian, we decided to pop in as we walked by. First of all, it's a beautiful building....

 As soon as we walked inside, we saw a great totem pole that had a rainbow shining on it

 We had to stand in the rainbow, of course!

 The big hit of the museum was the interactive kids' section. Here, Gage is trying out a kayak

 And here, he is testing his balancing skills, like indians who sat on flat canoes.  Up ahead of his was a display that showed how stable it was, and a timer showing how long he kept it stable. Both kids loved it and were surprisingly stable -- must be the little bit of indian blood they have ;-)

Aunt Karen desperately wanted to find a teepee and we finally found one!

Savannah trying out her balancing skills too -- very focused!

Whoa -- this rainbow is bright!

Savannah in a rainbow :-)

dc | air & space museum

On our second day in DC, we went to the most visited museum in the country - the Smithsonian Air & Space museum (again, unbelievably free!). They had a whole collection or missles

 And the Spirit of St. Louis...

 They have a space station, the Apollo 11, and an amazing collection of famous planes - like this bright red vega that belonged to Amelia Earhart

 This plane with  a beautiful wooden propeller

 

 

 

 

 

 It also has the Wright Brothers plane

 

And a lot of cool things like lunar rovers, moon rocks, and probably 1000 other things that we breezed right past, not knowing their significance!