Cool spider

I may have never used the words "cool" and "spider" together, but check out this guy that was on our front porch:

First day of school 2009

Ok, ok, I'm a little behind!  Yes, school DID start and we DID take pictures (both for your pleasure and the children's dismay). First we had Syd and AJ heading off for 5th and 4th grade, respectively. This was Sydney's last first day of elementary school!

Next we loaded Bailey and Cal on the bus for 7th and 8th grades. They REALLY love getting their picture taken. You can see Cal also loves getting his hair cut these days.

Demolition Derby

Mark was pretty excited about the county fair this year -- he wanted to see the demolition derby. This fair is not even in our county, and it's more than an hour away. I was not excited about any of it, but I had resigned myself to going. And then a last minute reprieve! Reuben was willing to go, and that meant no room for me in the truck. Too bad!

What a nice group shot! No grumpy me to ruin it.

Looks like they had lots of fun.

There were rides:

And tractors:

And exercises:

Food, of course

And the best part of all - the demolition derby!

Out on the Water Again

The best part of RI may now officially be the trips to the pond where Emily's family has a summer home. They drag us around in tubes on this beautiful water, and Mark takes a million photos.

Bailey and Sydney went first:

Next came AJ and Cal:

Notice the wildly different emotions:

Next it was my turn:

I look like I can handle this, right?

And things started out well...

But for some reason I had more problems like this than anyone else did:

That happened three times before I gave up. But it was fun!

And here's a bonus picture of Wyatt because he's so cute: