One Last Weekend

One last weekend before school starts and we have to get back on a schedule. I am actually looking forward to that but am also sad to bid farewell to more laid back summer days. Gabe will start Early Kindergarten on Monday(half day, every day for young 5 year olds and yes he will still do regular Kdg. next fall) and he is going to ride the bus! He is so excited! It ended up working out much better for us for him to ride the bus since he is in afternoon session and with the younger two needing to take naps it is so much easier for me to walk him up the street to get on the bus then to have to try and get the little ones down and back up from nap in time to go and get him when he is done with school. I am having some major doubts and fears, not because I don't think he can handle it but more just because he is my baby and I would worry whether he was 5 or 15 with him riding the bus for the first time:) Anyway I am getting way of track of what I was going to blog about so anyway one last weekend to fit in some summer fun. Friday I decided to take the boys to the state fair. Andrea and Alan got us a free admission ticket and parking pass so even better! We arrived and finally found a parking spot and made our way to the tractors and combines. Gabe thought this old tractor was pretty cool, he kept saying how it was part train part tractor. They also posed in front of this old IH just for Daddy. The boys then discovered that they could climb up the ladders on the back of the combines. They loved looking over the fair from the top. As soon as they started climbing the ladder on the red combine it started to rain. It was raining pretty good by the time we made it to the new show ring to watch a little bit of the horse show. That wasn't on the schedule of activities for the day but it was good to get out of the rain for a bit. It seemed to let up so we made our way to our most important stop, the mini-donuts! My favorite fair food, I could pretty much leave everything else but the mini-donuts are a must. The boys seem to share my love for them. After we ate our donuts we made our way to the rides. Grandma gave the boys a little money to go on a few rides so we bought our tickets and figured out which rides to go on. Gabe really wanted to go on the little roller coaster so we went there first where we discovered Ty was too short, bummer but he did pretty well just sitting in the stroller waiting for Gabe to ride. After the roller coaster they went on the helicopters. Ty was able to go on that one. By the time the ride was over it was raining pretty good again so we made our way to get our Iowa State tattoos. The boys each got one on their arm. We saw the PBS kids booth with Clifford but it was very busy so we kept moving. On our way back down to see the butter cow we stopped and ate some lunch and tried out a new fair food this year a frozen twinkie log. Basically a frozen twinkie dipped in white chocolate and then sprinkled with cashews on a stick of course. I was very unimpressed, it was kind of dry for my liking and Ty wasn't a huge fan either but Gabe seemed to like it. When we were done we went back for one last ride and they choose to ride the motorcycles, this may be one of the only rides I was actually a little fearful of letting them ride. They didn't have seatbelts they just used rope to tie around the kid's waists so they didn't fall off, they did have handle bars but when the ride started it jerked them pretty good. I was a little concerned that would scare Ty but as you can see he seemed to enjoy himself. After the ride we made our way to the agriculture building and tried to see the butter cow but the line was insane, probably because it was raining again and everyone wanted to be inside. We decided not to wait and made our way out the back door to the plaza with the sprinklers. Gabe loved it, he didn't care at all that he was getting absolutely soaked in his clothes, plus it was raining and we were already getting wet so who cares. He had a great time running through the water. Ty wasn't quite so brave but he did get pretty close to the water. I did bring them extra clothes so it worked out fine. Since Gabe was pretty much soaked we decided to make our way to the van since I had to work Friday evening and the rain just kept coming. On our way down the street we found the cookie booth and since we had heard how good they were we stopped and got a cup and kept a couple to share with Daddy. After cookies we did finally make it to the van and the boys put on some dry clothes and we headed home.

Today we went to Fan Fest which is also becoming a summer tradition. We went with the Krugers and it was hot! We waited in line to see Cy. Ty would go close as long as Daddy was holding him! We also got Callie's picture with a few cheerleaders and then Gabe decided he wanted in on the action as well. We also waited to see Coach Hoiberg and then of course the boys decided to look everywhere but at the camera, oh-well. Here is Callie with Coach Fennelly. They were both hot! After that we decided to find some cool air so made our way to the Jacobson building and looked around for a little bit and found a much needed water fountain! You couldn't get into the stadium but we looked down at the field a little bit and then went to ring the victory bell. It was a good weekend and I almost forgot we also played with Daddy's new toy. Story on this to come later this post is long enough:)