Father's Day!

Another day to celebrate Pat?? Ok, we celebrated a lot of other dad's as well, but still, he's a pretty lucky guy;) Owen slept at a friends house the night before so he wasn't there to set up the special breakfast we "made" for Pat...Pops cereal! Once we picked up a slightly sleepy Owen we were able to continue with the festivities. Paige made a ninja warrior course for Pat to complete and Owen had put together a slideshow of some great Pat moments. The kids also did some fill-in sheets for him (I'll post those another time). Then we went to my parent's house to celebrate a little more before we had to run off for Pat's last soccer game! WE made a couple pies for the occasion too. One was a frozen strawberry lemonade pie that everyone seemed to like except for Pat and me and the other was a blueberry pie that we've made before and love. Paige helped us make the pies the night before and after a thorough hand washing stuck her hand in the strawberry lemonade mixture. I had totally forgotten about it until she announced it for everyone the next day right before we went to eat it. I laughed a long time but I'm really so glad I could reassure everyone that she was clean when it happened;)

breakfast!

Paige and Pat

Ninja course!

The kids wanted to do it too!

Slideshow!

Pat and the kids

Pie

Family!

Silly people!

SaveSave

Moving Day!

It's time for the second annual Cleveland Moving Day! Remember the kid's lemonade stand? This event was the culmination of their fundraising efforts. Uncle Bill was diagnosed with Parkinson's awhile back and became heavily involved in the Parkinson's Foundation and fundraising. I think he was the chair of the event this year and lots of other people helped out too! Jamie was in charge of a bunch of stuff and has been helping and planning all year and mom, dad, and Pat's mom volunteered at the event too! By the time we left, Paige was covered in 6 different face paintings (not all on her face), had won a panda bear stuffed animal, and both kids had consumed copious amounts of junk food.

The actual walk!

Paige got to pose with Slider again! (See last year)

Mom and Dad had a helper at the donation station

Off to build...something...

Owen was trying to hide from the sun while sipping on a juice box

Uncle Bill was given two medals! One for raising the most money as an individual and...I think the other one might have been for being a top team?

NaturePlay

They built a new kid's play area at my mom's work called NaturePlay and we met up with the kid's cousins to check it out. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be and I think the kids could have spent all day in there. It was built in a way to allow for exploration and building and running around in nature and that is exactly what the kids did. I definitely want to take them back again! There were paths, tunnels, a yurt, an open area to run across tree stumps, a garden you could water or plant your own seed, a pond that you could cross by stepping on rectangular stones (Owen managed to miss them and took a few steps into the water...). So much to do and keep them busy!

I Go Out Walking..

For all of our complaints about our actual house, we really do love the location of where we live. The park is a very easy and short walk from our house and we take advantage of it a lot. Lately, I've been doing an early morning walk almost every day and I've seen some interesting animals!

Deer lounging in a neighbors yard

This turtle was just watching traffic go by

A crane!!

Lemonade 2

The kids wanted to do one more Lemonade stand to see if they could raise any more money before the Parkinson's walk. I didn't have high hopes for a lemonade stand in the middle of the week during the work day but they ended up having more people stop the second day than the first! We even got a couple online donations from some friends so that helped keep their spirits up too. And there was even some time for playing:)

Indian's Game!

I like to make it to at least one Indian's game every summer so now we can check that off our list! We went on a very, very hot night so we stopped at Marc's beforehand to see if we could grab the boys some Indian's hats (Paige and I were covered;)). Owen found the "best invention ever," (see below) but no hats! We headed to the field after that to discover our seats were in the full sun (booo!) but we knew they were club seats so we consoled ourselves with lots of trips to get food (yay! hot dogs, tater tots, ice cream, pretzels, lemonade and popcorn). The boys were able to get themselves some hats at the field and Paige and I visited the kids area, which is a lot different than it used to be! The Indian's ended up losing but they attempted a comeback in the ninth inning when they got a 3-run homer and by the end of the night the weather was perfect for baseball!

Best invention ever!

Paige looks like she's in distress but really, she's just trying to smile with a bunch of food in her mouth!

New hats!

Not too many people in the kid's area!

Paige had to match the stance of the baseball player. I forget what her percentage was but she did really well!

Beautiful view!

Rinky Dink!

I asked the kids when school got out if they had any special places they wanted to go to this summer and Owen's answer was...Rinky Dink! We drove by this place a few times on the way to various events and I can see the appeal. It has bumper boats, batting cages, putt-putt, go karts, and inflatables and a some other stuff we did not do. Paige was big enough for everything but the go karts where she was allowed to be a passenger but not a driver-bummer. The bumper boats were an especially big hit as soon as the kids found out that not only could you drive your own boat around but you can also shoot water at people with it! I declared that I didn't want to get wet but...I'm sure you know how that turned out:) Luckily it was a very hot day so we were dry in no time!

Ready to race!

Pat and Paige in purple, Owen sneaking up behind!

I was just saying that I wanted to see Mt Rushmore and here it is!

Bumper boats!

Batting cages!

Check out that form!

Baseball

I haven't posted any baseball pictures yet! The season started 2 or 3 weeks ago but our attendance has been a bit sporadic because soccer hasn't quite wrapped up yet. Owen's team this year is the Reds and his favorite position to play is catcher. He's really enjoying the season although I need to get him some of his own sunflower seeds so he stops taking them from his friends:)

Rooting on teammates!

Owen's friend, TJ, hit an inside-the-park homerun at this game so we took a picture to commemorate the occasion!

Lemonade for Parkinson's!

The kids ran a lemonade stand over the weekend to try to raise money for the Parkinson's walk! It was a hot, hot day so they needed a little encouragement at times, especially when they had a very slow start in getting customers...but they were so polite and thankful when people finally did start stopping that it ended up being a great experience! After two hours they had received $20 in donations and we decided to put everything away and have some dinner!

Soccer!

The kids and I finally got to all go to one of Pat's soccer games! I'm not playing this year because my hip still isn't cooperating but I got to sit on the sidelines and catch up with a friend so I'm not complaining! The kids, meanwhile, got to hang out with their friends too! It was a super hot evening so they spent a lot of it under this giant umbrella (we need one of these!) playing cards but also played some soccer.

Fajitas!

Not a great picture but we need a way to remember this recipe! I had planned to make chicken fajitas for dinner but then we got sidelined at a friend's house and Pat came home early so I texted him to cut up some peppers and onions and cook the chicken with some seasoning (whatever google said). When we got home, it looked like he hadn't even started because the peppers and onions weren't cut but it turns out he was busy making this marinade. And it turned out amazing! Nice job, Pat! Most of our dinner discussion centered around where this meal fell on our list of favorite meals. Pretty high up there for most of us!

New Trail

We needed to get out into the forest so I found a new trail that was about 30 minutes away to take the kids to. It was aptly called Ledges Trail as there were lots of...that's right, ledges! Even when we were going through the forest and not near the ledges, the whole scene was beautiful! The kids thought it was a bit buggy and spent quite a bit of time squealing and trying to outrun flying pests which I found quite amusing. Another highlight was finding a painted rock! The idea is to take the rock and rehide it in a new location but we just hid it further down along the trail so someone else could enjoy it on their hike. We were supposed to be doing a trail that was a loop but I think we got lost and ended up on another trail because it took us quite awhile to get back to the car. By that time, Paige had also gotten a bad scrape on her shin and everyone was ready to eat some of the snacks we had packed.

Happy!

Don't climb down the ledges, Paige!

Beautiful view!

Group picture

Found a rock!

Hope

Another fun spot