Back to School 2012!

We are off on another school year. This one is another milestone - with Silas starting 1st grade and Mason a SENIOR!  That's a whopper!!

The first week went smoothly and I managed to get 1st day pictures without too much fuss!

Mason Paul as a 1st day Senior.  This just amazes me.  How can he be a Senior already??
He also started his first job this past week too - as a food runner at Mill Run Movie Tavern.  Yesterday, he worked a 10 hour shift and he put in about 20 hours total this week.   He's working hard and excited to have some money of his own!

We've been looking at cars and hope to get one for him very soon. Driving him to and from work is a job in itself!  I hope he has a fantastic Senior year and can keep up with his job, grades and having fun with his friends.

 Ella and Silas we both very excited on the first day...I think Silas more so than Ella.  This year is a big change for Silas. All day school.  He's used to 1/2 day and then fun with his friends at Kelly's and going to mam-ma and pap-pa's on Friday afternoons.  Now it's all work and no play! :)

 He is such a super learner.  He is excited about the things they learn in class, his teacher (who everyone tells us is SO super awesome) has already sent great feedback home.  I think he's going to have a wonderful year!

Ella also got a teacher that we've heard wonderful things about (Ms. Bailey). I'm excited because it's a new looping year and we'll have her for 4th and 5th grades. 

 Ms. Bailey emailed me this picture from  her 1st day of school. I love her hot pink shoes - it's hard to miss her in those!

I take this same picture all the time when Justin walks with us to school and I always love it.  This one in particular, since it's the first day of 1st grade and I love how Silas is looking up at his Daddy. He's at such a great age - still small enough to still hold our hands, snuggle and want tucked in but so excited to test his independence and learn, learn, learn. 

There is a lot of growing up going on around here and on one hand, it can be tough and sad because I love the toddler and preschool ages.  But it's very exciting to see their personalities as they get older, see the qualities (for better or for worse) that they have inherited from Justin and me...

I think we are going to have a really awesome school year!

Hell Has Frozen Over - Camping! (part 1)

We've been saying for the last 3+ years (since Si was potty trained) that NOW we can go camping...and each summer, we let the time slip away and didn't get around to it.  Well, NOT this year!  We finally made it happen!  And we had a fantastic time!!

I was a little worried at first - we left Friday afternoon and headed down to Hocking Hills.  Justin had put Mason in charge of researching and finding a place to reserve.  Mason found it, Justin booked it and I was not home so there was no verifying our purchase.

We pulled up to the Hocking Hills Livery and when Justin went in to check-in, he was told that "no, we don't book online"...so we traveled to the Hocking Valley Livery and yes - "you have a reservation but not here...it's at the Family FUN Center!".
Just the mention of the Family FUN Center made me immediately think of some National Lampoon's Family Vacation.  Long story short, we did finally make it to our camping spot, but like most of our vacations - it was off to a rocky start.

The campgrounds were a little rough.  We went in and made pulled around to the right without really driving around the site.  There was a spot that looked decent and we pulled in and started to unpack.  Luckily, Ella had to go to the bathroom so I walked her over to the porta johns.  We explored a little further up the road and discovered that the other side of the grounds were more "campy" - better canopy of trees, bigger sites - definitely cozier feeling.
I texted Justin and Mason and told them to come take a look.  Luckily they hadn't gotten the tent set up yet, and after some debating, we made the move to the new site.

Justin and Mason managed to set up the (borrowed) tent pretty quickly and WOW!
It was like a condo - we had a ton of space and could have added another 4 or 5 people pretty easily!

We spent Friday evening unpacking, hitting the grocery store and settling in. We made hot dogs, baked beans and of course: s'mores!  The kids were pretty wired and we spent the evening around the fire.

Silas lost his tooth that night too - of course!  He was concerned that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't be able to find us at the camp grounds but she managed to do just fine!

It was perfect camping weather - it got down to 52 that night and the fire felt great.  What didn't feel so great was the air mattress that deflated in the middle of the night so that Justin and I were totally on the hard ground - that was sucky.  Silas and Ella got pretty cold too and were curled like little potato bugs when I woke up at 5:30am.  I decided to go ahead and just get up and shortly after, Ella got up too.

Justin, always the Master breakfast maker, soon followed and whipped up a very yummy camp breakfast of eggs, sausage and potatoes. Only the mimosas were missing!

While breakfast was cooking, Ella and I walked the path to the river - it was chilly and quite sandy/muddy - they seem to be doing a lot of construction on the property - but the view was very pretty. The fog looked cool coming up off of the river.

to be continued...

The Color Run

A couple weekends ago,Ella and I participated in the Color Run.  It was a 5k downtown where they douse you in colored powders during the run.  It was a little scary looking from the pictures we saw online, but when I read the "what the hell is this stuff??" on the website - it was just colored cornmeal - still, it was kinda chokey when inhaled!  We did take our goggles but they were somewhat of a pain.

We were up and at it pretty early (for Ella).  We headed out around 8am and found our way down to the Arena district. We wandered around just a bit trying to find where to pick up our race packets and the start area.
It was hot, hot, hot.  And there were a LOT of people. 

 

It was hard to get pictures with my cell phone (these are them) because I didn't want to get it all messed up. We took disposable cameras but haven't gotten those pictures developed just yet.  

It ended up being a lot of fun and I'm glad Ella and I did it together.  She had a great time.  She is a good little runner.  We both agree that it's better running in the colder weather.

The race ended at the same area as the Jazz and Ribs Fest, so we grabbed some fries, a lemon shake and found a shady spot to cool down.  We found one of Ella's friends and  her mom. 

 We all walked over to the fountains after the run so that the kids could hang out and cool down a bit.

 

AND clean off some too. 

 

I love how the pink makes her blue eyes stand out so much! We had a lot of fun.  I love my girl!