Indiana State Fair

We went to the State Fair back in August and had lots of fun. The girls got to ride ponies

And cross a rope bridge

Overall, it wasn't too crowded and we had a really fun time.

Alyssa's Pitching Debut

First Days of School

Here's Alyssa waiting for the bus on her first day of the 2nd grade. She waited for 40 minutes, but the bus never came. It didn't seem to bother her any - here she is all smiles. By the way, we got the bus situation all straightened out, and she's been riding it every day since.

Here's Lainey on her first day of pre-K:

She wasn't shy at all, and walked right into school like a pro.

The Zoo with the Beaumonts

The girls and I hadn't been to the zoo in a while, so we were excited to see the cheetahs and spend some quality time with Aunt Tracy & the Beaumont kids.

Unfortunately, this is the best pic I got of Kylie - she wanted to see the cheetahs so bad she wouldn't stay still long enough for me to take a picture!

Lauren better watch out, she's in danger of losing her spot as Lainey's favorite cousin to Ethan :)

Alyssa & Ethan were calling "here kitty, kitty" to get the cheetahs to look at us in this picture:

Chicago

The girls and I had a girls weekend and went to Chicago a couple weeks ago. First stop was Uncle Brett & Aunt Shawna's house. The girls had a great time playing with their cousins. It was hard to get a good picture of the four of them together - but I thought this one turned out pretty well.

The next stop was Aunt Beth's. We went to a fun museum (once we finally went to the right one), a fun movie in the park (one we finally went to the right park), and one of the best breakfasts I've ever had - bread pudding french toast = yum!!!

Yes, the highlight of the museum for the girls was posing next to fake cow poo

Their daddy would be proud - riding a John Deere:

I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh. I'm here to amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

Thanks to everyone for their hospitality - we had a great trip!

Swim Lessons

The girls both took swim lessons at the High School this summer. On the last day they got the chance to jump off the diving board. I can't believe Lainey jumped off 3 times - and loved it! She's already asking me when she can jump off the diving board again.

Alyssa looked like a pro jumping off. I'm just surprised she didn't do any giant cannonballs!

Mudathlon

A few months ago my sister told me about a Mudathlon that was coming to Indy. It was a 3.5 mile race with 20 obstacles, several involving mud. It sounded like fun, so I decided to sign up with her. It was awesome! We got so dirty and had so much fun! Here we are before the start of the race - still clean.

Here we are at the start line - still clean

Here's the start of the race with the first obstacle, the smoke screen, we were able to handle this one - still clean

We had been through a few obstacles at this point, including a giant mud puddle that everyone was tiptoeing around. I told Beth "forget it, let's run through it!" We did, and I totally bit it in the mud. If you look closely, I'm pretty dirty from the knees down.

I was called a cheater on this obstacle. It's not my fault that Beth decided to run over the tallest part of the hill and I (being the smart one that I am) decided to run around it :)

Our wonderful spectators

This is the last point in time we were anywhere near what I would call clean. This is because coming up was....

THE 100 YARD MUD PIT

There were several other obstacles that Ryan wasn't able to get to - they included wading through a stream, hurdling fallen logs, climbing up muddy cliffs, climbing hay bails, climbing walls, sliding down a mud slide, and many others. Here we are at the last stretch of mud before the finish line.

Crossing the finish line

The proud finishers

I don't know why the girls wouldn't hug me!

Beth's face definitely got dirtier than mine. Maybe that's because I was splashing her during the 100 yd mud pit ;)

At least they were nice enough to hose us off afterwards. Let's just say I had mud in places that mud had no business being.