Kelly took a day off at the end of summer to hit another state park, this one was downtown, it was quite a unique setting

Across from this . . .

is this . . .

Ez wanted his picture taken

The butterfly nets go everywhere with us now

The chase is on

We captured a male & female black swallowtail, this is the male

and this is the female

And, then we caught this little guy, I couldn’t figure it out after looking through the whole book, Marian looks for 5 minutes (at home while looking on my big monitor), and say’s I think it’s Fiery Skipper.  And, it sure seems like she’s right.  I don’t know how she does it so quickly, it’s like she sees them differently than me??

There were some lovely flower gardens

And, a carousel

And, a big freighter (unique, right:)

There was art & sculptures along the river walk

and a fountain area that a lot of kids were running through

Then we got some ice cream

And, I had to take some urban shots of Tobin

And, the curls – love them!

We were right under the wire withTobin day, just 3 days before school started, he decided he wanted it to be on a Saturday so Daddy could be with us, we think mainly because he had spotted a Mario game at a used store for a $1 that he knew I wouldn’t buy.  He had been planning this for weeks and had his $1 ready;)

Also on his list were going to Caleb’s house without Mari (Caleb is Issy’s older brother and he likes to play Super Mario Kart with him-he’s done it twice and now he thinks he needs to go over there every day!), playing Wii, Little Caesers for lunch and the pool.

I forgot my camera for the pool, this this was taken with Kelly’s phone:(

And, then I forgot it again for the restaurant!  He wanted to go someplace to get a hamburger so we talked him into Red Robin (instead of McDonalds), the funny thing is he ate his hamburger, fries, and then still wanted more.  Issy was with us and he ended up eating all her leftover spaghetti!

Another fun day, and a great summer tradition in just before school was to start.

We started out with a reading of Prince Caspien and a couple team games of Skip Bo.

Then a trip to the library

And off to this park we had been to that Marian had seen a lot of butterflies.

Despite, her best efforts, this one would not be captured, I had my good lens with me so got some good shots to identify later as a Monarch

 

Love these of her, she is growing up too fast, and looking so “teenagerish” now!

 

Some ice cream:)

A fun day!  And, my LAST August entry:)

 

We had been trying to plan a trip to Cedar Point all summer, one of my most favorite places!  We had finally made plans to go the Friday before Labor Day Weekend when my neighbor Mary asked if we wanted to go with her earlier in the week.  Hmmm, a Wednesday with a high of 74 degrees predicted or a Friday that was supposed to be 94 degrees!  Even though I really wanted Kelly to go with us this year, we decided to go with Mary and her 2 kids (they are they same ages as Tobin & Ezra).

It worked out well because Mary wasn’t interested in riding anything so she was happy to take the 4 younger kids so Marian & I could hit the big ones.  Marian is officially a coaster lover just like me:)  We finally worked up the nerve to ride the Dragster and they had it closed down the rest of the evening:(  Next year, we’ll do it for sure!  Ezra went with Marian & I once and rode a couple (Gemini, Corkscrew).  Tobin wasn’t really interested in anything leaving the ground again but had a blast on everything else!

I didn’t bring my good camera and barely took any pictures but we had a great time.  We decided Kelly could come next year just to hold the camera;)  This was one of the only ones . . .