New activities and school routines

I started working Mondays-Thursdays again - so I no longer have Monday to look forward to (work-wise that is) and consequently our Sundays are packed now with all of the get-ready-for-the-week rituals. So blogs may be short (although they've been trending that way for awhile).

This guy is a tiny engineer. He's not only our resident Lego guru he also loves to build anything and everything we put in front of him. I bought this junior engineering kit for $3 at a garage sale and he immediately built one of the more complicated machines. I love the look of pride and accomplishment on his face.

You can't see it all but Hadley's wearing my heels and combing Mike's hair in our bathroom.

One Friday night we took a shopping trip and had a blast. We all tried on this same pair of glasses but these two looked the cutest in them. This is the most fun I've had in a dressing room in a long time.

Dual drinkers at the Von Maur lounge.

Last Sunday we took a day trip to Hudson, WI. I love these types of mini trips because it feels like vacation - if only for a few hours. We started the afternoon by going to Wild River State Park. First we hiked to a dam and played at a playground. Along the way we found this giant tree.

Everyone in WI was really nice and so many people offered to take our picture - so we got a few family shots.

Next we drove to another trail that leads to a waterfall. We had to wait to find parking so took a selfie.

The waterfall was really cool - three levels.

I love this hiker.

We walked barefoot all the way up to the top of the waterfall. Here we are looking behind the curtain of water.
These kids are little adventurers. Their comment afterward was "I can't believe we did that!" 

This lady has some energy.

After the state park we explored the lakefront park, found a candy store, and went to dinner. It was a great day.

Hadley started her 2nd year of dance this week and did a great job. She's expressing interest in other things like gymnastics and karate - so we'll see how dance goes this year. Selfishly I'd love her to continue and she's good and so cute. It will be interesting to see where her interests and passions develop.

We asked Miles to choose one activity (besides swimming lessons) to do this Fall and he chose karate. Both kids took a trial class this week and Miles is now signed up. He went to his second class already and absolutely loved it. 

My whole family came over on Saturday and while the kids road bikes in the cul-de-sac the adults actually got to play several games of corn hole. We're taking advantage of every moment of sunshine and warmth we have.