Apple Coding Camp

A friend of ours told us about these great summer camps that the local Apple Store puts on for kids. They're free of charge, you just have to catch the opening day / time and quickly register to grab a spot. Connor LOVES all things computers and programming, so we signed him up for a week long camp of coding fun. They worked on programming small robots to work on command from their iPads, then they got to race each other in the maze taped out on the floor ...

Summer Lacrosse

Not particularly happy to be playing lacrosse on a hot summer day, but happy when I told him we could go get some Thai food after we were finished!

Skating

Holiday World

Our annual summer trip to Holiday World ... we stay at Santa's Cottages, which the boys love. We bring along Grammy, Pappy and Aunt Kelly for the trip. There are lots of lakes to fish in (Xander and Connor were big fans of the fishing), there's an outdoor swimming pool, a playground, and every cabin has it's own grill so we can have a home-cooked meal instead of having to drive to find food!

Here are Xander, Connor and Josh doing some afternoon fishing (Sawyer and Aunt Kelly were at the pool) ...



Xander and Josh are still fishing. Sawyer is between them, throwing fish food to watch them swarm. Connor has headed back inside to see what's on television (of course).



And that's all the pictures. We spend the first day relaxing at the cabin. We spend the second day at the park riding roller coasters and visiting the water park. We eat junk food like pizza and french fries and chicken fingers, we drink lots of sports drinks (they offer those and sodas free throughout the park), and we end the day a little sunburned, a lot exhausted, and ready to head back home to our own beds!

Basketball Camp

Xander is our natural-born athlete, lefty and all. He LOVES sports. And he excels at just about everything he tries. He has a competitive streak a mile wide, loves to win and lives for the applause and cheers of the audience and his teammates.

This summer, we had the opportunity to let him participate in an adaptive basketball camp at a local horse farm. He LOVED every minute of it ...

(Well, as long as he made the basket ...)





He especially loved music therapy day ...



He seriously tried to steal the guitar ...



Sawyer was less impressed when he had to come watch a few days ...





Fast break ...



He loved the day we got to tour the horse farm ...



Standing with the father of the triple crown winner ...



Showing off his tie-dye uniform shirt from a craft project earlier in the week ...



Standing (or sitting) front and center for the group picture ...



Breakaway score ...



With one of his favorite buddies, Miss A, after the game ...

Take Me Out to the Ball Park ...

Buy us hot dogs, pretzels, popcorn, Dippin' Dots, nachos, Cokes, and Italian Ices (and probably a few other things) ...

This year for Mother's Day, we got Grammy a Red's t-shirt and tickets to see a game with us (minus the twins who would not have enjoyed this trip). We made our way from Northern Kentucky over the bridge into Great American Ballpark for some great snacks (and maybe a little baseball, too) ...

Fair Fun with Aunt Kelly

Aunt Kelly took Sawyer and Connor to the local county fair today. The boys LOVE rides, the faster and higher the better. Connor is also like his mother, and has a great love of fair food (basically anything fried and unhealthy for you, but particularly funnel cakes and corn dogs).

Chalk Art by Sawyer

It's always this particular section of our back patio / basketball court. And it's usually a similar design, though the colors sometimes change. And yes, that would be a full box of 48 pieces of chalk. We need to by stock in Crayola at our house, apparently.

Water Park Sunday

Sawyer and Aunt Kelly were off on an adventure of their own, so I loaded up Connor and Xander for a day trip to a nearby water park ...

Xander coming down the big slide ...

Connor coming down the big slide ...

Connor (blue swim trunks toward in front center) and Xander (American flag swim trucks) both waiting for the big bucket to splash them ...

At the Lake

Summers at the lake ... a huge part of my childhood and something I am so lucky to share with my boys since Grandma and Grandpa retired there. Days and nights at the cabin, overlooking the water, grilling out for dinner, going boating and swimming ...

Snapshot Sunday

Not So Little Brother Anymore

I was explaining to a former teacher the other day how much bigger Xander has gotten in the last year. He has always been the smallest twin, and as the youngest of all the boys, simply the little one. Not so much anymore. Big brother Connor maybe has about five pounds and two inches on Xander. Sawyer is now the little twin, about 10 pounds lighter and a half an inch shorter. Xander is catching up fast, and if our pediatrician is to be believed, will be the biggest one of them all someday!

Trains

Over the years, both of the twins have interests / obsessions that are important to them through stages. One of the things that has never changed is that both boys LOVE trains. Xander, in particular, really loves them. And with his photographic memory, he's always telling us the numbers off the engines and the cars that he's seen recently. His favorite, by far, is the Norfolk Southern trains that run through one of the big city parks here in our town. So while we're watching Connor practice or play lacrosse games, Xander is watching for trains. Norfolk Southern ones, not the CSX ones. And he can tell you which ones he saw on which day of practice!

Fourth of July (continued)

With all of the recent rain, the big city fireworks display fell a little short and the boys were disappointed. They all LOVE fireworks, especially the twins. So we looked around at some other city locations to see where we might see another show with better weather on the reschedule dates for those who had cancelled (because of said rain issue).

Josh was working, so the boys and I loaded up in the car and made our way to a neighboring county for another fireworks show. We had a picnic spot on the hillside, good fair food snacks (hello, funnel cake with powdered sugar), and an American flag to wave (a must for Xander). The boys also had their beloved screens to help keep them occupied while we waited for dark and the show ...

Music Man

On the Fourth of July, we went over to the house of some friends in our neighborhood. The boys enjoyed swimming in the backyard pool, then watching fireworks, and just roaming around. Xander, in particular, found the music room and stayed there. One of his latest loves is the guitar and singing. Here is "I'm in love with a monster" from the Hotel Transylvania 2 movie, a recent favorite ...

Snapshot Sunday

Rails to Trails riding with the big boy last week ...

Fourth of July

Nothing like an impromptu front yard fireworks display (the neighborhood golf course was putting on a show that we didn't know anything about, until we started hearing them). Our boys love fireworks, so we sat on the front yard / sidewalk to watch the show (or video them on your iPad, if you're Xander) ...



After the show out front, we moved to the back yard for our own fireworks (mostly sparklers, a few shooting rockets) ...



Connor wasn't worried about a few rain drops ...