Dress up

The girls have dress up at their gymnastics class this week, so yesterday we had a trial run with costumes. Princess Clara
Had to have a tail shot:)
Meow.

Our trip west

Our trip out west was very full. We flew into Bellingham, WA, went down to Seattle, over to Pullman (to visit friends), then up to Idaho. On the return trip we drove the Cascade highway across Washington--very beautiful, but we thought we'd never get across (it was so slow). We ended up seeing the Cascades by moonlight. Getting off the airplane in Washington
Flowers at Pike's Place Market
The cousins were so excited to see each other, that they ran outside and started dancing.
Our last night in Idaho, we went fishing and had a picnic. It was a beautiful evening. It was Clara's second fishing experience and she caught 6 fish. Every time her line went in the water, she had another fish almost instantly.
Clara with one of her fish.

House projects, etc

I can't believe it's almost November. We've had a busy couple of months with trips to Idaho, Indiana, northeast Ohio. I still feel like I'm trying to settle in to a "normal" routine. I'll post pics later from our trip out west. Above is Rog's latest project at home. He installed a room conditioner (ceiling fan with built in thermostat and heater) as well as recessed lighting. I love it! Below is a pic of Clara at a tea party we went to a week ago. The tea room had all kinds of fancy hats to pick from, and Clara really enjoyed that.

Sweet Corn Festival

This weekend is the annual sweet corn festival, so here are a few pics from our time there. There are booths, lots of food (of course) and activities for kids. The girls went on a pony ride and that was a big hit. There is a little remote controlled school bus that is always at these events. Someone sits with a remote, moves the bus, and talks into a microphone that changes his voice, so the kids think the bus is talking. The girls were quite enamored with this. Our first time through, Clara just wanted to keep walking when the bus knew her name and asked her questions, but then wanted to go back. You can see her interacting in the pics below.

Trying to decide if she should answer.

Telling the school bus how old she is.

Happy on her pony

Carnival night

Here are a few recent pics. A small town close by has a town sponsored "night out" at a local park. We met friends and the kids had a ball playing on all the inflatables. I also included a pic of Clara's new bike. It's a bit big for her, so she still gravitates to her smaller one.

Ellie was scared to go on this slide, but once I went down with her, I had to make many more trips up with her!

Clara, of course, had no fear

This was a pretty fun ride--I never would have gone if Ellie hadn't been afraid to go alone--now I know what I've been missing.

Clara's new bike. This used to be her cousin's. It's still a little big for her, but she's had fun riding it a little on our road.

The new pool

I had to post a pic of this. We just got this pool for the girls. You can see the hose filling it at one end and at the other Rog rigged up this system to get some warm water in from the kitchen sink. I thought those of you who know Rog well would get a kick out of this.

You can see our faucet extended into the pipe which is being held by the ladder.

Camping

We headed out camping this week and had a fun time even though we got rained out. We planned on camping a couple of nights, but the downpour started at 3am and 5 hours later was still going strong. I've done a lot of camping in the rain, but having a 2 and 4 yr old along changed my perspective on spending a day in the tent. So we headed home a day early. The family camping next to us had 8 kids and the mom was very envious when we departed:). When we arrived the first day the weather was nice and we got in some good swimming and play time. We were near a gorge and went in the rain to an overlook, but as you'll see from the pic below, we mostly had a view of fog--still very beautiful and I think we'll go back to this area sometime. The girls enjoyed roasting marshmallows and sleeping in the tent.

The overlook--all that white behind us is clouds/fog.

Standing in the rain--it was just a little muddy in the campsite:).

Packing up