Pumpkin Patch Express

My sweet boy Noah is still in love with trains, so as a special treat, we bought tickets for the whole family to ride the Pumpkin Patch Express. It's this old train (our coach car was built in 1924!) that's part of a railroad museum. They have a variety of different themed events throughout the year, and right now happens to be a train ride out to a pumpkin patch and other fall activities.

Everyone was excited to get started.

Noah and Abby looked out the window the whole ride, looking for spiderwebs in the trees of all things.

And Julia, of course, didn't want to be left out!

Once we arrived to our destination, there was a hay maze

a gigantic hay pile to play in

Noah got to go up in the engine

and everyone got to bring home a pumpkin!

It was a happy and exciting day!

Our Camping Adventure

We've been wanting to take the kids camping for some time now. Julia's finally reaching an easier age to do things like that. So Luke took a Friday off work, and we went up to Myakka River State Park (about 45 minutes away) for a long weekend.

Here's our campsite:

Luke is the master fire builder. No camping experience is complete without a roaring fire, no matter the outside temperature.

Here he is passing on his legacy:

Luke made his delicious pancakes for breakfast.

We went hiking

hunted for alligators

went on LOTS of bike rides

climbed on all the fallen trees

did the canopy walk

roasted marshmallows for smores



and made lots of special memories!

August

We said farewell to summer by taking a picnic to Myakka River State Park.  The kids loved the canopy walk.  They kept finding these enormous yellow spiders, and Abby even found a pygmy rattlesnake!

We also went bowling -- this was a first for the kids! They thought it was great!

Noah had his fifth birthday! (Oh my gosh, how is that possible???) His gift was a set of swords so he can fight with Daddy. : )

Noah returned to preschool. He was SO excited to have a new Thomas the train lunchbox. He "modeled" it in all the back to school shots.

As soon as we walked into the classroom, he was right at home. We opted to keep him in a three day preschool another year, rather than sending him on to kindergarten. I'm happy to have him home with me another year!

Abby and Julia are learning to survive without a big brother around to entertain them! It's definitely been an adjustment for them, but it's fun to see their relationship developing! It's as if Abby suddenly realized Julia's a pretty good playmate now that Noah's in school!

July

We were in Missouri for the annual Jobe family vacation the first week in July. We visited Silver Dollar City -- it was SO hot the day we were there, but I loved seeing the kids enjoy all those nostalgic activities from my own childhood memories!

We also celebrated Abby's third birthday! Her only request was a princess cake!

And here she is as she was seeing her birthday present for the first time!

June

Wow! Has it really been that long??? The summer passed quickly.  We spent the end of May and first half of June visiting our supporting families and churches. It was a blessing to spend time with everyone! Here's how we spent part of our June.

These are some of the watermelons we grew in our garden! The kids were so proud!