Blueberries!

So August finally gave us the beautiful summer days we
were waiting for and we FINALLY made a trip out
to The Berry Patch to pick blueberries!
There was only one variety still producing berries,
but we weren't picky!
Kaia! You are supposed to pick them, not eat them!

Getting started right away!

You too Bennett!?
Yeah, they did taste pretty fresh!

Josie found a nice little chair while she picked away!

I guess there was no stopping the eating!

Lane managed to pick more than he ate.

Bennett got swallowed up by a blueberry bush!

After all that picking, we played on the playground by the barn.

Kaia wanted to try the big kid swing.

The girls swinging away!

Bennett went down the slide over and over!

Our harvest!
1 pound of fresh blueberries!
Good job kids... and Erica!

Hopefully next summer the weather will cooperate
and we'll get to pick raspberries too!

Field Trip to the ZOO! (yes, I'm crazy!)

Well, I had to make a trip to DM to take back
Kaia's nebulizer machine so I decided to
make a day of it!
We've got a family pass to the zoo and the dinosaurs
were only going to be there for a couple more weeks, so
once the machine was dropped off, we headed to the ZOO!
Here we are waiting for the doors to open in our stroller limousine!
Checking out the turtles...

Fishies!

Maybe you can't see him, but Lane is in the lookout
watching the giraffe.

Here were the other kids' reactions...
Bennett is leaning in to see the giraffe, Kaia is mildly
interested, and Josie is trying her best to get away!

Loved petting the goats!

Crawled through the prairie dog tunnel.

And now for the DINOSAURS!
Hmm... this is interesting...

Wow! Look at that one!

Lane was not so scared of the T-rex this time...

but Josie is saying "Get me OUTTA HERE!"
It was a short trip through the dinos, to say the least!

Wish I'd have taken more pics at the zoo, but when you've
got 4 kids to watch, you kind of forget the photo-ops!
We were all hungry after that so rather than sit in a
restaurant on a beautiful day, we took our lunch to
the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden for a little exploring!
I love this sculpture and wish I could have got a better
group shot, but it's still beautiful!

Hey Kaia!

"I'm hungry!"

"What? I'm not supposed to climb in it? Darn!"

This was everyone's favorite sculpture!

Finally! Time to eat!

One last crazy sculpture...

"Hi Blankie! Thanks for waiting for me!"

What a fun day we had! Wish we had more beautiful days
like this last month, but I guess we've got the rest of August
and the fall to go on exciting outings like this!
Thanks kids for a great day!