Tunbridge World's Fair

We love the Tunbridge Fair.  It's not close, but it's a great opportunity to see animals and go on some rides.

Unicorn Glow

Playing "school" in an old school house

Baby pigs

Art Hop

One of my favorite events in Burlington is art hop.  Usually, John and I go on our own.  This year we took the kids.  It was super cool!

Labor Day Fun

Labor Day weekend is such a gift.  It comes after a crazy month of work for John and is a welcome break after a quick start for my school year.  Because we had such a fun time at the Waterbury Reservoir last year, we decided to go for it again this year.  It's close, no reservations are necessary, and canoe camping is something we don't do very often. 

John was so eager to make sure we did this that he took part of his day off to paddle out to a site, set up a tent and reserve a spot for us.  It was perfect!

Because Zephy would be celebrating her 10th birthday while we were away, we decided we HAD to take her along.  She's actually pretty terrible in a canoe, but one land, she's wonderful. 

The kids were fired up about new hats they found for free at the end of their art teachers driveway:

We did a whole lot of hanging out:

But a trip across the reservoir to "jumping rock" was a part of each day:

And there were the mojitos:

Mostly, it was wonderful to have unstructured time to just be together:

On Sunday, the Mahoney family decided to join us for a night.  We left a canoe for them and they joined us by mid-afternoon.  The kids immediately wanted to head over to jumping rock, so we figured with life jackets on, they'd be all good. 

They made it across with only a little bit of rocking:

 But on the return, they got "pulled over" by the friendly ranger.  It turns out, Annika, who swims competitively, is required to have a life jacket.

So when the Dads went out to save the day and give Annie a PFD, they almost landed with a citation themselves.  Turns out we only had 5 PFD's and you must have one per person.

Later in the day, several kids and adults swam or were pulled to jumping rock, to avoid any citations. But our exit plan had to involve several trips, just to be sure we didn't get "pulled over" again. 

Back to School

Grade 4 for Cally, Grade 2 for Hazey, and my 38th first day of school!

End of Summer

I can't believe we've never hiked the fire tower at Mt. Elmore.  But with one more week left before school started and another hike to go on, we decided to do this classic. 

It was probably the easiest of our hikes that we went on all summer, but so rewarding with the climb up the actual tower.  We ran into a crew of adults on a Smugglers Notch Resort tour and half of the adults were too scared to go up the tower.  The kids were gung ho, but Zephy only made it up a few of the flights. 

And the swim at the beach after the hike was well earned:

We also snuck in an afternoon or stream studying with the EPsCOR kids:

And while John and I went on a mountain bike ride, the kids came up with this project to work on with Anna, the fabulous babysitter:

Fun ride with my bike buddy:

 And one more fire before school starts: