Summer in a Nutshell

While I had the best of intentions to blog more this summer, it just didn't seem to happen, so I'll let the pictures do the talking!

We took a trip across town to see Jared at the fire department.

Made it back to West Bend to celebrate the 4th of July...

and saw Grandpa Bill in the parade with his old tractor.

The kids enjoyed a dip in the city pool I spent hours in as a kid. 

We enjoyed the best small town fireworks in the state with Grandpa Bill and Grandma Lois. 

We made the trip to Lost Island a couple of times which is always a favorite of the boys, especially when Uncle Jay lets them drive the pontoon boat! 

I enjoyed visiting with several friends at my class reunion.

The boys had a blast washing a few cars in the neighborhood with friends.

A HUGE highlight of the summer was seeing our good friends who moved to Georgia (or China as Owen would say)!

Obviously, petting a newborn calf at Grandpa Jim and Grandma Mary's tops the list!  Owen even kissed it...yuk! 

We caught up with some of the Bormann cousins at the lake.

We ended our summer with our annual trip to the state fair with Grandpa and Grandma. 

Mason was seeing how many pull-ups he could do at one of the Army booths!

Overall, we had a great summer.  I could also include several pictures of the 50+ baseball games we watched this summer too, but they got posts of their own.  The pool was our home away from home as well, but since they're anti-photo happy (as I've mentioned before) I don't have any photos to share.  Bring on fall now!

Coach Pitch It Is!

I can't even begin to count the times Connor corrected me on this one. I mistakingly told people he played baseball or sometimes even t-ball and Connor was always quick to respond with a "No Mom, it's COACH PITCH." 

 Obviously, he felt this was a big year transitioning out of t-ball and into real baseball! After his initial practice in the rain, which evidently is just fine for 7 year old boys, the season went on without a hitch.

  They practiced the usual fielding, grounders, pop flies, and most importantly hitting. 

 Thanks to lots of baseball games popping up in the backyard, Connor did just fine in this area.

 I guess it doesn't hurt having a big brother to play with too!

Finally

I finally have an avid reader on my hands.  OK, that may be an exaggeration, but compared to the past several years I will go with it anyway!  We spent countless hours reading to Mason as an infant, toddler, and preschooler.  When he learned to read he still enjoyed listening to us read to him, but never really settled into the routine of reading to himself without a LOT of threats prompting from me. 

So, fast forward five years and there's a "reader" in the house, thanks to the world of technology!  We have an iPad and the Kindle App seemed to intrigue him, but it was his cousin Abby's Kindle that really sucked him in.  When I asked Mason which one he preferred he quickly responded with the Kindle because it was more like a "real" book.  Since when did he want to read a real book?  Without hesitation we purchased a Kindle and both Mason and I have read more books in the past month than all of last year.  Mason has even found a series he enjoys (and there are TONS of books in this collection).  As for myself, I didn't realize how much I'd missed reading a book, since most of my time has been spent reading magazines, blogs, and cookbooks for the past several years.  Who would have known?  Hopefully, Kindle will get their library lending program up and going so I don't have to fork out all the money for Mason's downloads (I just read the free ones)!

Now, Mason is still probably more into this.....

but I'll take what I can get!