Our Summer, Part 2A: July, cont'd

After our two big week-long trips, to Denver & Seaside, we had several other mini-adventures in July, including...

A Camping Trip with Jen, Adam, Zoe, & Henry!
 We certainly have missed these folks as they were in Valpo during the school year--it was great to get to see them again this summer, and we are hoping to make family camping with them a yearly tradition.

Here Zoe (3) shows off some local flora

Andy and Adam, responding to my prompt "and HOW much do you like playing with fire?!"

Here are Jen and Henry, watching the fire progress

...and speaking of Theodore, we happened to find this "Tot Spot" camping chair at a garage sale for $1 just a week or so before camping--definitely a dollar well spent!

There was a little swimming beach at Whitewater State Park, where we camped. There someone thought it would be just hilarious to bury my foot...we won't point any fingers here, but lets just say his first name starts with a common grammatical conjunction....and ends with "y" :-P.

We were gifted with a used double jogger this summer--we already have a double stroller, and weren't sure whether we'd ever pull this one out--but we took it camping, and it was GREAT. Its now our go-to stroller for hikes/camping, whereas the other double (front/back) is awesome for anything guaranteed to be on pavement (not so useful with the off-roading). On our way to and from the beach, a few people asked if Henry and Theodore were twins :-).

The County Fair

So it turns out that in Minnesota--at least outside of the Cities--county fairs are well-attended events. Coming from the Cities, we assumed that whenever anyone asked if you went to "THE Fair," they meant the MN State Fair...and I (Jess) have never been to a county fair before in my life...but here in Rochester we found they were actually asking about the Olmsted County Fair--you know, the fair--anytime anyone asked "so, have you been to the fair yet?". Only Andy made it last year, so we figured we better get the kids and Jess to it this year. Steve, Marilyn, & Peter came along for the fun!

Theodore's favorite was petting animals--here he got his hands on a sheep, along with Simon (who, if you look closely at the blurry photo, is actually pulling Theodore's hand away--hard to say if he was trying to "protect" Theodore from the sheep, "protect" the sheep from Theodore, or just get himself a bigger piece of the action!

Simon was VERY excited about a Ferris wheel ride--he enjoyed it, though he was not too keen on looking over the edge, or moving out of his seated position at all.

Simon played the fishing game and won a prize! He was very excited. Maybe when he's older we'll explain the difference between all of the games we shoo-ed him past and the "everyone wins" game we steered him towards...or maybe we'll just let him figure it out on his own.

He was pretty adventurous, trying several different kiddie rides--this was a 4-wheeler/ATV one...

...and his favorite was probably the helicopter ride, as he talked for days afterwards about how he "flewed a helicopter!"